It is entirely possible that you’re not familiar with the political aspirations of Marianne Williamson, best selling spiritual healing author, moderately-notorious Oprah pal, and current Democratic presidential candidate.
And if you are a reader of Vogue that ignorance will only be reinforced since she is not one of the five Democratic women featured in their cover story Madam President? Five Candidates On What It Will Take To Shatter The Most Stubborn Glass Ceiling.
The reasons for her omission from the piece are not explicit (although it does mention her in the article), although it’s most likely that she is at best a rank outsider for the gig. And yes, we realise recent US political history doesn’t have a great track record with that particular line of reasoning.
Fun fact: the other women running for office don’t limit their political outreach to books about spiritual weight loss and incomprehensible tweetspirations.
In her defence, unlike the rest of the women interviewed for the piece (Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris) she might have zero experience in public office – but she reportedly used to be Laura Dern’s roommate so… um, checkmate?
Anyway, she took to Insta to decry this meanie bobeanie editorial decision:
“The framers of the Constitution did not make Vogue magazine the gate keepers of America’s political process,” she accurately pointed out. “If they had wanted to say more, than [sic] they would have. They didn’t say more for a reason: they were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself the skill set it feels is necessary to navigate the times in which they live.”
Skills like:
Now, we appreciate that there are some differences of opinion on whether it’s good to elect people with no idea of what public policy development who seem to spend a lot of time spewing actual nonsense on Twitter.
However, if Vogue are taking a hard line against putting fourth-tier celebrities into the White House, we strongly second this proposal. You know, just in the interests of continued human survival. And hell, we’d like the rest of media to follow suit.
Then again, maybe we’re being unfair about the capacity of people to rise to challenges. After all, Ms Williamson is reportedly currently pregnant with a better version of herself.