Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[CultureKing]

The important thing to note here are the results in Kshama Sawant’s district.

..I think it's pretty clear she's going down.

Ex: I'm a former Sawant voter who was fed up by her antics in the last year or two and know plenty of people who are in the same boat. The last election was heavily influenced by Amazon which created a perfect foil for Sawant. This go around all of the attention is solely on Sawant, which is not good for her prospects.

[PSOL]

The important thing to note here are the results in Kshama Sawant’s district.

..I think it's pretty clear she's going down.

Ex: I'm a former Sawant voter who was fed up by her antics in the last year or two and know plenty of people who are in the same boat. The last election was heavily influenced by Amazon which created a perfect foil for Sawant. This go around all of the attention is solely on Sawant, which is not good for her prospects.

Can Kshama Sawant run again if she is recalled? That, the results there for the 2nd, and the recall #s themselves will be vital to see how the future will be.

[Seattle]

I don't live in D3, but if I did, I'd vote no on the recall on principal (I generally feel that this should only be reserved for true wrongdoing & WI/CA gov recalls were dumb too). I fall in the same camp as CultureKing/Xing and would most likely vote against her in a one on one with a different candidate.

I think Harrell will be a better mayor than Durkan just based on his own council experience - which should make navigating city bureaucracy easier. I however have low expectations for him, particularly on the things that I care most about (housing/zoning + non-sov transportation).

I do wish Harrell the best of luck in steering our city these next four years - he'll need it - but I fear his vision is not going to prove effective. Happy to be wrong.

I voted for Oliver, but I think Sara Nelson will be fine on council. Davison on the other hand...

[Xing]

The other union rep at my school and I did a poll to see how much support there would actually be for the current NBIs, including supporting Sawant and funding “ethnic studies”, which could include CRT. So far, 75% are asking us to vote no on both. We’ll vote based on what the people in our building want,  though I’m not sure other building reps are doing the same thing, and may just vote based on what they want. I still think Sawant is going down, but I’ll be a bit annoyed if the union basically goes against what most of its members want.

[RI]

Inslee selects Steve Hobbs (my senator) for interim SoS.

[Ogre Mage]

I see political expediency in Gov. Inslee's selection of Sen. Hobbs for Secretary of State.  Inslee just removed a blockade to his climate-change agenda from the State Legislature.

[smoltchanov]

Democrats finally got SoS office. And i don't see more Wyman-type candidates in present mostly "solidly conservative" Republican party of this state.  So, Democrats got good chances to hold it next year..

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Inslee selects Steve Hobbs (my senator) for interim SoS.

How competitive is his district ?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Sawant participated in a "debate" with Henry Bridger II, the manager of the recall.  You can watch it on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2di6MI4hM&feature=emb_imp_woyt

I put "debate" in quotes because Sawant runs roughshod over both Henry and the moderator, filibustering and gish galloping along for almost 80% of the debate and refusing to shut the f--- up.  Very reminiscent of Trump's first debate with Biden.

Even if you knew nothing about the issues in this race or what they're debating... can't you just tell who's the hero and who's the villain by which candidate is being aggressive, uncivil, and relentlessly launching personal attacks?

[PSOL]

Sawant participated in a "debate" with Henry Bridger II, the manager of the recall.  You can watch it on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2di6MI4hM&feature=emb_imp_woyt

I put "debate" in quotes because Sawant runs roughshod over both Henry and the moderator, filibustering and gish galloping along for almost 80% of the debate and refusing to shut the f--- up.  Very reminiscent of Trump's first debate with Biden.

Even if you knew nothing about the issues in this race or what they're debating... can't you just tell who's the hero and who's the villain by which candidate is being aggressive, uncivil, and relentlessly launching personal attacks?

Dear god, we’re back to the “civility” meme of the late-2010s.

[The Invincible Brent Boggs]

Inslee selects Steve Hobbs (my senator) for interim SoS.

How competitive is his district ?

Biden +16. So, not too competitive, but perhaps enough so to make Democrats a bit nervous.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Sawant participated in a "debate" with Henry Bridger II, the manager of the recall.  You can watch it on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2di6MI4hM&feature=emb_imp_woyt

I put "debate" in quotes because Sawant runs roughshod over both Henry and the moderator, filibustering and gish galloping along for almost 80% of the debate and refusing to shut the f--- up.  Very reminiscent of Trump's first debate with Biden.

Even if you knew nothing about the issues in this race or what they're debating... can't you just tell who's the hero and who's the villain by which candidate is being aggressive, uncivil, and relentlessly launching personal attacks?

