City Jan 19, 2023 at 11:11 am

Sawant Showed Seattle What Was Possible (Even When No One Listened)

She routinely pissed off people in power on behalf of the poor and the working class. Gotta respect it. Kelly O

Comments

1

Boy, the SLOG trolls are jizzing all over their basement apartments right now.

3

So "trolls" are anyone who disagreed with Sawants agenda and abrasive infectual style? How intellectually dishonest - you don't have the wit to debate and resort to ad hominem attacks. Makes me sad. Inset sad emoji here.

4

Worst council person ever. She saw the writing on the wall that her grift was up. No amount of ballot printing on the sidewalk and vote harvesting from homeless encampments not in her district was going to overcome a strong challenger this time around. It will take years to undo the damage she did to this city. Good riddance

5

This summary of Sawant's tenure on the Seattle City Council is pretty accurate: Sawant is good at complaining about perceived problems, but generally fails to implement solutions. Shouting at people through a bullhorn is a lot easier than building the coalitions necessary to effect meaningful change.

7

In summation... Good Grief....that took long enough to run her out of town.

It's like Churchill said about the Americans... They will exhaust all options before they do the right thing.

Now we can get to the task of cleaning up the horrific mess, stink and disaster this woman created.

Let us hope the city as a whole has learned from this terrible, terrible leader.... Never Again!

8

“…though right now it seems like she’s mostly concerned with yelling at popular progressives for betraying workers and the movement, etc.”

Ya think?

“…capacity to annoy coalition-building Democrats will run for office and win seats on the council.”

How does the Stranger believe government actually works in Seattle, where liberal Democrats generally receive at least 70% of any given vote? Why is “coalition-building” a bad thing in a pluralistic democracy like Seattle?

12

None other than own beloved Hannah King gets the FTW:

"Alexa, play taps"

https://twitter.com/hannahkrieg/status/1616155009888157698?s=20&t=D2YVw9u4WOQcVWMcs-BJug

13

I'm old enough to remember when the average number comments on even innocuous Slog posts reached in to the dozens and into the hundreds for controversial posts. The fact that this post has (as I write this) a dozen comments speaks volume to how The Stranger's readers have abandoned the publication. Why? Look no further than this drivel.

14

@13 I dunno. Sawant was one of the few things that seemed to drive engagement the last few years for TS. I would say the traffic decline has more to do with their political bent in general and outright gaslighting so many readers about the issues in city. Losing Sawant is definitely going to hurt the ad revenue as clicks decline further. That's probably the real end of the era Rich is lamenting.

16

@13 spot on! The fact is, Marxists don't offer solutions, only problems, and sooner or later someone points this out. Again, much damage has been done. Again, it is time to rebuild ...

17

My hope is she'll move some place far, really far, like New Zealand. I hear they have an opening for the role of Prime Minister!

18

Sawant was a scold and a shouter, never a leader who could rally people to her ideas, other than the extreme lefty crowd. She rarely moved people on the council to vote with her, which means she failed. She rarely did much homework, developed expertise or cultivated relationships to gain council votes. She preferred being a celebrity, like the House Freedom Caucus performers. Maybe someone else can emerge who can run with her causes but not in a way that turns people off.

19

“Yes,” Sawant said. “I want to say to everybody who’s watching: This is what you need to do. You need to engage in civil disobedience—nonviolent civil disobedience—in order to fight for your rights.”

Alternatively, one could vote for, endorse, and support candidates that don't take away important rights. Like, for example, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But Sawant supported neither. And in doing so, she helped Donald Trump.

That's Sawant in a nutshell: take the wrong stand on candidates when our rights are at stake by pretending Democrats and Republicans are the same. Then when Republicans show that they are in fact different, stand around with a bullhorn yelling about how terrible they are with no apology for being so utterly wrong.

20

Hahaha. The Micheal Scott’s of SLOG, after being unable to unseat Sawant after many humiliating tries, find out she’s not running again (after her literally saying for years she was only going to be in local politics for a short time):

“ WE DECLARE VICTORY!”

Or more like the Black Knight in the Holy Grail after getting your arms cut off:

“Alright. We’ll call it a draw! Come back Sawant! We’ll bite your legs off!”

Hahaha. God you fucking delusional losers.

