Top Reasons Crowd-Sourcing the Democratic Candidate Might be Just the Ticket

I detect a new distress across the spectrum of those who are preparing to select a Democratic nominee for president from the crowded field of candidates:  

"It doesn't work to have so many candidates." "We need a winning candidate now."  "We can't wait."  "We need to have our platform, our cabinet, our message all together NOW."  

These are just some of the things I have heard expressed in the past few days from friends and strangers.    

When I feel preoccupied with a sense that something has gone badly awry, no matter what it is, from some mundane household matter to affairs of state, I can sometimes shift my state of mind to see a way that all is well, despite evidence to the contrary. This shift, particularly if many feel it together, also increases the possibility that the better outcome will occur.

So the question I began to ask myself is what are some ways in which having a crowded Democratic field actually helps produce a winning candidate?  Here are my top five (sometimes redundant and contradictory) ways in the crowded Democratic field may help produce the best candidate:

1.  No Sitting Duck.  With an ever-shifting array of candidates and possible front runners, there is no sitting duck candidate for the president, Koch brothers, or Russian bots to focus on.  They can try to go after all Democrats at once but that's not that effective.
2. Shell Game. This is basically the same point as above but I like the phrase "shell game."  The shifting array of candidates confuses and deflates the opposition.  Lift up one candidate they are attacking? Nothing under here.  Is this your candidate to attack? What about this one? 
3. Joe Biden takes the hits and protects the field.  Even if Biden takes most of the flack right now as the putative frontrunner, he may well not be the best person to beat the president (subject for a different post, but that's what I think) so even if he eventually loses the way he has very badly in his last 2 races (lest we forget he has never even come close to gaining traction as a presidential candidate before), maybe that's what he is here to do: be the closest we have to a frontrunner, take the hits, protect the rest of the field until the real winner can emerge.  This point may seem to contradict reasons 1 and 2 but I don't think they're mutually exclusive.  There are a LOT of great candidates.  And they will all have an opponent who, while not to be underestimated, is his own worst enemy and therefore, eminently beatable.
4. Crowd-sourcing the best messages.  In previous campaigns, the winning messages were developed in a back "war" room by political geniuses like James Carville.  But that was pre internet and pre ginormous field of candidates.  What I see happening very quickly now is that the best messages are moving from the ground up.  They either gain traction or they don't but when they do, they spread like the Green New Deal from AOC to Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden.  Or like "saving the soul of the country" from Marianne Williamson to Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden.   (Note, this will also snuff out the losing messages and, yes, there is a risk of a message picking up speed that's attractive for Democratic base but alienates "centrists" -- not sure how many of these so-called centrists remain, yet another post)
5. Crowd-sourcing the best candidate.  With more people in the field, it may be possible that more voices will be heard and a better, winning, wonderful voice will be able to emerge.  As the president and the Russians take down Biden, the rest of the field keeps moving, perhaps longer than they would if there were a, heaven forfend, Hillary Clinton style frontrunner in the race.  Eventually, of course, the field thins but by then a good evolutionary experience has taken place and the eventual candidate emerges stronger, burnished but not tarnished, by the experience, with a lovely platform of winning strong policies and messages to campaign on.  

This isn't just a trick to stay positive even when things are "really" going to hell in a hand basket.  In the quantum field, the ground of all being, there are simultaneously multiple possibilities occurring or becoming at any given time.  Without going into detail with my crude understanding of the science behind it, suffice it to say that it is well established that (human) consciousness collapses possibilities into probabilities.  The more of us believe, feel, know and choose something, the more likely it becomes.   

So help me out here, what are some ways you see that the crowded field is the perfect way to win in 2020? 

