Oprah Winfrey in 2020???

[lpetrich]

Oprah Winfrey's Golden Globes Speech Full Transcript - Oprah Winfrey Gave a Powerful Speech at the Golden Globes - Oprah Winfrey's Golden Globes speech, annotated - YouTube
From HB:

Oprah Winfrey was the recipient of the Golden Globes' annual Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement, and gave a powerful acceptance speech during Sunday night's ceremony.

Once Winfrey took the stage, she delivered an inspirational, uplifting speech which discussed race and gender and the fight for equality. She also told the story of Recy Taylor, a woman who fought for justice in the Jim Crow era after she was raped. "For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men," Winfrey said, bringing the audience to its feet. "But their time is up. Their time is up."

Great speech. But now this:

Sources: Oprah Winfrey 'actively thinking' about running for president - Jan. 8, 2018 According to two of her friends.

The two friends, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, talked in the wake of Winfrey's extraordinary speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, which spurred chatter about a 2020 run.

Some of Winfrey's confidants have been privately urging her to run, the sources said.

One of the sources said these conversations date back several months. The person emphasized that Winfrey has not made up her mind about running.

All I can say is: Oh, no!!!

 

[Jayjay]

Why the hell not. After Trump, anything goes.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The big problem with Oprah is that for years she has been a supporter of various pseudoscience cranks, woo and quackery. All of that will come back to haunt her if she runs.

 

[lpetrich]

Yes indeed. PZ Myers: No, Oprah is not going to be a viable Democratic candidate

n some ways, they’re perfectly good representatives of the yin and yang of our two political parties. Donald Trump: xenophobic, angry, crude, white male. Oprah Winfrey: kind, sympathetic, open, black female. They’re almost caricatures of the right and left. All they need to do is open their mouths in a public forum and stand there like the apotheosis of their representative parties, and people start clamoring to make them our real political leaders.

In the case of Trump, they succeeded, with disastrous results. In the case of Winfrey…most of what I’m seeing is rejection.

Oprah Winfrey helped create our irrational pseudoscientific American fantasyland.

Perhaps more than any other single American, she is responsible for giving national platforms and legitimacy to all sorts of magical thinking, from pseudoscientific to purely mystical, fantasies about extraterrestrials, paranormal experience, satanic cults, and more.

Most of the best-known prophets and denominational leaders in the New Age realm owe their careers to Winfrey. Her man Eckhart Tolle, for instance, whose books The Power of Now and A New Earth sold millions of copies apiece, is a successful crusader against reason itself. “Thinking has become a disease,” he writes, to be supplanted by feeling “the inner energy field of your body.” The two of them conducted a series of web-based video seminars in 2008.

Oprah’s long history with junk science - Vox

Orac: Oprah Winfrey for President? Does anyone remember all the pseudoscience and quackery she's promoted? - RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE For years, her guests had given Orac plenty to blog about. A continuous garish trainwreck of pseudoscience and quackery.

Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Jenny McCarthy, Deepak Chopra, Kim Tinkham, John of God, Christiane Northrup, Suzanne Somers, Eckert Tolle, Shirley Maclaine, lots of psychics, ...

She has promoted "The Secret" with its "Law of Attraction". Essentially, wishing will make it so. Except that it doesn't in the Universe that we live in.

Can you imagine what her in charge of the National Institutes of Health might be like? Clinical trials of "The Secret"? Her guests' favorite "therapies"?

 

[Opoponax]

Nobody wants Oprah for POTUS. All this does is give the fascist shitbirds masturbatory ammo so that they can all tell each other that "libtards want Oprah for President!" That shit has already spread to Facebook and beyond.

Never fucking mind the utterly unrealized irony of them ridiculing the notion of a zero-experience celebrity as POTUS.

Oprah is to be admired for many things, but this needs to get left behind ASAP.

 

[lpetrich]

To her credit, Oprah has a pleasant personality, and she does not seem very insistent on settling scores with people whom she thinks had wronged her. She also does much more charity work than Donald Trump family combined. Her life is a genuine rags-to-riches story, and she deserves credit for wanting to assist others rather than make life as difficult as possible for everybody but those at the top.

However, she has no experience in political leadership or military leadership, but she could brag about her success as a business leader, as Donald Trump has done.

Her religious beliefs will likely make lots of people scratch their heads. From  Oprah Winfrey,

Oprah was raised a Baptist. She was quoted as saying: "I have church with myself: I have church walking down the street. I believe in the God force that lives inside all of us, and once you tap into that, you can do anything."

"God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience [...] then that's not truly God." Frank Pastore, a Christian radio talk show host on KKLA, was among the many Christian leaders who criticized Winfrey's views, saying "if she's a Christian, she's an ignorant one because Christianity is incompatible with New Age thought."

From the Slate article,

When a Christian questioner in her audience once described her as New Age, Winfrey was pissed. “I am not ‘New Age’ anything,” she said, “and I resent being called that. I don’t see spirits in the trees, and I don’t sit in the room with crystals.” Maybe not those two things specifically; she’s the respectable promoter of New Age belief and practice and nostrums, a member of the elite and friend to presidents, five of whom have appeared on her shows.

I confess I look forward to watching the Religious Right get worked up over her.

 

[Elixir]

Nobody wants Oprah for POTUS. All this does is give the fascist shitbirds masturbatory ammo so that they can all tell each other that "libtards want Oprah for President!" That shit has already spread to Facebook and beyond.

Never fucking mind the utterly unrealized irony of them ridiculing the notion of a zero-experience celebrity as POTUS.

Oprah is to be admired for many things, but this needs to get left behind ASAP.

