Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.
Today, I want to look at the recent interest in 2020 Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. At the beginning of this year, she received relatively little attention, and many counted her out of the race. But just these few weeks, she has been receiving a lot of attention. It probably started with the debates last month, when many people first learned about her. She has also had a few more media appearances, including, most recently, on the Rubin Report, where people from all over the political spectrum thought she did unexpectedly well.
So what's so special about Marianne Williamson? If you look at her policies, most of them are also offered by at least a few other candidates. They mostly look like what is now mainstream Democratic Party stuff. I mean, I love that she has promised not to bail out the big banks, but it's something several other candidates are also offering. Instead, her main message is love. Yes, it's all about the love. So does this mean she is for feelings above policies and fact?
Judging by her recent media appearances, Williamson is actually one smart woman, and she's pretty no-nonsense when she has to be. For example, when Dave Rubin claimed that the Democratic Party was veering towards open borders, Williamson quickly pointed out that this simply isn't true, that none of the 24 or so candidates actually support open borders. During that interview, Williamson also talked about the people who are surviving on low paid work and can't pay the bills, and the need to put corporate power in check, and she made a good case for her viewpoints. Many people have noted that Williamson was able to essentially correct many of the biases Rubin brought to the discussion. I mean, I think this is the problem with Rubin. I think his experiences with the 'Woke' cultural left being anti-free speech has colored his entire perception of the Democrats, and somehow he got the cultural issues and the economic issues mixed up. But then, Williamson used facts and logic to make a good case for her economic policies, and that's what's made her the winner in this encounter.
So Williamson is someone who cares about both facts and feelings. Is that OK? I think so. I mean, ever since Ben Shapiro popularized the slogan 'facts don't care about your feelings', many people have been thinking that the so-called left has been losing because it has been overtaken by a concern for feelings. But then, this oversimplifies the problem. Instead, as I have always argued, the 'Woke' cultural left's problem is their embrace of Critical Theory thinking, and in particular aspects of postmodern Critical Theory. The lack of concern for facts only applies to the postmodernist faction of the far-left, which the majority of Democrats, including Marianne Williamson, clearly don't subscribe to. For example, she has been keen to point out that the majority of Americans are not racist. For Williamson, it doesn't matter that some people feel like every Trump supporter is racist, because facts are facts, and the fact is that this is not true. Furthermore, the cultural left's problem with feelings is not that they care about feelings, but rather that they only care about the feelings of so-called oppressed groups, while being often quite cruel towards those they consider privileged. This comes from their Critical Theory worldview, which is where the whole Oppression Olympics thing originated. But if you look at Williamson, her love is for everyone. She doesn't divide people into the oppressors and the oppressed. She cares about the feelings of everyone, including those who struggle to pay their bills, a group that isn't generally considered oppressed in the Oppression Olympics worldview. I mean, there's still one big identity-based policy where I don't agree with Williamson, but overall I am satisfied that her brand of love is for everyone, and is not just for select groups.
That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.