My Top 10 Tips for How I am Enjoying My Young Old Middle-Aged Life

Pretty much any age between 30 and 80 is one person's young and another person's old.  I recently heard my 24 year old son assert a policy of scorning the opinion of anyone over thirty-seven.  The other day a longtime friend from college pronounced us to be in "late middle age" causing another of our cohort to express strong dismay.  Having celebrated my 58th birthday yesterday, I thought I'd share my top 10 strategies that are working for me as I age.  God, help me to resist the temptation to write a small novel about each point:

1.  Treat every ache or pain as temporary.   I put this first because it's so crucial.  I read a survey of physicians who say that the biggest difference between their active patients in late life and their inactive ones is the attitude towards their own bodies.  My 85 year old father-in-law discovered he had pneumonia when he fell while playing tennis.  His main concern on recuperation was when he could get back to tennis (he is back to it, yay!).  Meanwhile, I know people my age who go around affirming the lists of things they can't do any more because of "their knee" or "their back."  I understand this because I went through over a year of not being able to walk more than a block with pain from a knee problem.  And yet I backpacked last year.  I shattered my wrist 2 years ago and had long surgery.  I can do everything with it again.  The capacity of the human body to heal from absolutely every injury is well-established but the mythology in the culture surrounding permanent injury is pervasive.  
2.  Change the channel in my thoughts on aging.  Deepak Chopra tells of a study done of several communities around the world where there are exceptionally long-lived and healthy individuals.  There was only one common element; not their diet, not their water, not their soil, but their attitude toward aging.  Each of those cultures truly believed, reaffirmed and KNEW that as we age we get stronger and healthier not weaker and more infirm.  In one South American indigenous culture that depending on runners to communicate with other villages, it was well-established that the fastest and best enduring runners are in their 70s and 80s and then they coast until well after 100.  The runners in their 30s and 40s are considered pretty much a joke.  
3.  Cultivate curiosity--what else is possible?  A mentor of mine from the Access Consciousness community taught me to say aloud "what else is possible?" and "how does it get even better than this?" These are genuine questions of the universe.  I say them every time I feel stuck or in a rut and it helps me REALLY get curious about the answers.  It's not up to me to think up the answers.  It's up to me to be curious and look for evidence of them.
4.  Exercise should be enjoyable.  Just that.  I know there's a lot out there about just do it and it doesn't matter if you like it and to a certain extent that's true but does it have to be?  It took me years to establish an exercise routine that I actually enjoy.  And now I love it and look forward to my program of Bikram Yoga one day, swimming another, walking on another, core workout on another.  My husband, like his father, loves his tennis. What's your enjoyable exercise?  I'd like to do more dancing this year. 
5.  Eating what serves me.  Let's face it, by now in your life you know what serves you and what doesn't serve you.  Some of us thrive on animal protein.  Some of us don't.  Some of us can eat carbohydrates.  Some of us can't.  There's SO much information out there about what you SHOULD eat.  I try to pay attention to what serves me, not what the advice says.  In my case, that's no dairy, no wheat, no sugar, no red meat, low poultry, low carbohydrate.  What serves you?
6.  Gratitude.  I write twenty specific things I'm grateful for out of every single day. It shifts my focus from what is not working to what is working.  Whatever is the worst thing that happened that day, I find at least 5 things to be grateful for about that.
7. Do the things that bring me joy.  I love to exercise, to sing,  to dance and to write.  So when faced with a choice between something else and those, that's what I do.
8. Wait to be asked.  I've spent so much of my life trying to anticipate other people's needs.  Much of the time they don't appreciate it. Now I wait to be asked.
9. Dress my truth.  Most of the time I dress in such a way that it reflects my personality rather than someone else's.  That's pretty new for me in the past 7 years.  If you're a woman, particularly on the paler end of the skin color spectrum, you might check out Dress Your Truth on which you can take a personality test and see specific suggestions on how to reflect your truth in your clothing, hair and accessories. 
10. Be there for myself.  I recently made a firm decision to stop abandoning myself.  No one is going to be there for me but me.  As a woman I was acculturated to abandon my own druthers and priorities every time someone else needed me, or even if I thought they needed me (see #8 above).  Well, someone does need me: me.  I am now there for myself and I intend to continue to be through the end of my life.  

As I look back at this list, it sounds selfish.  Where is the service freely given?  Where are the donations?  Well, I do those too.  This is MY list.  I don't have to remember to be giving, that's hard-wired in me.  I always give.  Above are the ways that I can continue to be healthy and strong and happy throughout my long life of service.

Additional lyrics for Rivers of Babylon

"Rivers of Babylon," popularized by Jimmy Cliff, has long been one of my favorite songs. Its, ahem, a little hard to improve or add to the words taken directly from Psalm 137 of the Jewish Bible (aka Old Testament), but my ukulele teacher, Bill Trainor, has long encouraged me to do exactly that. I resisted until I started reading David Blight's marvelous biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom where he highlights Douglass's strong reliance on the old testament and particularly this verse as a foundation of his quest for the abolition of slavery.

