Kamala Harris may have won yesterday's Democratic debate, but Marianne Williamson won the most important battle of all: She's Twitter's favorite new meme.
Most viewers may not have heard of Williamson, who has made her name writing spiritual self-help books that include titles like On Self-Esteem: Loving Yourself and Emotional Self-Sufficiency and Illuminata: A Return to Prayer. She made waves during the debate last night for her out-there comments, but more for her piercingly mystical aura, which has sent the Internet into a spiral of Stevie Nicks, crystals, and edible-related conspiracy theories.
Here are the main reasons that she's become the best thing to happen to Twitter in years.
1. She philosophized like a middle-aged Californian divorcee on an ayahuasca trip in Ecuador.
Williamson's success in the memetic sphere stems from the fact that she evoked a very specific type of aura: that of your aunt who dropped too much LSD while practicing African dance in Thailand and who now runs a holistic therapy practice in California. Apparently, it resonated on more than one plane.
2. Her old Tweets are incredible.
Williamson's Twitter feed is full of gems—specifically: crystals, amethysts, and rose quartz, purchased from your local Wiccan yoga studio and arranged into a perfect Solstice altar on your Williamsburg doorstep. Williamson's cosmic mind has clearly traversed the outer reaches of the psyche, delving deep into the hidden places where our world brushes up against the next dimension.
Clearly, all Americans should have the right to life, liberty, and soul-explosion.
3. She may or may not have taken an edible before the debate.
Many viewers were struck by the distinctly psychedelic nature of Williamson's statements. Many of them felt more like whispery revelations delivered by your sage-burning, salt-lamp-owning stoner friend during the deep sea episode of Planet Earth rather than political commentary.
Some thought that acid was more apropos. Psychedelic drugs often help people see the invisible lines of love that thread each of us together, so it makes sense that her comments may at least have been inspired by her wild past, if she didn't ingest a hallucinogenic mushroom right before getting onstage.
4. In spite of her oddness, she actually had some good points.
Some people were all in.
Still, since she has literally no political experience and seemingly few plans aside from believing in dreams until they become reality, she's probably not the best pick.
5. She is definitely a witch.
Among her many talents and roles on this illusory earth, Williamson is a practicing New Age witch.
For anyone unable to sense the emanations of Williamson's powers, all you need to do is listen to some Stevie Nicks, watch American Horror Story: Coven, and take a few sips of kombucha; you'll see the power just waiting to burst out of her crown chakra and into our corporeal plane.
Some people saw her more as an exorcist than a witch.
There are also indications that she may be an alien.
Regardless of the exact type of power she possesses, she certainly has some otherworldly control over the invisible forces that bind us together, and she has promised to use them all on Trump.
6. She was Laura Dern's roommate in college.
Laura Dern is an actress who starred in David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. Yes, the same David Lynch who created Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks. When they were 17, Williamson and Dern lived together for a brief period of time.
Perhaps Williamson told Dern, who then told Lynch, about the demons that exist in a parallel universe but sometimes enter ours through a red room with a checkered floor. Perhaps BOB has possessed Trump. Perhaps Williamson is the only one with the power to stop him. Perhaps she will dream of her next move tonight.
7. She may or may not be a new queer icon.
Queer folks tend to love a performative queen. Since it's still Pride Month, Williamson picked the perfect time to unveil her kooky, starry-eyed persona to the gays who had no idea what they were missing before she came to pour peppermint oil on America's spiritual wounds.
Some proposed that she embodied that elusive, much-critiqued Met Gala theme: camp. Since camp is defined by a kind of fundamental absurdity performed seriously, or as a humorously deviant refusal to comply with 'straight' norms, Williamson's refusal to comply with the norms of the 'literal plane' earned her an accidental place in that category.
8. She has a thing for New Zealand.
Williamson may have started out by giving the impression that she is cognizant of the world around her, but by the end of the debate, her edible had fully kicked in. This became clear when she said that the first thing she would do as President is call New Zealand. Perhaps she meant to indicate that she would enact stricter gun laws, like that nation's Prime Minister did after their first mass shooting, but it came off more like she knows that the portal that will lead us to the holy grail is a mile north of Wellington, and as president she will finally have the ability to send troops into the center of the earth to find the crystal that will grant us eternal departure from the cycles of reality.
9. Her presence instantly led to calls for a Kate McKinnon impersonation.
Later, it happened. Needless to say, this won her even more points with the gays.
10. She's an AVATAR stan.
Remember the James Cameron film—the one about the humans that go try to colonize a planet of weirdly attractive blue people? It seems like Williamson sees it as the blueprint for the future of the world.
11. Based on 2016, which revealed just how highly America prioritizes a candidate's meme-ability, Williamson may well be the next President of the United States.
If you think about it, the initial response to Trump was somewhat similar to this initial response to Williamson. He became larger-than-life by infiltrating the online world, indoctrinating himself into the wry, cynical sarcasm of Twitter-using millennials everywhere. Similarly, he appeared to be more of a movie character than a real person. In a strange way, Williamson seems to be the product of the same simulation glitch that spawned Trump—though it seems possible that Williamson is the one that uploaded all of us in the first place.
Plus, if Trump's key demographic was everyone who was secretly racist, Williamson's demographic is for everyone who secretly thinks they're a witch who can see auras. Admittedly, the sight of a coven of witches turning neo-Nazis into toads would be deeply satisfying. And for fans of Harry Potter, the idea that love and magic could potentially destroy an evil, undead overlord might ring a few bells.
Of course, Williamson isn't the only one who may have occult ties.
