What if Marianne Had Won?

What's happening in our nation today feels quite like a dream. One that I wish I could shake myself awake from. But sadly, it’s all too real. I feel grave concern as democratic institutions and norms crumble before my eyes, and critical government agencies are severely gutted and even eliminated.

But what if things were going very differently right now? What if, instead of watching destruction, we were witnessing a radical strengthening of democracy and society, prioritizing healing instead of harming — beyond what we had ever dared to imagine, or maybe even knew was possible.

Healing Instead of Harming

Imagine…

A presidency that provides moral clarity in ways we haven’t seen before. Untethered to calcified norms and big-moneyed influence, it looks right into the heart and soul of the human experience.

It is tackling root causes, not just symptoms. Instead of gutting health and science agencies while paying lip service to "making America healthy again," we are implementing a Universal Coverage healthcare system focused on preventing chronic illness rather than just treating symptoms. Working to empower real, deep and lasting health on every front possible.

We challenge the corporatization of agriculture and Big Food that has created what amounts to a poisonous brew, undermining our health in critical ways. Instead of subsidizing Big Ag and unhealthy food crops, our policies prioritize regenerative farming, healthy food, clean water, and breathable air over the short-term profits of Big Food, Big Agriculture, and Big Chemical companies. Federal agencies like the FDA, EPA, and CDC, rather than being gutted, are untethered from corporate interests and empowered and funded like never before—charged with forging a future that truly nourishes us, body and soul, instead of trading our health to profit and corporate pressure.

Rather than working to dismantle the Department of Education and govern through bans—on books, on ideas, on the very act of thinking critically—we are expanding education to nurture students’ intellectual, cultural, emotional, and psychological horizons. Schools that teach not just facts, but social and emotional learning that builds whole human beings, helping to transform the scourge of bullying and the corrosive effects of toxic social media that undermine real connection and community.

Instead of mass roundups striking fear into millions of hearts and sowing economic chaos, imagine bipartisan immigration reform signed into law—strengthening our borders while creating a clear, ethical, and timely path to citizenship for millions of hardworking people who are critical to our national infrastructure and communities. Imagine a leader who recognized immigrants as community members and contributors, not scapegoats, and who reminded us that dehumanization is always the first step toward atrocity—whether directed at immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, racial and religious minorities, or anyone treated as “other” instead of as part of the human family.

Instead of doubling down on our newly renamed “Department of War” and on cruel, ineffective domestic “justice” systems, we have established a Department of Peace to forge a new way forward. This agency coordinates dialogue, mediation, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, and trauma-informed systems of care. Real investment in peace”building,” rather than endlessly and ineffectively trying to suppress conflict and violence.

More broadly, governance itself takes a wholistic turn—developing our society through: preventative healthcare focused on lasting wellness; robust mental health supports; whole-person education systems; safe and nurturing communities; healing-focused justice systems; and international peacebuilding. We are working to bring true repair to what has been broken, implementing policies that serve the needs of people rather than the outsized power of the few. On these and so many other fronts, the aim is nothing less than a just, sustainable, and healthy nation and world.

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A Different Vision of Leadership

This healing approach would require fundamental changes to how we maintain and exercise power itself.

Imagine a president working to fortify democratic stability rather than tear it down. Someone pushing for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, among other critical measures, to secure a thriving democratic society. Someone willing to finally rein in our increasingly concentrated cohort of corporate/mega wealthy overlords, instead of empowering them further.

Someone who stood firmly against the neoliberal tide—the whole corrosive system of deregulation, privatization, corporate capture, corporate lobbyists acting as policy-makers, and the quarterly-profit-obsessed market straightjacket that treats money as supreme over human values—that has hollowed out democracy's promises over the decades. And someone who resisted the newer authoritarian impulse to silence dissent and punish free expression, which threatens to shatter what remains.

Rather than economic chaos driven by reckless executive orders and wildly erratic tariffs, we see strategic investments in policies that lift everyone up—securing funding for the foundations of a flourishing economy and culture: universal childcare, debt-free higher education, and renewable energy jobs that sustain both our people and our planet.

The Dream and the Reality

This didn’t have to be an imagination, it could have been reality. This administration could have been led by a President Marianne Williamson. That was actually her Democratic Presidential campaign platform, her vision, what she believed in with every fiber of her being and would have worked for.