As I thought through the arc of history for African Americans and how we as a people are still living and reaping the effects of slavery, segregation and institutionalized racism in this nation, I began to be more interested in what the next verses would look like. So below are the original lyrics with mine following in italics:

RIVERS OF BABYLON

BY Brent Dowe / Frank Farian / George Reyam /

Trevor McNaughton

Chorus--original (Psalm 137)

By the Rivers of Babylon

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remembered Zion

1. And the wicked carried us away in captivity

Required of us a song

How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land

2. So let the words of our mouths

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sights here tonight

ADDITIONAL LYRICS in italics BY SARA S. NICHOLS

copyright 2019

New Chorus 1

By the harbors of Baltimore

Where we were sold

And there we bled

When we remembered Africa

1. And the wicked carried us away in captivity

Require of us a smile

How can we sing the Lord's song in this exile?

2. So let the words of our mouths

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sights here tonight

New Chorus 2

By the rivers of Birmingham

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remembered Jubilee

1. And Bull Connor carried us away in captivity

Required of us a song

How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

2. So let the words of our mouths

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sights here tonight

New Chorus 3

By the Rivers of Ferguson

Where we stood up

And there we screamed

When we remembered Martin's Dream

1. And the wicked carried us away in captivity

Require of us a smile

How can we sing the Lord's song in this exile?

2. So let the words of our mouths

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sights here tonight

Releasing Grief from the 2016 Election Brings Compassion for Myself and Others

Yesterday I figured out that I need to take a look at the cocktail of feelings arising out of the 2016 United States Presidential election still driving my thoughts opinions and conclusions today (05-20-2019 Do I need to Take a look at my 2016 resentments?).  For a couple of weeks prior, I'd been re-exploring Emotional Freedom Technique aka EFT aka Tapping since installing a free app called

The Tapping Solution.  

Being stubbornly self-reliant, I told myself I needed to adapt one of the lovely 10 minute meditation/tapping sessions they have on there to begin to release the feelings from the 2016 elections.  But I didn't.  

This morning, I opened up the Releasing Grief meditation (which, full disclosure, is NOT one of the free meditations--I paid $50 to get a year's worth of full access).  The phrasing is designed to help you release grief for the loss of a loved one.  Turned out it was PERFECT for me to process the 2016 election.  I grieved the loss of President Obama, the loss of the Founding Fathers (who, I learned from the musical Hamilton, are also now black), the loss of the Constitution, the loss of reproductive rights (very fresh and acute)--lots of stuff. 

I was surprised to find myself sobbing during the meditation (for a spiritual softy, I'm not much of a crier, definitely not a weeper). But there's more.  The direction in the meditation talks about how I don't have to "just get over it" and how I'm entitled to my feelings.  And how it's also okay to create a new normal.  These are all very real useful concepts for someone grieving the loss of a loved one, but I've never applied them to the loss of a presidential election before.

It strikes me that in political deaths as in personal deaths, it feels absolutely like a betrayal, a mistake and impossible to "get over it."  With my political grief, it feels dangerous to get over it.  What if in getting over it, I forget to call my congresswoman or to protest or to, God forbid, vote? 

Let me lay a couple of Truth bursts on you that descended on me in this process: 1) grief could actually immobilize me and cover up anger that I need to get my on my feet -- so letting go of grief feels politically and spiritually productive; 2) I really got compassion for the grief that my sisters and brothers on the other side of the divide must have felt when Obama was elected and maybe again in 2018 with the long slow blue change of climate.  Perhaps they could benefit from this grief work too.

Recently Dr. Deborah Johnson, Inner Light Ministries, reminded a group of us that when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008 there was so much grief and fear that, in many parts of the country, stores were sold out of ammunition.   Doing my own belated grief work on my feelings from the 2016 election allowed me to access compassion for what those folks must have gone through-- the incredible pain that must have driven that idea that they needed to defend themselves en masse.  

Could it be partly the goal of healing this separation, this fear, this gulf or divide that is causing presidential candidate Marianne Williamson to run, Bernie Sanders to adopt the slogan Not Me Us and Joe Biden to say he wants to "restore the soul of this country"?Maybe.  But no presidential candidate can restore our souls unless we are about that business too.

