Marianne Williamson Sets Her Sights on a New Target: The DNC

“New age guru” to some, center-left crank to others—former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has thrown her name into the hat for the next Democratic National Committee chair. 

“I’m proud to announce I’m running for Chair of the DNC. In order to respond to the challenge of this moment, the Democratic Party needs transformation,” Williamson, who is 72, wrote Thursday in an X post linked to a longer statement. 

“I am announcing I’m running for DNC chair because I feel that I can bring a level of expertise to the process of lifting up this possibility of victory over the next two and four years in a way that will not occur if we are only looking to traditional means of politicking in order to make that happen,” the former spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey said in a video announcement on YouTube. 

She joins former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, New York State Senator James Skoufis, and former Maryland Senate candidate Robert Houton in the race to succeed outgoing Chair Jaime Harrison.  

This upcoming DNC chair election may be a pivotal moment in time for the direction and ideology of the Democratic Party. Its sweeping defeat in November has resulted in a renewed energy to redefine the party towards the working class.    

“I’ve traveled extensively throughout this country, and I’ve seen how much pain there is out there,” Williamson said in her announcement. “I’ve been up close and personal with people who didn’t have health care, who couldn’t survive on just one job, who were so depressed about so many of the conditions in their lives that were, in fact, at least indirectly due to bad public policy, and too many of them didn’t feel like the Democratic Party had their back.… We need to understand what it is that has made people emotionally and psychologically disconnect from a sense that the Democratic Party was part of a great legacy in American history.”

Williamson has an eclectic range of both progressive and questionable views. She’s on the record supporting Medicare for All, abortion access, and reparations for Black Americans. But she also views vaccine mandates as “draconian” and referred to cancer and AIDS as “physical manifestations of a psychic scream.” She also chimed in with an awful aside about Haitians while President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance were spreading horrendous lies about them eating pets. 

​​“Continuing to dump on Trump because of the ‘eating cats’ issue will create blowback on Nov. 5,” she said in a now deleted post on X. “Haitian voodoo is in fact real, and to dismiss the story out-of-hand rather than listen to the citizens of Springfield, Ohio confirms in the minds of many voters the stereotype of Democrats as smug elite jerks who think they’re too smart to listen to anyone outside their own silo.”

Expect more strangeness from Williamson as the DNC chair race heats up.

Donald Trump’s inaugural fund is set to break the fundraising record the president-elect set in 2017. 

The fund is not restricted by campaign finance law and is made up of donations by businesses and executives, raising questions about corruption and influence peddling in the next Trump administration. Seven years ago, Trump’s first inaugural fund raised $107 million, and this time, corporate leaders will shatter that amount, with pledges already exceeding $150 million. 

For example, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have each pledged $1 million to the fund. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has said he’ll donate $1 million, and Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, plan to donate $1 million each. Automakers General Motors, Ford, and Toyota are also donating $1 million apiece, with Ford reportedly donating a fleet of vehicles as well.  

Some companies on the donation list, according to The Wall Street Journal, are scrubbing their websites and corporate policies of anything that could be perceived as pro-Democrat or hostile to Trump, including, in the case of hardware manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker, criticism of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The company is donating $1 million to the fund, up from the $25,000 it donated to Trump’s 2017 inauguration. 

The donations come with immediate perks: Anyone who donates $1 million or raises $2 million from other donors will get six tickets to pre-inauguration events, including a black-tie ball, a candlelight dinner with Trump and his wife, Melania, and a reception with Cabinet nominees. 

Trump celebrated last week, posting, “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” on his Truth Social profile. More likely, all of these businesses and executives don’t want to run afoul of the president-elect’s trade policies or deal with anger from his supporters. Trump’s tariffs, if they go ahead, will upend the economy and hurt several U.S. industries such as automobiles. CEOs will be hoping for exceptions and carve-outs, and the way to Trump’s heart is through his wallet.

Trump went shitposting for Christmas.

The president-elect spent Wednesday on Truth Social taking shot after shot at his perceived enemies. What started as a “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!” became 34 straight posts of vitriol. In one post, he gave a shoutout to “the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in ‘repair’ money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about ‘anything.’”

He then took shots at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, suggesting that he’d slash the country’s taxes if they’d be oh so kind enough to become our “51st State.”

The posting marathon continued as Trump got into his usual self-victimization bag. “Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME,” he wrote in yet another Truth Social post in the afternoon. He also aimed his ire at the 37 prisoners on death row whom Biden granted clemency, commuting their sentences to life in prison rather than execution. “Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!”

Aside from the two longer posts, Trump posted a meme with a picture of himself and former President Barack Obama captioned “when you see the guy who said ‘you’ll never be president’ at your inauguration.” He also reshared multiple headlines and positive articles regarding his FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, and defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.

“We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!” he concluded.

Donald Trump’s “border czar” is pledging to bring back the practice of family detention for undocumented immigrants.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Tom Homan, who oversaw the family separation policy as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first term, said that the next Trump administration will be holding families in detention centers and won’t hesitate to deport undocumented parents with U.S.-born children.

“Here’s the issue,” Homan told the Post. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”

“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” Homan added. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”

In the first Trump term, ICE used facilities known as “residential centers,” which contained 3,000 beds similar to dormitories. Immigration activists and doctors criticized them as creating a harmful environment for children. This time around, with Trump’s plan to increase deportations on a massive scale, ICE plans to house immigrant families with “soft-sided” tent structures, Homan said.

President Biden ended the family detention policy in 2021, and the federal judge who oversees immigration detention has put a 20-day limit on how long children can be held at an immigration facility. Trump has repeatedly promised an overhaul of Biden’s immigration policies, pledging mass deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Trump is already getting pushback on his deportation plans, which is probably a contributing factor as to why Homan said he hasn’t committed to a target number of deportations.

“I’ll be setting myself up for disappointment,” Homan said, telling the Post that he doesn’t know how much resources he’ll have.

Billionaire immigrant Elon Musk and his supporters are beefing over how to grow Silicon Valley.

“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning, in response to Replit CEO Amjad Masad, suggesting that the industry needs to look outside of the United States for its engineers.

“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk continued in another post. “Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

This ruffled the feathers of many MAGA fans on the right who are anti-immigration.

“There are over 330 million people in America. Surely, there must be enough among them to build your ultimate team?” said one X user in a viral reply to Musk. “Why would you deny real Americans that opportunity by bringing foreigners here?”

That “real Americans” quip underscores some of the tension between Musk, himself an immigrant from South Africa, and the MAGA base. Musk thinks it necessary to draw an influx of international engineering talent while many of those who voted for Trump (and arguably Musk by proxy) are against that on principle. The end result of this tension is yet to be seen.

“It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE. If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE,” Musk reiterated in another post. “End of story.”