michelle goldberg

I’m Michelle Goldberg.

ross douthat

And I’m Ross Douthat. And this is “The Argument.” [MUSIC PLAYING] This week, I sit down with Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.

marianne williamson

I think people who have a deeper understanding and commitment to love tend to have a greater recognition of the power of evil.

ross douthat

Then Michelle and I talk about her candidacy and her cultural significance.

michelle goldberg

She basically takes politics that I really like and adds a layer of flakiness that I despise.

ross douthat

And finally a recommendation.

michelle goldberg

I would especially like to see what you think of it, Ross, because it seems, like, very much aimed at a lot of your preoccupations.

ross douthat

Marianne Williamson is not your average Democratic candidate for president. Her policy proposals belong mostly to the political left. But her rhetoric is spiritual and metaphysical in a way that has contrasted sharply with the other candidates in the Democratic debates. She’s here with me in our studio in New York to talk about her bid for president. Marianne Williamson, welcome to “The Argument.”

marianne williamson

Thank you so much.

ross douthat

So we’ve done interviews on this show with a bunch of Democratic candidates. But you’re the only person running for president with a background in what I would describe as religious ministry. As a religious person myself, I’m going to ask you a kind of open-ended initial question. How did you become a religious person?

marianne williamson

I grew up in a very traditional Jewish home, Conservative, not politically conservative at all, but conservative as opposed to Orthodox or Reformed. You know, I grew up in a generation where you read Alan Watts and Ram Dass in the morning and went to a Vietnam War protest in the afternoon. As I grew older, anything that had to do with a higher mind was of interest to me. It was Eastern and it was Western. But even I studied some comparative religion, I didn’t see myself becoming a comparative religion professor. Because in those days, those were your two choices— clergy or academia. Neither one of those spoke to me. I just had a very personal interest in these things. And then I started reading a set of books called “A Course in Miracles.” Now the “Course in Miracles” is not a religion. It’s based on universal spiritual themes. But it spoke to many of the ideas that I’d been reading about, concepts that I’d been interested in. I was always very eclectic in my taste.

ross douthat

So I guess this is, I think, a tension that I want to poke at a little bit, right? Because there has been a lot of spiritual literature and spiritual argument in American life over the last 30 or 40 years that has made the kind of claim for itself that you’re making here, that it’s not religion, it’s just spirituality. But don’t you think that there is a kind of view of spiritual realities, right?

marianne williamson

Absolutely. No, that— definitely that. But spirituality is a path of the heart.

ross douthat

It’s a path of the heart. But even that itself, right, is a—

marianne williamson

Well, definitely.

ross douthat

It’s a claim. Like when you are on a debate stage—

marianne williamson

Absolutely.

ross douthat

—right, and you say that Donald Trump represents a dark psychic force in American life, that is, in a sense, a theological claim.

marianne williamson

Well, it’s very true. If you were to say what’s the largest denomination, people would say the spiritual but not religious. What’s fascinating also, if you’re going to look at the narrative of American history, is the role that the spiritual values have played in the great social justice movements of our history. Abolition grew out of the early evangelicals and Quakers. And many of the women who were the leaders of the women’s suffragette movement were Quakers. And of course, the Civil Rights movement from Dr. King, he was a Baptist preacher in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It is a religious fervor, or a spiritual fervor, in this case, which actually makes us rise up and own a yes and own a no— no to that which is wrong, and yes to that which is possible.

ross douthat

If I were to say to you, what religion are you, what would you say?

marianne williamson

Jewish.

ross douthat

And do you practice Judaism?

marianne williamson

Yes. I mean, I do. I go to High Holy Day services, et cetera. But when you talk about practicing Judaism, there’s not a lot of dogma and doctrine. There’s teaching, which is, I believe, the core of all the great religious teachings of the world.

ross douthat

So I’d love to follow this deeper. But I think our listeners will be eager to get to presidential politics. And this is actually your second political campaign. Correct?

marianne williamson

My father took us to Saigon when I was 12 years old because he wanted us to see what war was, he said. He didn’t want the military industrial complex to eat our brains. So this was the kind of home I grew up in.

ross douthat

What year was that?

marianne williamson

1965.

ross douthat

O.K.