Let's get busy ending the civil war within our own hearts today so that we can be up for new reconstruction of the nation tomorrow.

Do I need to take a look at my 2016 Resentments?

Many people still carry a lot of blame, theories and toxic feelings coming out of the 2016 election about whose fault it was that "we lost" and what has to happen this time.  As social media does its thing and people retweet, like and reheat their favorite posts about their favorite candidates (or those they love to hate), how do I learn and share about the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates without weakening (or coming to despise) the person I'm eventually going to support?

Until I wrote the above I was ready to advise myself on how to speak or write lovingly in the world.  While that might well be useful, I just realized I skipped a step.  If I were coming out of a painful relationship or job and starting to look for a new partner or employment, my spiritual advisors would probably suggest that I clear out my anger, hatred, grief, fear and otherwise limiting beliefs from the previous relationship(s) and job(s) before I look for a new one.  As they say,  "wherever I go, there I am."  If I don't do the work of preparing myself to go into 2020 with an open heart and an open mind, I'm liable to attract the same partner/job/candidate that I had in 2016--the one that hurt me so badly.  

Since we still have over 6 months before most of us cast anything approaching a real vote, let's take a pause to do our work around this election.  I'll send you some tools for that soon.  In the meantime, take a look at the field and see what feelings come up.  There are SO many candidates (see NY Times interactive chart) and they keep coming, why hello, Bill de Blasio Mayor of New York (reaction of media, essentially: "your candidacy is ridiculous, we only want small town mayors").  Oops, I need to do my work...

Is "changing the conversation" a good reason to run for President?

When I first heard that Marianne Williamson was running for president to change the conversation, I applauded.  That made sense to me.  In sharp contrast to even the most engaging new voices, as a new thought leader and writer Marianne Williamson seemed poised to talk about the issues and our times in such a way that it might alter the parameters of the possible.

Facing the realities of 18 candidates for the Democratic nomination for President who have met the high threshold of qualifying for the debates (including Williamson), I begin to wonder whether it is possible to "change the conversation" in that crowded forum.  

Bernie Sanders, whom Williamson supported in 2016 for president, has already changed the conversation and is continuing to do so.  By focussing on what would make the biggest differences in working peoples' lives, raise in a minimum wage to $15 an hour, Medicare for All, universal public college, regardless of whether it is considered practical or politically expedient to do so, he gives us a way to create a world that works for everyone.  Most other candidates have taken up his policy positions (or are reacting against them).

Williamson has a different charge, it seems.  She sees America as soul sick, and she is here to facilitate a healing.  I don't disagree.  I DO think we are soul sick.  I think living in one of the richest countries on earth which chooses to allow millions to live without adequate food, shelter or access to basic health care takes an unimaginable emotional and spiritual toll on us as a people.  Even those of us who are financially secure.  It depresses us.  It scares us.  It demoralizes us.  It saps the very ingenuity and creativity that has made us great as a nation.  

Here's a fresh example of Marianne Williamson's attempt to change the conversation:

The days of the tough cowboy leading us into reckless war and then being lauded for his strength are over. What must emerge now is an age of proactive peacebuilding, where we fortify the factors statistically proven to increase peace and reduce conflict. #wagepeace

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) May 17, 2019

I sort of see America as a body politic is trapped in a flight or fight pattern where it struggling to survive so it can't even think about thriving.   When my own body is in flight or fight, I cannot learn.  I cannot remember.  I cannot trust or believe.  I can only run, scramble and secure my own borders.

It's like we have a tangled hierarchy here where cause and effect is jumbled.  Do we need a soul healing to transition to "rest and repair" so that we can see that we are all one nation and we can collectively work to pay ourselves a living wage which allows for safe housing, food and healthcare? Or do we need a living wage, Medicare for All and universal public college so that we can stop long enough to "rest and repair?"  The answer is yes.  

Do we need to change the conversation in order to focus on what really matters? Or do we need to focus on what really matters to change the conversation? The answer is yes.

What else is possible?  How does it get even better than this?  

(:)(:)(:)(:) for The Other Place at Capital Stage in Sacramento now

4 out of a possible 5 snouts up for The Other Place by Sharr White directed by Michael Stevenson up now at Capital Stage in Sacramento through June 2, 2019.  

