Shortly after Marianne Williamson ended her presidential campaign, she announced the formation of the Repair America Movement as a vehicle for furthering the causes of the campaign fleshed out in her “Six Pillars of Moral Repair” for America. But RAM also carries on the ethos of her politics of love, the priority of valuing inclusion and compassion in public policy while fiercely opposing the ways corporate and billionaire greed have pulled our nation away from an honorable trajectory.
Now that Williamson has endorsed Bernie Sanders, perhaps the Repair America Movement can target a variety of new and potential Sanders supporters. She can go places where Bernie might hesitate to go, such as expanding on the notion of the decay of democracy due to, as Williamson says, our current “sociopathic economic system.” And there is bipartisan dismay over how we got this way.
Across the political spectrum there is revulsion for how unrestrained corporatism has constricted our once thriving middle class. Every bill passed in the McConnell-led Senate has furthered that agenda, reaching back into the Obama administration.
And it all leads back to how big money is allowed to influence congress members before, during, and after their tenure on Capitol Hill.
Williamson has already put the finger on corporatism and how lax FEC regulations, Citizens United, the gutting of the Civil Rights Act, and the lobbying free-for-all have given corporations disproportionate power on policy, regulation, and budgetary choices.
Her role in helping Bernie should start by proclaiming that the only antidote for this cancer on democracy is the passage and implementation of #HR1, the We the People Act. Along with ending Citizens United and partisan gerrymandering, it mandates hand-marked paper ballots and making all campaigns publicly not privately funded. This will minimize the leverage of billionaires and corporations, taking away their most direct method of coercion.
While the House passed this bill early in this session, it lies stillborn on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk. He refuses to take it to the floor for debate and evaluation. Oddly enough, the Democratic Party leadership hasn’t put the spotlight on this injustice, fearing that the wrongs it will correct will be known to be in play this November, thus potentially diminishing faith in the voting process and driving down turnout.
But the reality is exactly the opposite. Fervent support for Sanders comes from his rallying cry for justice and fairness. We stand in all-hands-on-deck mode to save our democracy. While as the Democratic nominee Sanders may have to temper his frustration with our electoral process as it stands, Williamson can wield #BigTruth in uncovering every devious trick that the GOP uses to tilt the scales in their favor.
There is the targeted voter purging including the practice of interstate #Crosscheck unearthed by The Guardian and Rolling Stone writer Greg Palast. There are the tricks Republican Secretaries of State have used like closing precincts in black districts to force huge lines at the remaining ones. And at the root of it all are the voter photo ID laws crafted by the Koch brothers to disenfranchise African Americans, the poor, students, and the elderly.
But there is another slice of the electorate that Williamson is poised to reach out to. Under the framework of her politics of love, she can call out to newly disgruntled Republicans and betrayed independents to ask them to please, for the sake of our planet, take the GOP back from the #CORPservatives who stole it for their donor elite.
She’ll share the fact that these folks will have to vote blue for a couple of election cycles to make that happen. Without the passage of #HR1, Republican incumbents will be unstoppable backed by all that dark money. Moderates or anti-Trump candidates won’t have a chance at winning in the primaries.
These disgruntled Republicans are ready to see how corporatism stole the soul of their party. My organization, Peace Party Populists, already has laid out the road map to connect with these new members of the #SilentCenter. They can represent an extra 10% or more in Democratic margins in November if we use treat this group with compassion and respect.
And Williamson is perfectly positioned to do that. I ask that she and her RAM team please consider using the phraseology and strategies that PPP has crafted as a means to reach this crucial demographic. With the right framing, Williamson can supplement these strategies with buckets of #BigTruth and illuminate the process of healing ahead. She can help Bernie send this incarnation of the Republican Party down the drain in its whirlpool of lies.
Here is the flow of how those disgruntled Republicans can willingly vote blue yet not have to call themselves Democrats if they don’t want to:
- Label today’s Republican legislators as #CORPservatives - Cite how they are in servitude to corporations and billionaires; pious with a corporate bias. They are only out for CEOs not average Joes.
- Show how they have led us into #RepubloFascism - Senate Republicans, the #OathBreakersCaucus, couldn’t have proven this more plainly in their acquittal vote. Honor, the Constitution, and democracy itself are no match for lockstep party loyalty. Rampant deregulation, opening up parts of national parks to drilling, and massive corporate tax cuts prove who their masters are.
- Demonstrate that woke conservatives and progressives share the same foe: #CORPservatives - By doing this, we establish that conservative voters aren’t to blame for what the GOP has wrought. They were played. And by casting aside any of their willful participation and focusing only forward, we set the table for a true alliance. This will require all of us to embrace this fact: #HateMakesNothingGreat. Those on the left will have to #GetYerGandhiOn and see the humanity in those demonstrating the strength to abandon their toxic pasts riding the Trump train.
- Show respect for woke conservatives by giving them their own label: #TrueCons - This is what PPP does, with three distinct factions under the same umbrella: Peace Party Dems, Peace Party Independents, and Peace Party TrueCons. When America’s challenges are not framed in hate, division, and lies, TrueCons will discover an abundance of common ground. They’ll see the practicality of Democratic solutions while finally realizing that today’s GOP only prioritizes donor profits.
- Commit to helping TrueCons take their party back if that is their choice - By telling TrueCons that they represent the return of integrity to the party of their birth, you validate their cause and establish bipartisan respect.
- Establish that moving away from corporatism within BOTH major parties can only come from #VotingBlueNoMatterWho in the next couple of election cycles - The only path to free us from the tentacles of corporatism is to eliminate the disproportionate influence of corporations on policy, budget, and regulation. That will come through passage and implementation of #HR1. PPP goes farther on this with the first plank of the PPP Platform entitled, “Optimizing Democracy.”
- Label our communal goal, taking money out of politics, as achieving our #REindependenceDay - When democracy is again freed up to focus on the needs of actual individuals, we return to what our founding fathers wanted for us. Of course, now that “us” includes everyone, not just white land-owning males.
The repaired America that we push for should follow this path. After #HR1 is signed and public financing of all campaigns is secured, progressive policies can be implemented without fear of billionaire reprisals in the next election. Climate disruption, wealth inequality, unjust healthcare costs, and institutional racism will all be faced together for the common good.
But in the short term, specifically in support of Bernie between now and November, Marianne and the Repair America Movement can echo the PPP motto:
Striving Together for a Truly Inclusive America by 2025
Augmented by:
Fair For All. Free From Hate.
And this unique phraseology best defines that path. If Williamson chooses this direction and toolkit for RAM, she will fill in a missing piece to Bernie’s revolution. She can more directly go bipartisan while laying the foundation for the healing of America that lies ahead.
Progressives will always be drawn to Marianne’s policies. Most have been reflected in what Bernie has already pledged to fight for. But by giving a voice and respect to those outside of Bernie’s big tent, with a gracious and respectful invitation to step inside, Williamson can demonstrate the depths of her politics of love.
She doesn’t have to be President to lead. She just has to keep doing what she knows in her heart is right, and others will feel the power in that kind of patriotism and join in, seeing in the distance the more healthy America that lies beyond this #PeriodOfEndarkenment.
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