She could be uniquely useful; you can bet that whoever is put forth by the Democrats will become that same "masturbatory ammo" (with whatever help is needed from Uncle Vlad). She could serve to distract the rabble while someone else rises with relative invisibility, shortening their exposure to the shit-machine that is rightist propaganda.

 

[snoiduspoitus]

Say what you will about Oprah, but I bet she can at least point out 'Normay' on a map.

 

[Rhea]

Yeah, not a fan of OPrah for president, thought I’d love to see her as Oprah for fundraiser. OTOH, Oprah for Red Herring has a great ring to it, and she’d be fabulous at that!

 

[The Colourful Jester]

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Bluster aside, Pie here seems to sum it all up nicely.

 

[RavenSky]

Nobody wants Oprah for POTUS. All this does is give the fascist shitbirds masturbatory ammo so that they can all tell each other that "libtards want Oprah for President!" That shit has already spread to Facebook and beyond.

Never fucking mind the utterly unrealized irony of them ridiculing the notion of a zero-experience celebrity as POTUS.

Oprah is to be admired for many things, but this needs to get left behind ASAP.

She could be uniquely useful; you can bet that whoever is put forth by the Democrats will become that same "masturbatory ammo" (with whatever help is needed from Uncle Vlad). She could serve to distract the rabble while someone else rises with relative invisibility, shortening their exposure to the shit-machine that is rightist propaganda.

That's a good point

- - - Updated - - -

Say what you will about Oprah, but I bet she can at least point out 'Normay' on a map.

 

[barbos]

The big problem with Oprah is that for years she has been a supporter of various pseudoscience cranks, woo and quackery. All of that will come back to haunt her if she runs.

Deservedly so. And thhere are many other entertainment industry people are more likable, smarter and have better judgment than she.

 

[untermensche]

She is an ignorant talk show host.

Her appeal is that she shares the ignorant superstitions of many Americans.

A desperate stupid choice.

A sign of a Party that has no ideas.

The Republicans at least have ideas. "Serve myself by serving the rich".

 

[Hermit]

If Oprah Winfrey appears to be a good choice for the US presidency it is only in comparison to the incumbent. It is not easy to find a worse candidate this side of, say, Richard Spencer, though I have to concede that the majority of the Republican candidates offering their services in 2016 are worse too. The best of that sorry lot, Jeb Bush got nowhere.

What is wrong with those denizens of the USA who think that experience in the entertainment industry qualifies for political office?

Jonathan Pie - as linked to by The Colourful Jester - hit the nail on the head.

 

[Malintent]

She is an ignorant talk show host.

Her appeal is that she shares the ignorant superstitions of many Americans.

A desperate stupid choice.

A sign of a Party that has no ideas.

The Republicans at least have ideas. "Serve myself by serving the rich".

What are you accusing Oprah of being ignorant of? Is she willfully ignorant of whatever you are referring to, or is she capable and willing to address her gaps in experience and knowledge? Or, do you think she will just proclaim herself the best, most, greatest <anything>?
What superstitions does she share with "many Americans"? The superstition that if you do good for others then others will do good for you? Are you referring to her religion? I don't know anything about her in that way... Educate us.

 

[Malintent]

What is wrong with those denizens of the USA who think that experience in the entertainment industry qualifies for political office?

Lack of education, emphasis on submission to authority, culture of entertainers being highly revered, strong religious superstitions reinforcing "magic think", capitalism and it's grip on our political system, primitive instinctual tendencies to engage in competitive group sports..... I can go on and on...

 

[couch_sloth]

[YOUTUBE]<div style="position:relative;height:0;padding-bottom:56.21%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JWN0b7P1pB4?ecver=2" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" width="641" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>[/YOUTUBE]

Bluster aside, Pie here seems to sum it all up nicely.

I like the point he makes about people hating politics, but that we need a politician as president.
All of the best U.S. presidents knew how to play the political game, e.g. Washington and Lincoln certainly did.

 

[Opoponax]

I like the point he makes about people hating politics, but that we need a politician as president.
All of the best U.S. presidents knew how to play the political game, e.g. Washington and Lincoln certainly did.

Exactly. How many times have we heard someone derisively refer to a given candidate as a "career politician"?

It's ridiculous. It's an inch away from saying that people who don't know what the fuck they're doing should be running the government, and by extension, the military. The ridiculousness of it can be shown by pointing to any other occupation on earth and saying the same thing, e.g., there's two feet of water in someone's basement and they say, "I don't want a career plumber; I want someone who's gonna go down there and shake things up!"

 

[southernhybrid]

Sadly, there are quite a few Americans who seem enamored by the idea of Oprah for president. I'm hoping she's just having a little fun right now by pretending she might actually be interested in running, but considering that Mark Cuban has also considered a serious run for prez, who knows anymore? Maybe American politicians are just too too boring, by most folk's standards. For some reason, American presidential candidates need to have a charismatic personality in order to gain votes. That seems to be more important than knowledge and experience. I don't get it.

 

[Elixir]

Sadly, there are quite a few Americans who seem enamored by the idea of Oprah for president. I'm hoping she's just having a little fun right now by pretending she might actually be interested in running, but considering that Mark Cuban has also considered a serious run for prez, who knows anymore? Maybe American politicians are just too too boring, by most folk's standards. For some reason, American presidential candidates need to have a charismatic personality in order to gain votes. That seems to be more important than knowledge and experience. I don't get it.

A candidate's knowledge and experience are very difficult to discern by viewing a 30-second (limit of average American's concentration span) political ad. Charisma - not so much.