I somehow missed this at the time. David Brooks’ op piece inThe NYTimes of August 1, Marianne Williamson Knows How to beat Trump. I was struck by his article but quickly put it aside and only now one month later am getting back to it. Brooks had just heard Marianne Williamson at the Second Democratic Debate on July 31, who said, while speaking of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, that the water crisis, “was part of the dark underbelly of American society — the racism, the bigotry.”

By her words Wlliamson raised the important question, just how much racism and bigotry are embedded in our society? It’s not too difficult to see that Donald Trump’s almost daily racist and bigoted tweets are proof enough of what she is saying.

As a result one might think, as does Williamson, that the 2020 election should be all about confronting and overcoming a racist and bigoted president, not most about as it now seems policy questions such as immigration, health care, the economy and jobs, infrastructure, et al. let alone Trump’s wall which even today Trump himself was once again talking about, having stolen money for the wall from USArmy funds.

Brooks says we have been all subtly corrupted by our president. And that the Democrats in particular have not risen to what are the real needs of the moment. The Democrats don’t know how to speak on Trump’s level. … And then there is the even bigger problem, that being the culture of the Democratic Party. The modern version of the party emerged during the Great Depression to solve one problem: material want. It is a secular party, trapped in a Lockean prison. The Democratic candidate, Marianne Williamson seems to understand this and is running her own spiritual crusade, not an economic redistribution effort…

And Williamson is right about this, as she says, “We’ve never dealt with a figure like this [Trump] in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician; he’s a phenomenon. And an insider political game will not be able to defeat him. … The only thing that will defeat him is if we fashion a phenomenon of equal force, that phenomenon being a moral uprising of the American people.”

And while apparently not ready for it, it falls upon the Democrats to arouse the American people to rebuild the moral infrastructure of our country, to promote the country’s traditional values, such as: Unity, We’re one people; Honesty, We respect the truth; Pluralism, We treasure members of all races and faiths; Sympathy, Our daily lives are marked by kindness. and finally, Opportunity, That all children be given an open field and a fair chance in the great race of life.

Marianne Williamson, September 5, 2019:

“It’s not a plan or policy competition. The conversation needs to go beyond not just who has the best plan, but to who has the greatest ability to harness the excitement, the enthusiasm and the inspiration of the American people in such a way as to override the anti-democratic forces that confront us. I don’t presume to be able to analyze what is going on inside the president’s mind. I just know how important it is to make him irrelevant as soon as possible.”

And Brooks concludes by asking if there is just one Democrat among the candidates who can lead an uprising to restore these values. After all aren’t these the values of decency, rough trodden for two and one half years by president Trump? And Brooks says, although we haven’t yet identified him or her, there must be one individual who can be the phenomenon the country now needs. So yes we are still looking, just prior to the third Democratic debate on September, 12 to identify, and recognize him or her.