Since there's barely any arts coverage in what's left of the mainstream press in Sacramento any more, I feel obligated to review even more than usual--please share this review widely with other Sacramentans.  

This is a beautifully-written, directed and acted production of a relatively disturbing play.  The qualifier is necessary given that almost everything produced at Capital Stage is dark and disturbing.  Actually, many of Cap Stage's chosen works are hilariously funny, while still maintaining their darkness.  Given the subject matter, this play has a lot of humor but is mostly serious in tone.

Melinda Parrett brilliantly reveals to us the complexity of her leading narrative character in this 80 minute no intermission piece.  As usual, director Michael Stevenson's choices are very solid so that we feel nothing is in the way of our intimate understanding of this unfolding tale.  And it is marvelous to have Cap Stage's founding director Jonathan Rhys Williams back in town to play the lead's husband in his inimitable and charming way.

I would recommend this play to anyone, it's up now at Capital Stage in Sacramento through June 2, 2019.    More background on the play from the Capital Stage website:

Just as Juliana Smithton’s research leads to a potential breakthrough, her life takes a disorienting turn. During a lecture to colleagues at an exclusive beach resort, she glimpses an enigmatic young woman in a yellow bikini amidst the crowd of business suits. Piece by piece, a mystery unfolds as contradictory evidence, blurred truth and fragmented memories collide in a cottage on the windswept shores of Cape Cod, and the elusive truth about Juliana boils to the surface.

“A haunting drama…so cleverly constructed that the nature and depth of the problem isn’t revealed until the last shattering scene.” Variety

“Engrossing…tantalizingly intense, edgily suspenseful…Every element falls perfectly into place.” Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

Marianne Williamson and the Power of the Word in her Candidacy for President

This is Part 4 of a multi-part series examining how we use the Power of the Word in politics, particularly in the 2020 presidential race.  Rev. Sara S. Nichols is senior minister at the Center for Spiritual Living, Davis and the Spiritual Director of All is Well Institute which supports and teaches people how to heal themselves using spiritual tools.  Trained as an attorney, before coming to spiritual science, she was a legislative and communications advocate for Medicare for All and other consumer issues in Congress and the California legislature.

Part 1 -- What exactly is the Power of the Word and How does it Work in Politics?

Part 2 -- Donald Trump and the Power of the Word

Part 3 -- Bernie Sanders and the Power of the Word
Part 4 --Marianne Williamson and the Power of the Word

Part 5 --Pete Buttigieg and the Power of the Word

Part 6 --Comparison of Top 2020 Presidential Candidates

In this series, we confine ourselves primarily to the question of how effectively does the candidate work with the power of their word.  In other words, given how they marshall universal law to their favor through the power of the word, how much do they appear to be grounded in a vision of a world that works for everyone, how likely are they to win, and when they assume the White House, what are they likely to accomplish?

My assumption is that every Democratic challenger for president shares most of the same policy positions (affordable universal health care and education, pro civil rights, combat climate change, raise the minimum wage, pro gun control).  There are plenty of other writers out there that will spend their time evaluating the nuances of where Democratic candidates for president are on these issues. And most news forums will spend their time looking at the experience, the demographics and the charisma of the candidates, all of which play a role in whether they will win.

Before we get into analysis let's rate Williamson on the criteria that I'm looking at. Williamson is currently tied with Sanders and Buttigieg on my rankings for ability to win the presidency based on use of power of word and second only to Sanders on likelihood to govern from shared values of integrity, love diversity and inclusion, accountability and caring. Note that Warren scores absolutely top points for grounding her vision in a World that Works for Everyone and in likelihood to govern from these values but falls well short on use of her word to win. Contrast that with the incumbent president who has top ranks on use of the power of the word to win and zeros for grounding his word in a World that Works for Everyone or shared values. In the total chart, Sanders is the top. :

Scale of 1 - 10 10 being the best

• Williamson effective Use of Power of her Word -- 9
• Williamson potential use of her word to win the nomination and presidency -- 7
• Williamson likelihood of governing based on a World that Works for Everyone upon assuming presidency -- 8 . It's not that I don't believe her but I think that I don't believe her but I think that her lack of experience may make that harder to actually pull off.
• Williamson grounding her Word in love, integrity, diversity and inclusion, accountability, caring --10

