Marianne Williamson to Discuss Creating New Political Party

Two former presidential candidates from the Democratic Party who ran as outsiders will debate the creation of a third party for progressives who are unsatisfied with Democrats, Politico reports.

Marianne Williamson, a self-help author and activist, will join former Sen. Mike Gravel for the "People's Convention," which is organized by the Movement for a People's Party, on August 30, along with former delegates and members of Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. The convention's participants will debate whether progressives should form a third party to challenge Democrats, which Politico notes will serve as a warning to the Democrats' presidential nominee Joe Biden.

"Regardless of who wins the White House and Congress, we and millions of Americans have no expectation that either party will govern in the people's interest," said Nick Brana, who is organizing the virtual convention. "We plan to challenge them both in 2024. That's a promise."

"An entirely new way of being is struggling to be born, and we need a political container for it — one that puts humanitarian values before amoral economic ones, and breaks free of a 20th-century political paradigm that no longer serves our democracy or even our survival on the planet," Williamson said in a statement. "'A new birth of freedom' is struggling to be born, emerging from the hearts and minds of millions of people no longer willing to go along with systems that devolve rather than evolve our life on earth."

"It has become clear that neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party truly cares about working-class people," said Chris Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse worker who led a strike over the company's policies during the coronavirus pandemic. "Both party platforms think that our demands like 'Medicare for All,' raising the minimum wage to $30/hour, a wealth tax, and the right to unionize without fear of retaliation, are radical ideas."

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