Dear god, we’re back to the “civility” meme of the late-2010s.

Being an absolute garbage person may have ended up being an asset for Trump but that doesn't mean it's an asset for all politicians.  Since I actually live about five minutes from her house and you live thousands of miles away, please listen to me when I tell you that most of the people in this district do not find Kshama Sawant's antics appealing.  They vote for her in spite of her being 100% trash.  The only people who like her despicable personality and behavior are SocAlt cultists, who constitute less than 1% of the district.

[Xing]

With all but a small handful left to count, looks like it’s Davison +3.8. A fairly close call, but definitely suggests that the politics of Seattle voters are a little more nuanced than most suggest.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Ballots for the recall are out, I've already returned my YES vote.

I was surprised to see that Sawant is allowed almost the entire ballot space to write her response to the recall, right above the bubble that voters fill in.





Her response contains numerous falsehoods.  For instance, she says the recall is "bankrolled" by "500+ Republicans", but there's absolutely no way she could know this since party registration is private and not reported on donations -- not to mention that 500 people is only 10% of the recall's donor base, so even if this were true, the use of the term "bankrolled" is very dishonest.  Sawant also doesn't donate her $140,000 salary to "social justice movements" -- she donates it to Socialist Alternative, which is herself, and her husband.  That's like if Bezos said he was "donating" his Amazon salary to Blue Origin and expected to be praised for it.

It's pretty shocking to me that she's allowed to write something this false right on the ballot, especially because the Recall language at the top had to be carefully crafted to satisfy various legal requirements and endured several court challenges regarding its truthfulness.

[GeneralMacArthur]

As a side note, the case made by Sawant and her media allies regarding the charges themselves is very inconsistent and muddled.

The second sentence in her response is "the courts haven't found her guilty of anything."  However, she herself already admitted to guilt on charge 1.  And in the second-to-last paragraph, she says "it's no crime to stand with BLM as Sawant did at the peaceful city hall rally", so she's admitting to guilt on charge 2 as well (yes, it was a crime).  So is she saying she's not guilty?  Or is she saying she is guilty, but shouldn't be recalled until the courts agree that she's guilty?

Sawant has also said repeatedly, including in the debate, that the charges are "completely false."  So which is it?  Like with so many Sawant things, it just feels like debating Trump supporters.  "Trump never did any of those things you're accusing him of, but also it's a good thing that he did them."  There's no integrity here, it's just making multiple layers of backup arguments simultaneously.

On charge 3 Sawant has gone to absurd and unbelievable lengths to try and demonstrate how false it is.  First she tried to claim that she didn't give out Durkan's address -- tough to believe, but impossible to prove, which is why this is a recall and not a criminal trial.  She could've just stopped there.  But then she tried to claim that the march was BLM-organized and she had nothing to do with it, which is absurd on its face, since she was the featured speaker at the march and the march was packed full of her Socialist Alternative people -- it was clearly a Socialist Alternative march where they used the more popular BLM banner.  Then she went even further and tried to claim that she had no idea what Jenny Durkan's address was and that she didn't even know they were close to Durkan's home.  This is just such an obvious lie.  You really think she was just a babe in the woods being carried along in this march where nobody mentioned they were going to the mayor's house?  On top of that, her speech was basically "hey Jenny Durkan, screw you, come out and fight me" so obviously she knew she was at the mayor's house.

The Stranger wrote an article endorsing her, where they start off by saying all the charges are false, but then later on go through the charges and admit that 1+2 are true (they repeat the Sawant talking points on 3) but say "we don't care if she's guilty, because we like her, so suck it."  Oops, sorry, the correct answer was "the courts have not found her guilty of anything."

[PSOL]

Socialist Alternative is not “her and her husband”. Sawant is not to my knowledge on the council that leads her party. The party does not even have an executive office.

More lies and lies from GMac. Taking the Trump playbook of repeating everything till you Hope it becomes believable.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Socialist Alternative is not “her and her husband”. Sawant is not to my knowledge on the council that leads her party. The party does not even have an executive office.

More lies and lies from GMac. Taking the Trump playbook of repeating everything till you Hope it becomes believable.

Sawant's current husband is an employee of Socialist Alternative and takes home tens of thousands of dollars a year in pay.  He is currently receiving a paycheck for his work on the Sawant campaign.  If Sawant gives SocAlt $25,000 and then SocAlt gives her husband $25,000 then yes she is paying herself.

