Self-help author Marianne Williamson is addressing criticisms that she is “crazy” and unqualified to be president. Speaking to reporters and potential caucus-goers at the Iowa State Fair, the Democratic presidential candidate instead argued the critiques of her are “an intentional strategized smear."
“When they tell you I’m anti-medicine, I’m anti-science…I’m dangerous! I’ve heard that I’m dangerous. I’ve heard that I’m crazy. I’ve heard that I’m a grifter,” Williamson said. “When they say stuff about me why don’t you actually look into the truth do your own investigation and see if it’s true.”
Williamson has faced criticism for her past writings, social media posts and comments in which she has criticized the broad use of anti-depressants and mandatory vaccination policies, and questioned the basic understandings of modern medical knowledge, writing in her book A Return To Love that “Sickness is an illusion and does not actually exist”.
At the most recent Democratic debates in Detroit last month, Williamson garnered attention for calling for reparations for descendants of slaves, and for the way in which she criticized President Donald Trump.
“The racism, the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days,” Williamson said from the debate stage last month.
Following the event, Williamson was reportedly the most Googled of any of the candidates to qualify for the debates.
Speaking at the Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Williamson said that unspecified political actors are fomenting criticisms of her to prevent her from qualifying for the third round of debates slated for September 12th and 13th in Houston.
“Please know that there are powerful forces that do not want me to be in the third debate,” Williamson said. “Just like President Trump looks at certain people from certain countries and say, ‘you’re not like us, you don’t belong here,' there are political forces in this country who say, ‘you’re not like us, you’re not in our club, you don’t belong here’.”
Williamson argued that Democrats shouldn’t stop at “prosecuting the case against Donald Trump” but should address what she sees as a broader system of political corruption that favors corporate interests over those of the American people. In order to counter the “status quo” put in place by the “political establishment," Williamson says voters need to elect someone well outside it.