How Williamson stacks up against other contenders:

For More on this see: Comparison of 2020 Presidential Candidates

In this piece I evaluate how Marianne Williamson, one of two major candidates for the Democratic party nomination for president who is not an elected official (the other is tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang), uses the power of her word.   (Lest you write her off, Politico says she is one of 18 candidates that has already qualified for the debates as of this writing.)   As a student of new thought spirituality, I have, of course, known of bestselling author and speaker Marianne Williamson for years.  Almost everyone has encountered her most famous quote on calendars and posters throughout the world, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us…”

Her stated reasons for running for president echo that quote, “Our deepest political problems are expressed on the level of politics, but they are not rooted there. Our deepest problem is the disengagement of the American heart from the values we purport to hold most dear, and the failure of too many of our citizens to vitally participate in the expression of those values... I believe I have expertise and skill [to facilitate a transformation] that is most needed at this time.”

Unlike other candidates, Williamson explicitly and consciously sees the need for moral leadership and awakening.   The quotes on her campaign website underscore that:

"The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it....It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership."   

Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives." Martin Luther King, Jr.  

If I had to guess, I’d say Williamson is less focussed on becoming president than she is in facilitating that leadership and engagement, a worthy goal.  As a writer, Williamson chooses her words carefully and well. She steps strongly into moral leadership and the power of her word when she describes her thinking overall.  On the question of why we might not want an elected official at this time, she says

“What we most need now is a political visionary -- someone with a deep understanding of where we have been and where we need to be going. While car mechanics are important, they aren't necessarily the ones who know how to drive you to where you want to go. It is unreasonable to expect the mindset that drove us into the ditch to be able to pull us out of it. It's not enough now to just know what's happening inside Washington; we need someone who also knows what's happening inside us.”

In describing her positions on the issues, she is at her strongest on the need for racial reconciliation and healing, LGBTQ rights and immigration.  

On racial reconciliation Marianne Williamson demands reparations from slavery to heal the nation as a whole. Williamson has been calling for reparations since 2015, likely picking up on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ call in the Atlantic magazine the year before. She powerfully lays out the case for reparation as a spiritual amends to a nation still suffering from its effects.

“Tepid solutions are not enough for the times in which we live; we need huge, strategized acts of righteousness, now. Just as Germany has paid $89 Billion in reparations to Jewish organizations since WW2, the United States should pay reparations for slavery. A debt unpaid is still a debt unpaid, even if it’s 150 years later. The legacy of that injustice lives on, with racist policies infused into our systems even to this day...America has not yet completed the task of healing our racial divide.”

On LGBTQ rights, she says

“Our Declaration of Independence holds that the inalienable rights of, "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," are endowed to ALL humans by their creator at birth. In 2015, marriage equality became the law of the land, yet there is still no federal law explicitly protecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities from discrimination. These communities, therefore, do not enjoy the full breadth of freedoms that this country espouses to guarantee to each and every citizen. This is not only unacceptable; this is in direct violation of our founding principles.”

On immigration,

“Immigrants are not our enemies. I don’t know any progressive who is arguing for open borders, but we are arguing for open hearts. This is so important to remember today as immigrants are often viciously scapegoated. Scapegoating immigrants... is a deliberate dehumanization technique. Dehumanizing others has always been the required first step leading toward history’s collective atrocities. This is not the first time dehumanization has reared its head in our nation, and we must stand up against it now as other generations stood up against it in their time.”

With the environment she quotes Sir Robert Swan inspiringly “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it,”  she offers little else other than a similar plan to combat climate change as other Democratic candidates.

On healthcare although she seems particularly interested in the environmental and dietary causes of illness, she leaves it to Bernie Sanders to exercise the moral leadership.   “Healthcare is a (h)uman right” is something he has been repeating for decades. She sticks to a solid Medicare for All policy position without fully articulating her moral criteria for it.

The fact that Williamson strongly articulates her thoughts on race, immigration and LGBTQ rights, and overall moral leadership and the economy, without seeming to exercise the same leadership in healthcare and the environment strengthens my conclusion that she is in this race to add to the debate rather than to win the presidency.