21

"What she did do, though, was use her voice to tell the city what elected officials could do if they contained an ounce of her will."

but the Status Quo!

"Without Sawant or someone like her on the dais, the range of what’s possible shrinks to anemic, technocratic nibbling around the edges."

that's okay.
the 'republican'
Abyss beckons.

22

"Without Sawant or some-
one like her on the dais,
the range of what’s pos-
sible shrinks to anemic,
technocratic nibbles."

23

@20: Look, she’s leaving ahead of losing, she accomplished little during her long tenure, and her dwindling numbers of supporters have nothing better to do than come here and hurl insults. It’s over. Admit it, and move on.

“after being unable to unseat Sawant after many humiliating tries,”

Her massive landslide election in the recall vote was truly inspiring, yes.

“…after her literally saying for years she was only going to be in local politics for a short time…”

Quote and url, please.

24

a daily dbl!

25

Hello, I am Tensor's friend.
Sawant's accomplishment is day and night comparing 20 years ago. Business closed and an abounding homeless camps all over Seattle.

Socialism work, 😉.

28

Yea Team!
GO SAWANT

….and take Jayapal with you.

29

all the articles "above the fold" are about Kshama.
I'd say the stranger staff are more excited about this announcement than all these so-called right wingers I keep hearing about. really fucking milking this one.

30

Couldn't have been more counter-productive to progressivism than if she were dreamt up by Karl Rove.

33

Kshama Sawant: AMF already.
The Stranger: Your re-definition of the descriptor "conservative" has a rather Orwellian taint.

34

@3 Nobody said that everyone who disagrees with Sawant is a troll. What they said, and what the comments since have proved is that all the right-wing trolls here came out in force with their Kashama hate.

@33 Liberal and conservative are usually relative to their context. Joe Manchin is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. That makes him "conservative" in terms of the Democratic Party as a whole. Adam Kinzinger is a traditional conservative who voted with Trump most of the time. Most people consider him conservative. He dared to call Trump's coup treason, so he's not far enough to the Right for the GOP, and they call him a RINO. That's because the conservatism of Reagan and Goldwater is far to the left of the current GQP, because they espoused liberal ideas like representative government and fair and free elections.

35

I'm going to miss having Kashama Sawant on the City Council. With Oligarchs like Gates and Bezos around and influencing politics, having a voice always pulling the council to the left has been very handy. Especially when it means the "compromise" is going to be progressive, not centrist. She was also very useful as the big target she put on herself drew economic and media fire away from the progressives on the council.

36

Sawant had a corrupt relationship with Scott Morrow and Sharon Lee, two kingpins of the Homeless Industrial Complex. When Mayor Durkan's Human Services Department tried to defund Morrow's SHARE organization because SHARE couldn't show that it was moving people from their shelters and camps into permanent housing (indeed that was never SHARE's goal), Sawant invited Morrow to set up a protest encampment at city hall. After several weeks of that, the council gave in, overrode the HSD/Durkan decision, and restored SHARE's funding.

To repay the favor, Morrow asked his shelter and tent camp residents to turn out for Sawant rallies and speak in Council chambers in support of Sawant's various proposals. Their motivation for doing so was that they could thereby fulfill the "participation credits" they needed to remain in the shelters and camps.

It's no accident that the rise of homeless camps and shack villages around the city coincided with Sawant's time in office. It was all part of Scott Morrow's plan.

You can read more about Sawant and Morrow's relationship here...

https://roominate.com/blog/2016/anatomy-of-a-swindle

38

@36: We’ll, that was feeble, even for you. Of course CM Sawant used homeless persons to manufacture the illusion of public support for her nonsense. When you call 49+% of the voters in your district “racist,” and “right-wing,” you don’t get a groundswell of popular support in return. Funny how politics works.

And it’s hilarious listening to you fanbois scream about how she was never defeated, right after she quit ahead of losing. Last time, she almost literally lost to nobody, and only gobs of out-of-city money, and ballots harvested from god-knows-who, saved her. Now a woman of color is running for District 3’s seat, so CM Sawant can’t play the race and gender cards. If she implied her opponent was a lackey of white men, then we’d start talking about the leadership of SA, now wouldn’t we? (Who else has the privilege of sitting around for their entire lives, arguing over the minutiae of Leon Trotsky’s writings, and tediously plotting a revolution which will never, ever happen?)