What inspired me to write this whole piece was that I had an actual (and much sweeter) dream recently. In it, Marianne pulled through as the Dem candidate after Biden had come to his senses and withdrawn earlier in the primary. She won the primary and then handily defeated Trump. In my dream, I didn’t feel the slightest bit surprised, as she was speaking to something much deeper in the human experience and needs, and that resonated with so many people who are tired of all the political games (and lies).

In my dream, I and others were helping her assemble an extraordinary, leading-edge cabinet. She was moving boldly forward on so many fronts, everything described above and much more — visionary shifts in how we organize society so that it serves everyone, heals what's broken, and repairs what's been ignored. I could viscerally feel the magic of what was happening in my bones. It felt inspiring, sweet and true.

When I woke from the dream that morning, into our current reality, the sweetness of course quickly evaporated. "Disheartened" doesn't begin to capture how I felt. I've worked with Marianne for more than twenty-five years and served as a volunteer policy advisor on both her presidential campaigns. So when I dream of her winning, it isn't just idle fantasy — it's the sadness of knowing how much her vision could have offered, and how thoroughly it was mocked, dismissed, and iced out by the establishment. While she was dismissed by many as unqualified, what should be obvious now is that she had the most important qualification of all: the prescience to see what was coming, and the courage to name what would be required to prevent it.

She saw what so many in the establishment and media could not — or refused to — see: that Biden represented the same corporate-controlled politics people were exhausted by, and that Democrats weren't speaking to those frustrations or acting on them. And she warned that Trump had gained not just political traction but a psycho-spiritual hold on millions of Americans. She knew his message, however false, resonated with people's fears and frustrations. She saw it clearly, long before most were willing to admit his force hadn't waned in comparison to the milquetoast candidacies of Biden (and later Harris).

Marianne often quotes Franklin Roosevelt, highlighting three lessons we would do well to remember today. First, his insistence that we need not fear fascism as long as democracy delivers on its promises — promises like universal healthcare and tuition-free higher education, which she warned we had failed to fulfill. Second, his reminder that “a necessitous man is not a free man” — a truth made vivid in our current age of deepening inequality and inequity. And third, his conviction that the most important job of the presidency is not administrative, but moral leadership itself. Marianne embodied that principle in ways that could have moved the needle had she not been sidelined.

The Devastating Consequence of Closed Eyes

We are living in an unstable moment, where democratic pillars are being actively dismantled before our eyes. We got what we asked for—not because most people imagined exactly this, but because too many eyes were closed, too many people weren't seeing clearly, despite very reasonable frustrations and fears.

This includes not just voters, but also those in the political and media establishment who consistently ignore and sideline figures like Marianne (or Bernie Sanders, etc.). Marianne has been a strong moral voice not only against the tide of fascism brewing, but in naming why it is rising. She has spoken to root causes when others papered over them.

The incrementalism Democrats have peddled for far too long has left us unable to deliver on the promises of our nation. We need more leaders on the left who can speak with vision and purpose, who are bold enough to stand up and work for what is fundamental. Politics isn’t just policy; it’s purpose, meaning, belonging, identity. It’s a sense of real community. While the right seizes on that space — however falsely — Democrats are still fumbling, too often content to “fight back” without offering a larger story and vision for where we’re going—or pandering to the darker angels of our nature.

Yes, we must resist the erosion of democracy. But resistance alone is not enough. We have to offer a vision rooted both in the pragmatic needs of people’s daily lives and in their deeper longings.

The Democratic Party needs to wake up to something much deeper that’s happening. They need to stop playing the old games, stop icing out progressive voices, stop tinkering at the edges, and work for fundamental change — lead towards real progress. Because without that, the old order will keep crumbling, and the false prophets will keep rising. The question is: will we continue down this path with future candidates, or will we finally learn?

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Matthew Albracht is the former Executive Director and a Board Member of The Peace Alliance (www.peacealliance.org), a U.S. based NGO which advocates for domestic and international peacebuilding priorities. His writings have appeared on CNN, Salon, HuffPost and other outlets.

His Substack writings explore how we heal—from the inside out and the bottom up—personally, politically, and culturally—with a particular focus on the intersections between them all. Weaving together politics, psychology, and personal growth, grounded in systems thinking and trauma-awareness.

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