You could probably swap out the term “moral leadership” for “successful use of the power of the word.”  However, remember that it depends on what morals you have, and what your goals are in using either term or strategy.  In Donald Trump and the Power of the Word we saw how the he has very effectively used the power of the word to gain and retain power, regardless of who he harms in the bargain.  Many “moral leaders” have done the same--think anyone who has waged war in the name of God or being “right.”

So I always am interested in whether the person is using their word to generate a world that works for everyone, rather than themselves or a particular sect or subgroup.  I believe Marianne Williamson has that goal. I look forward to seeing what her participation the debates will bring.

Bernie Sanders and the Power of the Word

This is Part 3 of a multi-part series examining how we use the Power of the Word in politics, particularly in the 2020 presidential race.  Rev. Sara S. Nichols is senior minister at the Center for Spiritual Living, Davis and the Spiritual Director of All is Well Institute which supports and teaches people how to heal themselves using spiritual tools.  Trained as an attorney, before coming to spiritual science, she was a legislative and communications advocate for Medicare for All and other consumer issues in Congress and the California legislature.

Part 1 -- What exactly is the Power of the Word and How does it Work in Politics?

Part 2 -- Donald Trump and the Power of the Word

Part 3 -- Bernie Sanders and the Power of the Word
Part 4 --Marianne Williamson and the Power of the Word

Part 5 --Pete Buttigieg and the Power of the Word

In this series, we confine ourselves primarily to the question of how effectively does the candidate work with the power of their word.  In other words, given how they marshall universal law to their favor through the power of the word, how much do they appear to be grounded in a vision of a world that works for everyone, how likely are they to win, and when they assume the White House, what are they likely to accomplish?

My assumption is that every Democratic challenger for president shares most of the same policy positions (affordable universal health care and education, pro civil rights, combat climate change, raise the minimum wage, pro gun control).  There are plenty of other writers out there that will spend their time evaluating the nuances of where Democratic candidates for president are on these issues. And most news forums will spend their time looking at the experience, the demographics and the charisma of the candidates, all of which play a role in whether they will win.

Let's rate Bernie Sanders on the criteria that I'm looking at and then you can read about why I draw those conclusions below. Based on my conclusions, Bernie is currently the best placed Democratic contender to win the White House and govern from shared values of love, integrity, diverity & inclusion, accountability and caring.

Scale of 1 - 10 10 being the best

• Sanders effective Use of Power of his Word -- 8
• Sanders potential use of his word to win the nomination and presidency -- 9
• Sanders likelihood of governing based on a World that Works for Everyone upon assuming presidency -- 10
• Sanders grounding his Word in love, integrity, diversity and inclusion, accountability, caring--10

How Sanders stacks up against other contenders:

For More on this see: Comparison of 2020 Presidential Candidates

In evaluating 2020 candidates for president, voters should ask a question that’s perhaps not even on the radar:  who is the candidate for President that can most effectively use what some call “the power of positive thinking,” and what I call “the power of the word”?  And of those, who is using that power to create and reveal a nation and a world that works for everyone (rather than as a means to an end to acquire power)? In Part 1 of this series, I examined What exactly is the Power of the Word and How does it Work in Politics?  Part 2 is Donald Trump and the Power of the Word in which I acquaint you with the amoral yet effective way that Donald Trump, influenced by his family minister positive-thinking guru Norman Vincent Peale, uses the power of his word.  No one who is voting or running for president in 2020 should underestimate this factor in the race.

Since this is the first piece in the series to look at a Democratic challenger for president, let’s get clear on the charge I give myself.  Absent Trump dropping out of the race or being so weakened that a Republican challenger can beat him in the primary, let’s assume that anyone who enormously dislikes the president’s, shall we say “style of governance,” is likely to support the Democratic nominee for president.  Let’s further assume that the Democratic candidates share most of the same policy positions (affordable universal health care and education, pro civil rights, combat climate change, raise the minimum wage, pro gun control). There are plenty of other writers out there that will spend their time evaluating the nuances of where Democratic candidates for president are on these issues.  And most news forums will spend their time looking at the experience, the demographics and the charisma of the candidates, all of which play a role in whether they will win.

In this series, we confine ourselves primarily to the question of how effectively does the candidate work with the power of their word.  In other words, given how they marshall universal law to their favor through the power of the word, how much do they appear to be grounded in a vision of a world that works for everyone, how likely are they to win, and when they assume the White House, what are they likely to accomplish?