marianne williamson

So I always had an interest in politics. In 2014, I ran for Congress as an Independent, which was a very naive thing to do. But I felt—

ross douthat

And this was in California.

marianne williamson

In California. I felt when that was over that I’d scratched that itch. But for me, as for millions of other people, the election of Donald Trump has changed everything. How can I best serve? How can my skills be best used for the purpose of changing and transforming and healing this country at such a critical juncture?

ross douthat

I think it’s fair to say, at least from watching the first two Democratic debates, that what you are offering is a kind of critique of the way they are doing politics. And I think you’re running against the belief that’s shared by many of those candidates, that the right policy is central to defeating Donald Trump.

marianne williamson

Well, I do believe that the right policy is central to defeating him. I just don’t think it’s the sole issue. I grew up, once again, in a time when things were different than this. Bobby Kennedy talked about the soul of America, Martin Luther King talking about political issues within a larger spiritual context. It’s only been in the last few decades that Democratic and progressive politics has become so overly secularized and so overly corporatized. This is an aberration in my mind. And I’m enough of a student of American history to know that. Franklin Roosevelt said a prayer on the radio as soon as the D-Day invasion began. Look at the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln. He contextualized the entire Civil War in terms of what it represented spiritually and was quoting from the Bible and so forth. I believe that the over-secularization of the Democratic Party has not served it. And I don’t believe that it has served the Democratic Party to make people of faith feel so diminished sometimes. I feel it myself in this campaign.

ross douthat

What about someone who says, look, one of the reasons Lincoln could give the second inaugural address or that Franklin Roosevelt could use religious language the way he did was that there was a Christian and frankly, mostly Protestant consensus, and that today, both secularization, and also the sheer diversity of religion in America, and also religious or spiritual practice like the kind that you offer is essentially too thin.

marianne williamson

Well, I don’t agree. Within my political conversation, I don’t talk about God. I have a great respect for the tradition of secular conversation within our political discourse. You haven’t heard me on the debate stage going on and on about God. I don’t. We have a tradition that is important because part of religious freedom is not only the freedom to believe as you wish to believe but also to not believe if you don’t believe. So I believe that I have an understanding of where the boundaries are appropriate. Some people seem to think if you’re coming from a spiritual perspective, you’re less sophisticated. I respectfully disagree. I think you’re more sophisticated. I think people who have a deeper understanding and commitment to love tend to have a greater recognition of the power of evil. What is the dark psychic force? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia all turned into a field of contagion. This is a relevant political topic. And what I submit is the fact that coming from a spiritual perspective, I have seen it, recognize the danger of it, and am the one to mention it. The conventional politicians haven’t been mentioning it because they don’t know what to say about it because there’s a lack of sophisticated understanding of what it is and what to do about it.

ross douthat

But so then what about the argument that what you’re saying is correct— there’s a missing spiritual and moral dimension in our politics and Democratic politics, but that still doesn’t justify elevating someone with no political experience to the highest office in the land, and that the best thing that could come out of your campaign is if the other candidates adopt some of your themes.

marianne williamson

Very experienced politicians led us into Iraq. Very experienced politicians led us into Vietnam. You can have the best car mechanic in the world. The car mechanic doesn’t necessarily know what road you should take to San Antonio. So this whole idea of experienced politicians, experienced politicians got us to where we are. And I challenge the notion that only those whose careers have been entrenched for decades in the system that drove us into this ditch are the only people we should consider qualified to lead us out of this ditch. Do we need political experts? Of course we do. I have great respect for people who understand political expertise. But we need a political visionary now more than we need just another political expert. And also, I will say that the fact that the president was inexperienced — the problem ultimately was not that the president was inexperienced. It’s that he lacks ethics, and he lacks a sense of visceral taste for democracy. Now, the second thing you said was, well, the best thing that could happen is you will influence those people. So the suggestion here is that what they have done can’t possibly be learned, but what I have done, they could learn in a day or two. I’m sorry. The messenger comes with this message. My message is based on decades of my experience and my expertise as much as theirs is on theirs.

ross douthat

So then one more politics and policy question— you’ve talked a bit on the debate stage about the idea of how we think about health and health care. That seems to be at least one of the areas where policy and philosophy meet for you. Is that right? Do you think —

marianne williamson

About health care?

