For her, Washington is essentially still business as usual. “DC has a lot of good political auto mechanics,” she said. “That’s not the problem. The problem is that the car is on the wrong road. The car is heading towards a cliff.”
The week before, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel had tweeted a photo of Ms. Williamson and Andrew Yang, onstage at an event for Mr. Yang’s new book. mr. Weigel quoted Mrs Williamson as saying:“We don’t want to be Jill Steins, but in every other country, in every other advanced democracy, they have multiple political parties.” The tweet predictably sparked speculation about what exactly Ms Williamson is planning to do.
She may not want to be Jill Stein — the Green Party candidate whose presidential election is often cited as one reason Mr Trump won — but she doesn’t want to fire Jill Stein either. After all, Ms Williamson said: “we have a viable other. I support any third-party effort that provides a thoughtful, eloquent critique of the fundamental flaws of contemporary capitalism and its effects on people and the planet.” When she ran for Congress in California in 2014, it was as an independent.
Ms Williamson sees today’s two-party system as compromised and controlled by corporate interests. “Republican policy is a nosedive for our democracy,” she said. “And democratic policy represents a controlled decline.” And yet she also believes that this will change the year. “The status quo is untenable,” she said. “There’s too much human desperation out there.”
She won’t say if she will run again, dodging the question over the course of our many conversations. About two weeks ago, when Politico published an article suggesting that President Biden would face a primary challenge from a progressive candidate, “such as former Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner, 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, or millionaire and at least $18 an hour wage attorney Joe.” Sanberg,” Ms Williamson declined to comment.
James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist, is skeptical. “She ran before and she didn’t get many votes,” he said. “She’s an interesting person to say the least, but I don’t think politics is her calling. She always struck me as a new age Bernie Bro.”
