Biden's Only Rival Takes Swipe at Media, Clinton When Asked Why She Thinks She's Got a Shot at 2024
Making Marianne Williamson look practical, much less penetrating, isn’t always easy.
But when ABC News’ Jonathan Karl sat down with the lone challenger facing President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s nomination next year, he managed to pull it off.
And Williamson had Hillary Clinton to thank for it.
Outside her circle of Oprah Winfrey fans and self-help books that tend toward magical thinking, Williamson is probably best known for her quixotic 2020 run for the Democratic nomination.
For all its faults, it lasted longer than the one mounted by Kamala Harris, the bag of nonsensical verbosity who now serves as vice president of the United States.
(Neither woman made it to the stage where actual voters made a decision, but Williamson at least stayed in it into January 2020. Harris was out more than a month earlier.)
Williamson touted her biggest weapon as “love” that would overcome the “dark psychic energy” of then-President Donald Trump.
In case anyone’s forgotten the “dark, psychic force” moment from Democratic debate stage in July 2019 — or forgotten how radical Williamson actually was — here’s a reminder:
Democrat presidential candidate Marianne Williamson claims Trump is responsible for a “dark psychic force” that is ruining cities like Flint, Michigan pic.twitter.com/giBqNNgHXe
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 31, 2019
That was when the Democratic nomination slot was open and Williamson was starting on at least a theoretically even field.
Now, with Biden serving in the Oval Office and giving every indication that he plans to run again, Williamson is taking on an incumbent president in a primary battle — a rough slog even when it’s a heavyweight like Ronald Reagan vs. Gerald Ford in 1976 or Ted Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter in 1980. When it’s a Williamson, bantam-class at best, against Biden, it seems impossible.
But in the interview with Karl, Williamson did not appear cowed — and cited the 2016 presidential election that gave the country the Trump presidency as her precedent.
“I think it was the Associated Press said you are the longest of long shots. And, you know, look, you’ve never held elected office before,” Karl said, according to an ABC transcript.
“What … why do you think you can do this?”
Williamson didn’t bat an eye.
“I would bet that The Associated Press also said that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in. I’m sure that they would …”
When Karl interrupted her to point out that of course the AP would never be so biased as to use the term “shoo-in,” Williamson cut in, her Southern drawl sharpening a bit to make the point.
“Maybe not, but that’s the system,” she said. “You know exactly what I’m saying.”
JONATHAN KARL: “The Associated Press said you are ‘the longest of long shots.’ Why do you think you can do this?”
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: “I would also bet that the Associated Press also said that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in.” pic.twitter.com/Kgpf7is1QJ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 5, 2023
He did know exactly what she was saying. And so did anyone else who heard the interview.
Back in 2016, every establishment media organization in the country knew — just knew — that Hillary Clinton was going to beat Trump in 2016 and skewed its campaign coverage accordingly. Williamson’s swipe singled out The Associated Press, because that’s who supposedly called her the “longest of long shots.”
(A quick search for the phrase under an AP byline was unsuccessful, so it’s possible Karl had the wrong outlet, but it’s of little matter. It applied to every establishment media outlet in the business.)
Every leftist entertainer knew it, too — it’s why Stephen Colbert did a special on Election Night that started out as a coronation and ended in a catastrophe — for Colbert, anyway.
But when the actual votes were counted, it was Trump who was the victor — and the United States was blessed with four years of prosperity (record low unemployment, a roaring stock market, the word “inflation” not even in the general vocabulary) and relative peace. (The world is the world, of course, but keen observers might note that Russia’s Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine when Trump was commander in chief.)
That inflamed the deep state, of course. And the country learned over the next four years that not only could the establishment media not be trusted, but the FBI is questionable, the vaunted “intelligence community” includes political hacks of the lowest order, and the already suspect lords of social media are even worse than than they looked.
But what Trump’s victory proved is that the establishment’s “shoo-in” is not invincible. And the establishment knows it — which is why it’s spent years pursuing baseless vendettas against Trump, whether it involved a porn star, “Russia collusion,” “quid pro quo,” or “incitement to insurrection.”
(By the time his term was over, Trump did everything but put ‘Baby in the corner’ as far as Democrats and the establishment media were concerned. But they’ll get to it.)
As nutty as Williamson is, and as radical as she is, the Hillary “shoo-in” line won her some applause on social media — even from a crowd with Twitter bios that suggest they’re not normally in the magical thinking Oprah set.
Marianne Williamson would be better than what we have in WH now. At least she can walk and talk.
— John Leggiero (@john_leggiero) March 5, 2023
Ha! I like her.
— John Shoemaker (@RealJohnShoe) March 5, 2023
She can just answer: “Name me one thing that I couldn’t do better than Joe Biden.”
— Rook Cabot (@CabotRook) March 5, 2023
I always kinda liked her. Not as a candidate for literally any office, let alone president. Definitely not for her policies. But as a person, I’m glad she’s around, she’s aiight.
Can’t say that about most of the other options, lol.
— Corn Pop (Bad Dude) (@creamcornchamp) March 5, 2023
And this guy might have said it best:
Hillary had every advantage. The electoral map, the media, the false collusion story that originated with her campaign. She still lost. Joe Biden is Hillary Clinton without the charm. 2020 was a referendum on a duplicitous media putting their thumb on the scale as Dem handmaidens
— Doug Bright (@DougBright1) March 5, 2023
Joe Biden is an empty suit propped up by an establishment Democratic Party, and establishment media, and an establishment federal administrative state petrified that Americans remember the lesson of 2016: That the shoo-in candidate isn’t a shoo-in unless the American people let it happen.
That bears remembering, even if the reminder comes from Marianne Williamson.
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