But it's a silly point anyway because it's not like Socialist Alternative is some charity.  It's an organization that exists almost entirely to support Sawant.  It is her entire life and livelihood.  It is her sole interest and the entirety of her social group.  All that money she "donates" to Socialist Alternative gets spent promoting her image and helping her maintain political power.  Not to mention that a lot of the money she "donates" is actually mandatory tithing because Socialist Alternative is a weird f---ing cult and you get kicked out if you don't give them oodles of cash.

Her "donating" her salary to Socialist Alternative is basically the same thing as Michael Bloomberg "donating" $100MM to his own presidential campaign.  If Bloomberg had tried to claim that he was donating to "social justice causes" by labeling his own campaign as a "social justice cause" he would have been laughed out of the room.  But because it's your communist queen pulling this stunt, you have to defend her, even though deep down you know it sounds dumb af.

If maintaining her office is so important to her that she decides to spend her own money out-of-pocket to pay teenagers to stand around in red shirts waving signs and harassing people who walk by all day, that's her right, be my guest.  I wouldn't have a problem with it.  But she never misses an opportunity to be dishonest.  So instead she labels that as "donating my salary to social justice causes" and expects to be applauded for it.  It's just one of 100,000 different things Sawant does that's sleazy and obnoxious and I'm so sick of it all.

[PSOL]

What mess is this

Socialist Alternative is not “her and her husband”. Sawant is not to my knowledge on the council that leads her party. The party does not even have an executive office.

More lies and lies from GMac. Taking the Trump playbook of repeating everything till you Hope it becomes believable.

Sawant's current husband is an employee of Socialist Alternative and takes home tens of thousands of dollars a year in pay.  He is currently receiving a paycheck for his work on the Sawant campaign.  If Sawant gives SocAlt $25,000 and then SocAlt gives her husband $25,000 then yes she is paying herself.

So you are moving the goalpost and saying that they aren’t apart of SAlts leadership

But it's a silly point anyway because it's not like Socialist Alternative is some charity.  It's an organization that exists almost entirely to support Sawant.  It is her entire life and livelihood.  It is her sole interest and the entirety of her social group.  All that money she "donates" to Socialist Alternative gets spent promoting her image and helping her maintain political power.  Not to mention that a lot of the money she "donates" is actually mandatory tithing because Socialist Alternative is a weird f---ing cult and you get kicked out if you don't give them oodles of cash.

I’m almost sure that’s not all that they do. I’m pretty sure they have chapters in several states that run candidates, support unions through solidarity campaigns and financing of strike funds, and anti-war and anti-fascist protests. Then there’s the electoral work the DSA and Democrats assign them to though.

This “tithing”, lol, are called dues. So far I have not heard SAlt bankrupting their members or treating them terribly, and this is standard practice on all labor parties. On dues, if they are structured the same way as 1930s CPUSA or the modern PSL, it’s most likely a gradual dues bracket with discounts and exceptions for students and the unemployed. This grassroots funding makes the organization beholden to its members.

Her "donating" her salary to Socialist Alternative is basically the same thing as Michael Bloomberg "donating" $100MM to his own presidential campaign.  If Bloomberg had tried to claim that he was donating to "social justice causes" by labeling his own campaign as a "social justice cause" he would have been laughed out of the room.  But because it's your communist queen pulling this stunt, you have to defend her, even though deep down you know it sounds dumb af.

No, it’s perfectly correct because the organization does do all these things on their already shoe-string budget, made worse by the pandemic.

If maintaining her office is so important to her that she decides to spend her own money out-of-pocket to pay teenagers to stand around in red shirts waving signs and harassing people who walk by all day, that's her right, be my guest.  I wouldn't have a problem with it.  But she never misses an opportunity to be dishonest.  So instead she labels that as "donating my salary to social justice causes" and expects to be applauded for it.  It's just one of 100,000 different things Sawant does that's sleazy and obnoxious and I'm so sick of it all.

The work of SAlt in just Washington brought along a minimum wage increase, work towards affordable housing and actually solving the homeless crisis— and have given the nonwhite, small business, and working population in Seattle a real voice and representative in city hall.

Of course your sick of it, you hate any sort of thing that threatens your status and don’t want to share the table fairly with the oppressed in our society.