ross douthat

Yeah, do you think you have a different vision of how America got sick and how we can get better?

marianne williamson

In the 21st century, we have a far more whole person integrative view of health and of every other aspect of society. Conventional politics is stuck somewhere in the 20th century. It is very concentrated on symptoms and remedying symptoms with external remedies, when the truth of the matter is, if you do not address causal elements, then even if you treat the symptom, the symptom will morph into another symptom. All I’m saying is that we have to have a deeper conversation about why, compared to other advanced democracies, we have so much more chronic illness. To do that, we have to talk about chemical policies, food policies, agricultural policies, environmental policies, even, to some extent, economic policies. That involves challenging the underlying cancer, which is the undue influence of money on our political system.

ross douthat

So then let’s talk about some of the arguments and criticisms that have swirled around your specific approach to these issues. And I think they can all be united in a critique of the whole new thought, mind-body connection tradition in America, which is that it is constantly in danger of veering towards two places. One, by stressing the importance of spirit and mind over matter, it ends up seeming like you can be blaming people for their own illnesses; and two, by stressing the centrality of mind and spirit, you can end up encouraging people not to take medications that they should take. And in the case of some of your comments about vaccines and anti-depressants, there’s been a lot of criticism that you’re veering in that direction. And in the case of some of your ministry to AIDS patients in the 1980s, there have been people implying that your ministry there told people that the disease was somehow their issue. So tell me how you respond to those critiques.

marianne williamson

My sister died of breast cancer. Her quote-unquote “negative thinking” did not cause her cancer. I have never said anything like that. I have never written anything like that. As far as my work with AIDS patients, that is particularly outrageous. First of all, I remind you that when I was first working with AIDS patients, there wasn’t any medicine yet. You cannot find one person who will ever tell you, she told me not to take meds. You will not find anything I’ve written that has ever said that. Now, what I have said is that thoughts of the entire racial consciousness of the human race has caused it in the sense of such things as carcinogens in the water, carcinogens in the air, carcinogens in the food. So what you were talking about is simply not me.

ross douthat

I just want to talk it at the level of the theological, right?

marianne williamson

O.K.

ross douthat

Because I have spent a lot of time in my life reading people in these traditions in American life. And it seems like there is a kind of theological temptation, right? I mean, an alternative example would be like the prosperity gospel, the prosperity gospel, which is a much cruder version of new thought, and basically says, in effect, God wants you to be rich. Well, if you’re not rich, what does that imply? It implies that you are sinning in some way, or failing to pray, and so on. And this tendency shows up consistently, I think, in the sort of spiritual but not religious world.

marianne williamson

I would agree with you, but not in my work. This is a place where Christian Science and “A Course in Miracles” are quite different. Christian Science says don’t take the medicine because that actually bolsters the belief in the sickness. The “Course in Miracles” says the opposite. The “Course in Miracles” says the Holy Spirit of God enters in on the level of your belief system, and the medicine is part of the working of God’s love in the world.

ross douthat

But then just to stick with your own views then, which I have a lot of sympathy for, you have been critical of the overprescription, potentially, of anti-depressants. But you’ve also been criticized that this line of argument can increase the stigma around mental illness and encourage people who need to take anti-depressants not to actually take them. How do you strike that balance as a critic of institutional medicine who doesn’t want to be accused, as you obviously don’t, of being anti-medicine?

marianne williamson

Predatory practices on the part of big pharma have contributed to the over manufacture, over sale, and overprescription of painkillers. And I think it’s naive of us to assume that in every other aspect of their business, they have only been paragons of virtue and concern for the common good. Is there a reason for psychotherapeutic drugs? Absolutely. But there is a spectrum of normal human despair. Your boyfriend left you. Your husband left you. You lost your job. You went bankrupt. Someone you love died. These are sad. They are not mental illnesses. I would never say anything about bipolar, or schizophrenia, or anything like that. But why are we pretending this is not happening, especially given the fact that, now, we know so many of these drugs are addictive?