In this piece I evaluate how Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading candidate for the Democratic party nomination for president, uses the power of his word. Full disclosure: Bernie Sanders is the candidate I know best and like best out of the gate (and folks, it is early in the race).  He talks the most like the people with whom I used to work.   Before becoming a new thought minister, I spent years fighting (and mostly losing) the good fight as a lawyer and consumer rights advocate in Congress and the California Legislature.

In the early ‘90s, I was an advocate for Medicare for All (which we used to call “single payer health care”) and Bernie Sanders, then a member of the House of Representatives, was one of our biggest champions.  He was a great member of Congress to work with. He and his staff were people of their word. What they said, they stood by (not something to be taken for granted in a politician). He worked hard for Medicare for All even then.  He showed up where we needed him to show up. He was consistent. He was kind. He was more interested in shifting the parameters of the possible, than he was in conventional political wisdom. And he was humble. To us, he was never “congressman,” or “Mr. Sanders,” he was just “Bernie.”  So since he’s always been “Bernie” to me and he is now “Bernie” to millions, I am going to call him Bernie for the rest of this article.

In his 2016 campaign, Bernie Sanders powerfully demonstrated using the power of his word to shift the parameters of the possible.   Just as a hate-filled multiple offending misogynist liar was not supposed to win the Republican nomination, a Jewish politically independent self-proclaimed social democrat was not supposed to gather energetic crowds of thousands everywhere he went. He wasn’t supposed to raise millions of dollars a day through small contributions. He was certainly was not supposed to defeat Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary.

And while Bernie most assuredly did NOT win the Democratic nomination for president.  He did play a role in completely changing the parameters of the possible in American policy and politics. Bernie Sanders, using the power of his word on the stump in America, took Medicare for All, universal public college education and a raise to $15 an hour in the minimum wage from peripheral much dismissed “politically unviable” proposals to the policy centerpieces of virtually every Democratic candidate for president in 2020.  He both created and rode a wave of progressivism in America (it is hard to separate cause from effect but it is clear that he, unlike other Democrats running today, did not just have his finger in the wind, he was part of the wind).  Indeed, his candidacy made it as imperative for a Democrat in 2020 to be seen as “progressive” as it is for Republicans to be “conservative.”  Witness Minnesota Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar recently proclaiming in Iowa that she is “progressive” when she otherwise sounds like what we used to call a midwest centrist.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who started out as an organizer for Bernie Sanders for President 2016, went on to defeat 10-term incumbent and powerful Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley for the 14th Congressional District of New York.  AOC as she is widely known created the controversial “Green New Deal,” the possibility of which came out of what Bernie had campaigned for.

One of the ways in which Bernie uses the power of the word effectively is through repetition and consistency.  He does not try to be all things to all people. He answers almost every question with the same handful of statements he has made for years, "It is not moral, it is not acceptable, and it is not sustainable that the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent."  He always goes on to say something like “we can do better. Health care is a human right. Affordable higher education is a human right. A living wage is a human right.”  He says these things passionately and he says them repeatedly.  That is using the power of his word.

Yet, it is clear that Bernie Sanders himself believes more in the power of the people than in the power of the presidency.  It’s important what Bernie believes because our beliefs are the limits to the power of our word. He repeatedly says, “I can’t do this without you.  We need a sea change to make this happen.” While this may limit the power of the presidency, this has been an effective use of his word because he is enrolling people in his vision and showing us the importance of being part of his campaign.  It also clearly separates him from the current White House resident, in demonstrating that Bernie will always see the people as the Sovereign, not the Executive. He is giving us a way to participate in his vision for America.

It is my belief that Bernie Sanders would be an effective head-to-head opponent for Donald Trump’s powerful use of the word.  Unlike Elizabeth Warren, Bernie has proven that he doesn’t get distracted by the current resident of the Oval Office’s shenanigans.  Bernie knows what he knows and he stays on that message, that word. He clearly sees the way things have been, but he refuses to be limited by what others have decided are politically infeasible. He is a proven progressive who doesn’t have to prove he’s progressive so he is free to say what he thinks makes the most sense. I think Bernie Sanders can beat Donald Trump at his own game and win the presidency.