You know, if we were talking about FTP or the RCP you could have the excuse of muh Stalinism, but not here on a social democratic Party who likes to be edgy in calling their opponents tankies and supporting every single rebellion in all socialist states. Love of god this is weak sauce.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So you are moving the goalpost and saying that they aren’t apart of SAlts leadership

How am I moving the goalposts?  I said that "donating to Socialist Alternative is just donating to herself."  Both she and her husband profit substantially from Socialist Alternative activities.  Sawant is clearly the #1 beneficiary of all SocAlt spending.  Her husband literally draws his paycheck from her "donations."

I’m almost sure that’s not all that they do. I’m pretty sure they have chapters in several states that run candidates, support unions through solidarity campaigns and financing of strike funds, and anti-war and anti-fascist protests. Then there’s the electoral work the DSA and Democrats assign them to though.

What % of Socialist Alternative's campaign funds goes towards these hopeless no-name candidates, and what % goes towards keeping Sawant in power in D3?  The only other place they've even come relatively close is the Minneapolis City Council, and it's been 4 years since they tried there.  Their website doesn't mention any other political campaigns or candidates other than Sawant.

I've never seen any evidence of them "financing strike funds" or doing anything for unions, anti-war, anti-fash, etc. other than marching and raising signs (which are really just a means to try and recruit for the cult).  If they do these kinds of things, they don't talk about it at all.  My neighborhood is absolutely blanketed with Socialist Alternative media, and it's 100% promoting Sawant and her issues or attacking her many enemies.

The work of SAlt in just Washington brought along a minimum wage increase

Dear God am I so f---ing tired of this myth.  Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative didn't do a damn thing for the $15 minimum wage.  Go look up the Wikipedia article for the Seattle $15 wage and you'll find zero mentions of Kshama Sawant or Socialist Alternative.  All they did was show up at the very end of the movement to have a few Socialist Alternative events where they waved "Fight for $15" banners, and then Sawant took credit for the entire thing, and for some reason people decided to believe her.

work towards affordable housing and actually solving the homeless crisis— and have given the nonwhite, small business, and working population in Seattle a real voice and representative in city hall

She literally hasn't done any of this.  She's not anybody's representative.  It's impossible to speak to her or get her to care about local issues.  You call Sawant's office and you're redirected to a Socialist Alternative propagandist who tries to tell you your local issues don't matter and what really matters are the broad, global political issues she's allegedly fighting for.  The only thing she ever does for the district is seek out disgruntled tenants so she can hold events targeting their landlords for harassment and vandalism and then take credit for any good thing the landlord does.  Whenever there's public comment at city hall she packs the room with her own supporters so she's literally preventing anyone else from having a voice.  And don't get me started on how much mutual hostility and hatred there is between her and 95% of small businesses in D3 (really everyone except Squirrel Chops).

It continues to astound me how much you enjoy lecturing me about all the good Sawant has done for my neighborhood and how much we all love her.  I live here.  It's a very small district.  You can walk from one side of it to the other in half an hour.  I can probably list every single small business in D3.  But please do continue sitting up there in Illinois telling me all about how wrong my lived experience is and what a clueless idiot I am about my own district and my own representative.

[PSOL]

So you are moving the goalpost and saying that they aren’t apart of SAlts leadership

How am I moving the goalposts?  I said that "donating to Socialist Alternative is just donating to herself."  Both she and her husband profit substantially from Socialist Alternative activities.  Sawant is clearly the #1 beneficiary of all SocAlt spending.  Her husband literally draws his paycheck from her "donations."

You said her “and her husband” are SAlt, as in they were leadership. Clearly that was incorrect and now you are moving the goalpost

Both Kshama and her husband, who the latter works in the electoral division in the party long before getting married, at longtime members and party officials in the party along with any other job they both might have. SAlt is dispersed nationwide across the country, and in the upper brass there’s limited amount of social contacts for them to make.

So far there’s been no investigation into this precisely because the Feds won’t find anything, because most parties have strict measures to prevent embezzlement of funds. Her husband’s paycheck from the party comes from other sources from his work, and unless there’s credible evidence of wrongdoing this is all conspiracy horse••••

I’m almost sure that’s not all that they do. I’m pretty sure they have chapters in several states that run candidates, support unions through solidarity campaigns and financing of strike funds, and anti-war and anti-fascist protests. Then there’s the electoral work the DSA and Democrats assign them to though.

What % of Socialist Alternative's campaign funds goes towards these hopeless no-name candidates, and what % goes towards keeping Sawant in power in D3?  The only other place they've even come relatively close is the Minneapolis City Council, and it's been 4 years since they tried there.  Their website doesn't mention any other political campaigns or candidates other than Sawant.