ross douthat

I want to end with another question, basically back to where we began, on the question of religion and religious institutions. I think one of the arguments for an institution like Roman Catholicism or the more traditional forms of Judaism and so on is that American religion has become a zone of spiritual freelancing. And one of the points that you make powerfully is that evil is real, spiritual evil is real, dark psychic forces are real. And specific religious traditions have, over the years, built up strong edifices that are designed, in effect, to keep those forces at bay and prevent people from sort of wandering in the dark. Do you think that there’s a spiritual danger to being too far outside a tradition?

marianne williamson

Absolutely. I have written about spiritual dilettantism. You take it so far until it puts the mirror at you and you jump to the next thing. Absolutely. That’s whenever there’s an absence of principle. But that’s not me. I’m the person who’s been making a critique of those things and has been for a long time. And I don’t think that anyone who reads the “Course in Miracles” sees that as part of that kind of thing.

ross douthat

I don’t think necessarily. But I think when you’re reaching out to people who might be put off by institutional Christianity or institutional Judaism, you offer a kind of reassurance. You say, oh, ” ACourse in Miracles,” it’s not a religious book. It’s just a— you know, it’s a spiritual practice and so on that is offering a vision for people who think of themselves as spiritual freelancers, right?

marianne williamson

Actually, I don’t see it the way you just said it. A “Course in Miracles” are for deep theological thinkers. There are very serious Christians who are students of the “Course,” very serious Muslims who are students of the “Course,” very serious Jews who are students of the “Course.” So I think with any deep spiritual or religious practice, you’re going to find a place where the mirror is going to be on you. And you are going to be deeply confronted by, where was I not forgiving? Buddha said that the world is an illusion. But Buddhists go to the doctor. Einstein said that time and space are illusions, but he was a scientist. So when you say in a metaphysical perspective that anything in the realm of time and space is an illusion, you’re not saying there’s no gravity. You’re not saying don’t go to the doctor. I’m a Jew. I go to the doctor. Even my politics are very practical. I’m running for president here. I’m not — I have plenty of policy prescriptions and always have. I’m not wafting into some political conversation in cut velvet with crystals, however cute and amusing an image that might be.

ross douthat

Especially for the internet. [MUSIC PLAYING] On that note, Marianne Williamson, thank you so much for coming on “The Argument.”

marianne williamson

Thank you so much.

ross douthat

David is out this week. But Michelle and I are back in the studio to talk about my interview with Marianne Williamson. And Michelle, I would say that, out of the three hosts of this show, your politics are probably the closest to Williamson’s. But you’ve been pretty hostile to her candidacy and her whole persona. Has that changed, listening to me interview her? Or has it only exacerbated your irritation?

michelle goldberg

It has exacerbated it. I mean, I think she’s truly awful. So before we start, let me just read an excerpt from “Return to Love, Reflections on the Principles of ‘A Course in Miracles’,” which is a book she wrote in 1992, because I think she’s dishonest when she disavows that she’s ever talked about AIDS or cancer as psychic manifestations instead of physical phenomenon. Bear with me because just want to read a few sentences to make it clear I’m not taking things out of context. “Healing results from a transformed perception of our relationship to illness, one in which we respond to the problem with love instead of fear. When a child presents a cut finger to his or her mother, the woman doesn’t say, ‘Bad cut.’ Rather, she kisses the finger, showers it with love in an unconscious, instinctive activation of the healing process. Why should we think differently about critical illness? Cancer and AIDS and other serious illnesses are physical manifestations of a psychic scream. And their message is not ‘hate me,’ but ‘love me’.” You know, she’s written similarly about mental illness, about weight loss. I mean, that’s the whole tradition that she’s working in, as I think you accurately described, right, this new thought that she has a somewhat cagey relationship to now that she is running for president, and has an audience that doesn’t share a lot of her preconditions, and is kind of suspicious of a lot of these metaphysical claims. The other thing I want to say is that I think that her — this idea that the rest of the Democratic Party has been completely secularized and only she is talking about deeper spiritual currents is just not true. It certainly wasn’t true of Barack Obama, who was very, very rooted in a Christian tradition. It’s not true of Cory Booker, who, you know, is kind of invoking the history of the Civil Rights movement and the role that the black church played in the Civil Rights movement all the time on the stump speech, and also talks about love, but talks about love, I think, in a much more embodied and practical way than she does. I guess my question for you, as someone who’s sympathetic to her, is, even though I’m a pretty secular person, I’ve read a lot of new age writers because I wrote a book about the history of yoga in the west, which is, in a lot of ways, a history of these sorts of movements. And there’s a certain kind of new age writer that uses words like “love” and “deeper consciousness.” And I think she talks about being “miracle-minded.” It’s impossible to get a hold on what they mean by it. I don’t know. Maybe they’re just describing a transcendental state that can’t really be put into words. But I’ve listened to great Buddhist teachers. I’ve listened to rabbis. I’ve listened to some Christian preachers that I admire, where whether or not you believe in their metaphysical preconceptions, you can take some sort of wisdom from what they’re saying. You feel like you are being connected to some body of deep wisdom. And I just don’t feel like that with her. What she says just sounds like gobbledygook to me.