39

Now that the city in knee deep in economic problems and despair, its only natural to look for a scape goat. ... well I suppose she is not exactly a scape goat, as her policies really brought down the wrath of economic consequences we now enjoy.

Yup... her legacy will be with us for years and years to come.

41

@34: Old grey beard lefties like me find being described as conservative an absurdity.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

42

@34: You know what’s not “relative in context”? The term, “racist.” As in, “racist, right-wing recall,” which CM Sawant used (and the Stranger faithfully parroted) against the citizens of District 3 who tried to hold her accountable for her malfeasances in office.

Now, she (and the Stranger) never clarified who, exactly, in Seattle’s most liberal district was “racist.” Was it just the longtime gay liberal Democratic activists who filed the recall petition? Was it also the thousands of citizens in District 3 who signed for her recall? Was it the tens of thousands who voted for her recall? No matter, because claiming that District 3 was any hotbed of racism simply insulted the audience and abused the language.

If you don’t like the “hate” you claim to see here (but have yet to quote from), perhaps CM Sawant should have engaged with the thousands of her fellow citizens who signed to recall her, instead of just labeling them as “racist”? Maybe she could have explained why she performed the acts of malfeasance described in the recall petition? Maybe she should have respected her fellow citizens’ rights “to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” instead of taking them to the Washington state Supreme Court, in her failed attempt to silence them?

Maybe she should not have so eagerly led by example by her use of hate speech, adversarial tactics, and polarizingly divisive political ‘leadership’?

Maybe all of that is why she’s now quitting, rather than wait for her “racist” neighbors to terminate her employment?

43

@42 Yes, the predominantly white business community that opposed a South Asian Socialist was completely racist. When systems of wealth and power oppose people of color, it is ALWAYS racist. Just as the vast majority of people who oppose her, especially here, are racists.

44

@1 RogertheShrubber, @34, @35, and @43 Greenwood Bob, & @37 shoobop: +5 Spot on for the WIN!
I wonder how many of the usual anti-Sawant MAGAts in this SLOG comment thread are renters. How many will feel the cost prohibitive shark bite of property owners' backlash once the progressive voice for fair wages and more feasibly affordable housing in Seattle has officially gone 'bye-bye?

@9: Ask your mom, very nicely, to help you with your glaring grammar and spelling issues before she jacks up the rate for your basement rental. Maybe if you're lucky she'll offer you a Scottie tissue.

45

@43, @44: Thanks for going all-in on the libel; at least you’re honest about your flagrant dishonesty.

Here’s a friendly hint: when you’re losing so desperately, you’re even willing to throw the term “racist” at Seattle, you’ve truly got nothing, and should slink away before you fall even more pitiably behind.

(Oh, and thanks also for confirming CM Sawant is leaving, in part, because the District 3 seat now has a woman of color running for it, so Sawant would not have the option of playing the race and gender cards this time.)

46

Fighting evictions without actually controlling rents did nothing except increase the misery of apt dwellers stuck living next to addicted psychopaths and other miscreants who gave away their right to housing by being inconsiderate and miserable neighbors. LMK when any of you are stuck living next to fentanyl addicts. It's a real blast, let me tell you, but the Stranger reps mostly people living in homes.

So Sawant helped NOONE by making eviction harder, and coddling people who belong in mental institutions, not general public housing.

As for her other impractical ivory tower ideas, they don't work. I would agree that the supposedly leftist city council is feckless, but how is Seattle going to make its own laws, when nothing on the federal level or judiciary supports any of it? What Seattle needed to do is fight the developers throwing all of the artists out of affordable housing in Pioneer Square, but clearly, they weren't able to get that done, and that started 25 years ago, before Sawant anyway.

All she ended up doing was creating a bogeyman for the right, not the left, to use to blame the left for every problem they helped cause on a national level. Not going to blame her exactly but her shrill old third-world left diktat theoretical approach didn't help either.

The American left need to stop selling out, but they can't, because the prizes are too yummy. America is on its way to failed nation status. Just like Russia, turns out being a superpower is a curse because all you manufacture are worthless citizens in the process who are thoroughly brainwashed to march into wars and fascism.


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