I've never seen any evidence of them "financing strike funds" or doing anything for unions, anti-war, anti-fash, etc. other than marching and raising signs (which are really just a means to try and recruit for the cult).  If they do these kinds of things, they don't talk about it at all.  My neighborhood is absolutely blanketed with Socialist Alternative media, and it's 100% promoting Sawant and her issues or attacking her many enemies.

Well they are active in aiding the Minneapolis United for Health Control by guiding their chapters to fund and protest for rent control with them and all other [url=https://mpls4rentcontrol.org/]organizations

To maintain maximum unity in the face of a City Council which was already waffling, Minneapolis United for Rent Control shared Home to Stay’s call to action, which called on the City Council to vote yes on both “charter amendments.”

MINNEAPOLIS UNITED FOR RENT CONTROL IS ENDORSED BY NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS, INCLUDING:
THE HARRISON NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION, SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE, THE MINNESOTA NURSES ASSOCIATION (MNA), AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION LOCAL 1005 (ATU 1005), CORCORAN NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATION, CENTRO DE TRABAJADORES UNIDOS EN LUCHA (CTUL), MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES (MAPE), MINNEAPOLIS FEDERATION OF TEACHERS AND EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS (MFT 59), UNITE HERE LOCAL 17, CAIR-MN, THE RESTAURANT OPPORTUNITIES CENTER – MN, BLACK VISIONS, RECLAIM THE BLOCK, CEDAR RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY COUNCIL, SEWARD NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP, AYADA LEADS, TWIN CITIES DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA (TC-DSA), SHILOH TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES, THE MINNESOTA STATE BAPTIST CONVENTION, AND NUMEROUS OTHER FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS.

In Philadelphia, aside from aiding the DSA and Green Party’s campaigns, which amount to them aiding canvassing and helping organizing rallies, they also are involved in the fight against police brutality with other community groups. That’s not counting the individual actions for other progressive causes that individual chapters do, of which would be insane for me to list them out.

Like during 1/6, SAlt primarily gets members organized through their website or social media. Any notification of a protest going on then isn’t just for news purposes but a calling for members and entire chapters to attend.

Also, with stronger labor links than the DSA, I would not be surprised that they are involved heavily in the labor organizing EWOC. Given that SAlt’s memo is entryism, one of the main things they do is not take credit for their involvement in the greater organization to not take away momentum so as to not get purged.

Also,
Here is them helping the joint SAlt—DSA effort for city council. I would not be surprised that the candidate was a SAlt member, not like it matters given SAlt is effectively a unique faction in the DSA at this point.

The work of SAlt in just Washington brought along a minimum wage increase

Dear God am I so f---ing tired of this myth.  Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative didn't do a damn thing for the $15 minimum wage.  Go look up the Wikipedia article for the Seattle $15 wage and you'll find zero mentions of Kshama Sawant or Socialist Alternative.  All they did was show up at the very end of the movement to have a few Socialist Alternative events where they waved "Fight for $15" banners, and then Sawant took credit for the entire thing, and for some reason people decided to believe her.

Well no s•••, the Union leaders agitating for this for years don’t mention their political affiliation nor does Wikipedia have a fair method of sourcing party websites as in-itself news organizations. And no, SAlt did help in this by the massive canvassing campaign they did that finally did it in. Her election made it a reform or lose elections moment among the wider Democratic Party in Seattle. This is pure historical revisionism to say that her power and threat among Democrats haven’t pushed them left locally and in rhetoric, just as it’s effects have been seen nationally.

work towards affordable housing and actually solving the homeless crisis— and have given the nonwhite, small business, and working population in Seattle a real voice and representative in city hall

She literally hasn't done any of this.  She's not anybody's representative.  It's impossible to speak to her or get her to care about local issues.  You call Sawant's office and you're redirected to a Socialist Alternative propagandist who tries to tell you your local issues don't matter and what really matters are the broad, global political issues she's allegedly fighting for.  The only thing she ever does for the district is seek out disgruntled tenants so she can hold events targeting their landlords for harassment and vandalism and then take credit for any good thing the landlord does.  Whenever there's public comment at city hall she packs the room with her own supporters so she's literally preventing anyone else from having a voice.  And don't get me started on how much mutual hostility and hatred there is between her and 95% of small businesses in D3 (really everyone except Squirrel Chops).

It continues to astound me how much you enjoy lecturing me about all the good Sawant has done for my neighborhood and how much we all love her.  I live here.  It's a very small district.  You can walk from one side of it to the other in half an hour.  I can probably list every single small business in D3.  But please do continue sitting up there in Illinois telling me all about how wrong my lived experience is and what a clueless idiot I am about my own district and my own representative.