ross douthat

So one, as a Roman Catholic, I obviously share a certain amount of your allergy to the new age tradition. And I think that slipperiness that you’re describing is a totally real part of it. And some of it is, in fairness, I think it’s an attempt to use language to describe spiritual experiences that language may not be commensurate with. But I think there’s an incredibly powerful desire in post-1970s America to have spirituality without religion, which I don’t think ultimately works. But so you move back and forth between disavowing religious claims and making religious claims. And it doesn’t cohere into a definite body of teaching. That being said, I mean, I think that what I have appreciated about Williamson’s contributions to the political process is first, the approach to religion and religious questions, and the integration of spirituality, and wellness, and everything else. That’s a big part of American culture now. And it gets left out of political conversations a lot. And then, also, I think what she says on the debate stage about how the language of politics, and the language of technocracy, and the language of policy solutions can glide over deeper psychological and spiritual problems in American life is something that I agree with as a religious person. I wouldn’t want her to be the Democratic nominee, let alone president of the United States. But I think there’s a place for talking about dark psychic forces and the overprescription of prescription drugs, which is another area where, you know, she obviously walks back and forth between saying things that I think are true and saying things that might encourage people not to take pills that they should take.

michelle goldberg

But I guess I just don’t see her contribution as being that unique, right? I mean, you know, Tim Ryan is a very serious yoga practitioner. He’s talked about the role of yoga practice and philosophy on his politics. Kirsten Gillibrand talks about the way that Donald Trump is tearing at the moral foundation of this country. I don’t see what she brings to the conversation. I mean, I do think dark psychic forces is a good and accurate phrase. I also just think that the Democratic Party in general is extremely respectful of expertise. So I think it’s just discordant and kind of insulting for her to stand up there and disparage some of the more technocratic candidates. Elizabeth Warren obviously has a lot of plans and very rich policy proposals. But that is embedded in a bigger moral framework about how society is supposed to work. Elizabeth Warren, I think, has given a lot of thought to our duties to each other, as opposed to just some sort of personal transcendence that would, I guess if spread widely enough, transform society. I mean, that’s the other thing is that — I mean, maybe except for the case of reparations, which is significant, I don’t see her making that many more morally grounded arguments than the other candidates on the debate stage. And so as somebody who, unlike you, cares about the Democratic Party and cares about the image that the Democratic Party is presenting, I just find her embarrassing.

ross douthat

I mean, I care about the Democratic Party. In exactly what form, I’m not going to define on the show. But I care about it. But she does have a pretty comprehensively left political agenda that isn’t that different from Bernie Sanders, Warren, and a few others with less detail. But she’s more of a pacifist, an anti-war candidate than some. She is more of a pro-reparations candidate and —

michelle goldberg

Right. So she basically takes politics that I really like and adds a layer of flakiness that I despise.

ross douthat

Right, but maybe she’s adding a layer of metaphysics that could be useful.

michelle goldberg

I mean, do you feel like there’s anything transcendent in what she’s saying? Or does it just seem like the background music that you would hear in a new age bookstore?

ross douthat

I think that Democrats have effectively outsourced some of the language of moralism and spirituality that she was talking about, that’s a big part of not just the right but the left tradition in American life to African-American politicians and African-American candidates.

michelle goldberg

But what do you mean outsourced it? African-Americans are the heart of the Democratic Party. You’re acting as if that’s something kind of separate from the Democratic Party.

