Despite sweltering conditions, about 350 people crowded inside Manny's Thursday night to see and hear self-help author and outlier presidential candidate Marianne Williamson give a stump speech.
Let's just say that foreign and domestic policy isn't exactly Marianne's bread and butter, and she's gotten where she is by saying non-political things about love, fear, and morality. At Thursday's event in the Mission, Williamson did a lot of talking about children, as Mission Local reports. She also reportedly said she didn't want to be called naive for "the idea that I believe love, rather than market forces disconnected from all moral considerations, should be the operating principle of human civilization."
"They're naive if they think we are going to survive on this planet for another hundred years if we do not make that change."
She talked about wanting to defeat Donald Trump, "bottom line," and suggested that if all Democrats manage to do is defeat him, we will see "the same forces that he represents" returning in forthcoming election cycles. "We need to do more than just not fall over the cliff here," she said. "We need to get out of the vicinity of the cliff entirely."
"I'm not prosecuting a case against Donald Trump," she added. "I'm prosecuting a case against the system that produced him."
Williamson proposed establishing a Department of Children and Youth, which sounds like it would be the Department of Education plus an emphasis on psychology, trauma, and making sure all children are fed. She also shrugged off notions that she should throw in the towel, as she didn't even register on the Quinnipiac poll following the last debate, despite being the most Googled candidate during and after it.
You can watch her full stump speech recorded at Manny's last night below.
As she said to a reporter after the Manny's appearance, per Mission Local, "If you were me, and you just had the experience we just had, would you drop out?" KTVU reports that she said, referring to the requirements to qualify for the September debate, "Right now we almost have the donors that will get us to the 130,000 mark and the polls will be coming out in the next few days. I'm feeling heard."
Williamson greeted a roaring crowd of supporters Wednesday night at the East Bay Church of Religious Science in Oakland, as KPIX reports. "There is no place I’d rather be than California. I feel understood here," she said.
According to her campaign's calendar, Williamson heads to Santa Cruz for another event tonight, then down to Santa Barbara for several events and fundraisers, and then she comes back to San Francisco a week from tonight (Aug. 23) for an event at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Franklin Street — you can sign up to attend here.