[/quote]
Going to her office in person is apparently different, given the connections across immigrant groups and labor SAlt and she has. This is further evident by the endorsement list against the recall and the policies pushed by SAlt, being endorsed by community leaders and small businesses as listed in the endorsement page. Your miasma on focusing on reactionary elements of the local Seattle elite is not my problem.

Housing is a human right and landlords should not exist, but this is another conversation.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Man it's so clear that you don't know anything about D3.  Please tell me, which immigrant groups feel that Sawant is their champion?  Which small businesses support her?  Which community organizations support her?

You see, you won't actually be able to find any.  Real community organizations, like the Capitol Hill Community Fund or GenPride, have never been on Sawant's side.  The only "community organizations" on her side are left-wing political organizations like MLK Labor or KC Equity Now, which call themselves the voice of the community, but clearly aren't.  These organizations also endorsed NTK, Oliver, and Gonzalez, who lost in a landslide.

Also you continue to post malarkey about $15.  You claim Socialist Alternative "finally did it in" with their canvassing campaign.  But your own link states that this campaign took place after Sawant was elected -- which would have been the same time that the city elected Ed Murray, who made the $15 minimum wage the centerpiece of his mayoral campaign.  The election of Murray meant that $15 was already a done deal by the time your "massive canvassing campaign" started.  As someone who actually lived here at the time and saw all this play out in real time, I can tell you for a fact that Socialist Alternative wasn't accomplishing anything with their campaign other than grabbing attention for themselves, stealing credit for the win and using it as a recruitment opportunity.

[Continential]

Did Thomas-Kennedy/Gonzalez win Sawant's district?

[RI]

Did Thomas-Kennedy/Gonzalez win Sawant's district?

Final precinct results aren't in for two more days, but NTK almost certainly did.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nu5A3_CdhifdkMix4Lx0TpaYA-poSMIF/view

Joint Statement from the Jewish, Black, and Asian Communities

“Justice, justice you shall pursue”
Deuteronomy 16:20

Religious and community leaders from across Seattle today joined together in support of the Recall Sawant campaign, issuing the following statement:

Today, we want to make something emphatically clear: Councilmember Kshama Sawant does not speak for us, nor our communities. Only we can do that, and only we should do that.

In making this statement, we encourage District 3 voters to support the Recall of Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

We have not come to this recommendation lightly. We practice and teach acceptance and forgiveness. But District 3 voters ought to be aware of Sawant’s long history of attacking our communities and hi-jacking our efforts.

Sawant regularly trades in rhetoric that gives rise to antisemitism, resulting in violence and hatred directed at the Jewish community. She has also stoked chaos in the black community and sought to hijack the efforts of Black Lives Matter organizers to promote her own political agenda. These behaviors have been well documented by news coverage and amount to a record that we simply cannot condone or support.

Kshama Sawant has consistently sought to exploit and politicize the painful circumstances of our communities for her own personal gain. These craven behaviors do nothing more than to further divide us as people and contribute to the incitement and spreading of hate.

The Seattle Asian community has repeatedly attempted to bring concerns to Councilmember Sawant regarding the loss of vibrancy in the International District resulting from the cities lax attitude toward crime in the district.

Sawant refuses to advocate for the Asian community because she falsely equates crime with poverty and exploits our problems for political gain. Small businesses are still recovering from damage sustained during riots where so many businesses experienced violent property damage and looting – much of which she encouraged.

Sawant appropriates the cultural identity of the Asian community for political gain and gamesmanship – but turns her back on the community’s needs. That is why we support the recall of Kshama Sawant.

Our communities support the recall of Kshama Sawant because she admitted to guilt in using city resources to support a ballot initiative and failed to comply with public disclosure requirement related to this support; she disobeyed state orders related to Covid 19 by admitting hundreds of people into City Hall on June 9th of 2020 when it was closed, endangering public workers; and, she led a protest to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s, the location which Sawant knows is protected under state confidentiality laws.

As the Seattle Times recently said in their endorsement of the Recall – “Voters should hold Sawant accountable for transgressions against civil governance and remove her from office”.

These are not characteristics of those who should be trusted to lead our people, and why we cannot support Sawant remaining in office.

Signed by a very long list of about 100 local faith+community leaders.

This probably goes against some narrative or something.

[Xing]

Glad that my union did not end up financially supporting her, although several members got very salty about that. There are much better progressives out there than her.