ross douthat

You’re right. “Outsourced” is a poor choice of words. But I feel like there’s a sense that religion is what Cory Booker can talk about and what Barack Obama can talk about because we respect the black church as a core part of our coalition. But for white Democratic politicians, the language of technocracy is a default.

michelle goldberg

I would say a couple of things. First of all, Kirsten Gillibrand is very legitimately religious. I don’t know how much of that gets into her rhetoric. But I do think she talks about the moral foundations of this country. And I also think that Jewish politicians do this all the time. And the Jewish left, I mean, look at the fact that we’ve just had huge protests all over the country from Jews against ICE. There’s a huge amount of activism that takes place in left-wing synagogues and churches. I mean, I do think you’re right that Democrats are wary of particularist religious traditions because they are part of a very heterogeneous coalition. And there’s also just a lot of secular people in this country. And most of them are part of the Democratic Party. Again, because I’m a secular person, unlike you, I don’t look at Democratic politics and feel like there is this metaphysical aspect that’s missing. I mean, I feel like I’ve never felt anything like I felt in Chicago the night Barack Obama was elected, that kind of delirious public joy, and strangers hugging in the street. You know, it was a kind of rapture. And I just — I don’t need anything metaphysical to approach that place of rapture. And so, again, to me, what she brings is not additive. It’s subtractive. [MUSIC PLAYING]

ross douthat

Well, I think we should leave it there. And now, it’s time to close out our show with our weekly recommendation. And it’s your turn, Michelle. What are you recommending?

michelle goldberg

O.K., so I’m going to recommend the second best novel that I’ve read this summer. The best novel is Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s “Fleishman is in Trouble,” which is just superb. I think she’s one of our generation’s geniuses. I thought she was a brilliant, talented journalist. But the book just is beyond all my expectations. The only reason I’m not going to recommend it right now is because probably all of our listeners have heard of it. Probably some of you have read it. The book that I’m going to recommend is, I think, a little bit more obscure, although it has gotten some attention. And it’s called “The Gifted School” by Bruce Holsinger. It’s this book about these four families in Colorado who become psychotic trying to get their kids into this new magnet school for gifted children. I haven’t read “Big Little Lies,” but what I think “Big Little Lies” is like, based on the TV show, with this overlay of, like, Chris Hayes’ “Twilight of the Elites.” Because it’s this scathing story about meritocracy. And it’s just — I would especially like to see what you think of it, Ross, because it seems like very much aimed at a lot of your preoccupations.

ross douthat

Yes, and I just wrote about how literary fiction sales are in decline. And I don’t read as many novels as I used to. And I blame the internet because I blame the internet for everything. How is your novel reading overall?

michelle goldberg

Yeah, I mean, it has suffered a lot both as a result of the internet, and also, I think, as a result of the Trump administration. Because I’m so preoccupied, and I feel like there’s so many suddenly historical phenomenon that feel very urgent for me to try and understand, there’s constantly a book I feel like I need to read to try to get some sort of purchase on the current moment. But then when I go on vacation, I just inhale books like — I don’t even know what the right analogy is.

ross douthat

I feel like there’s also a way in which, as a reader who is constantly inhaling non-fiction news through the internet, stories in the news, they seem like they should encourage you to read fiction. But instead, it ends up being a substitute. It’s like, well, I’m reading the Vanity Fair piece on the college admissions scandal, so I’m not going to read the more interesting novelistic treatment. But again, vacation is coming. So I have a chance to make it all right. So Michelle, the name of the book again is —

michelle goldberg

It’s called “The Gifted School.” [MUSIC PLAYING]

ross douthat

That’s our show this week. Thank you so much for listening. We’re taking a break next week. But in the meantime, you can leave us a voicemail at 347-915-4324. And you can also email us at argument@nytimes.com. We may feature your comment in an upcoming episode. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating or review in Apple Podcasts. This week’s show was produced by Kristen Schwab for Transmitter Media and edited by Michael Garofalo. Our executive producer is Gretta Cohn. And we had help from Tyson Evans, Phoebe Lett, and Ian Prasad Philbrick. Our theme as always was composed by Allison Leyton-Brown. Thanks for listening. And we’ll be back with you in September. I mean, look, I spent a lot of time in new age bookstores as a kid, Michelle.

michelle goldberg