What a tragic act of fate that the first round of Democratic Party presidential debates should have to occur when “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) is on hiatus for the summer, because author Marianne Williamson is the candidate that SNL cold opens were made for — a new age self-help guru who will harness the power of love to defeat President Trump and then call New Zealand to brag about it.
Fortunately, actress Kate McKinnon made an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” last night to give America a brief preview of what to expect on “SNL” if Williamson were to go the distance and make it to the general election debates against President Donald Trump.
“There was someone tonight who didn’t like plans. Marianne Williamson was very anti-plan,” Seth Meyers said to McKinnon.
“Gosh, I wish there was an ‘SNL’ show this week,” McKinnon replied, echoing all of America’s thoughts.
“Marianne was the one you thought, ‘oh, she might not make it to the fall,'” Meyers said. “The window for Marianne Williamson impressions might be closing fast.”
But not so fast, because McKinnon came prepared.
“She was a shining comet,” McKinnon said before launching into her Williamson impression.
Donning Williamson’s intensely sincere eyes and her throbbing 1930s radio voice, McKinnon said: “I’ve heard a lot of plans here tonight. If you think plans are going to beat Donald Trump, you got another thing coming, my plan is to gather all the sage in America and burn it. My plan is to harness the energy of babies to finally put a man on the moon and I said to the President of New Zealand, I said, ‘girlfriend, you’re so on.’ And I would say to Donald Trump, ‘boyfriend, you chill …”
None of what Kate McKinnon said was all that different from the actual Marianne Williamson at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate. Here’s what Williamson said when the moderators asked the panel their first order of business on day one of their administration should they win in 2020:
My first call is to the prime minister of New Zealand, who said that her goal is to make New Zealand the place where it’s the best place in the world for a child to grow up. I would tell her, “Girlfriend, you are so wrong, because the United States of America is going to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up.”
Annnnnd scene.
Despite the woman’s wackiness, not everyone on the Left has dismissed Williamson’s candidacy as just another joke. Over at The New Republic, Alex Pareene writes that the former Oprah regular may actually be the perfect Democratic antidote to President Trump — an ultra-feminine fringe outsider who appeals to the wellness mom:
We might say, instead, that a Democratic Trump would be a proper outsider, with a great deal of TV experience giving her both name recognition and some degree of respect among the “base” despite the “establishment” not taking her seriously. She may have been initially a fairly apolitical figure, but she is canny enough to understand that entering politics means not promising to be above the fray, but acting determined to defeat the villain occupying the White House. She could dabble in fringe views — she may even have a history of dubious tweets the elites send around to scoff at — but her pre-politics status as a mass pop cultural figure has the odd benefit of inoculating her against the political media’s attempts to define her as outside the mainstream.
If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that anything is possible, and a debate between Marianne Williamson and Donald Trump may well be the television event America deserves.