Sure, the national election provided a cure-all for the will to live. But let’s not throw the whole bottle out with the booze. In Seattle, King County, and Washington State, we turned a deeper shade of blue last night. And there are a few things worth cheering about. Here are our six takeaways from the night as you numb the existential dread with your breakfast whiskey.
A Stranger Victory
Okay, because who doesn’t need a dose of levity to start off this morning. Once again, The Stranger’s anointed candidates claimed victory last night, at least locally. Like we said in the primary, we acknowledge that we had some overlap with lesser endorsement boards, such as the Seattle Times Editorial Board, in the race for Governor and Attorney General. However, we only endorsed the same person in the Superintendent of Public Instruction race because the Times had to come to our side on Chris Reykdal after Reykdal trounced the Time’s first choice in the primary. Our candidate for the 43rd Legislative District Shaun Scott also beat the Time’s choice in the primary, and yet the Times refused to see the light and endorsed Andrea Suarez, who Scott walloped. Current election results show him receiving 68% of the vote compared to Suarez’s 31%. Our candidates also swept in the race for Lands Commissioner, the open seat in the 5th Legislative District, and the citywide Seattle City Council seat. Also, we rightly endorsed a “no” vote on the Initiative to eliminate WA Cares, which created a public long-term care option.
Our endorsement has never carried more heft and girth. We promise to protect you from the loathsome choices of the Seattle Times Editorial Board in perpetuity.
Washington voters rejected the right
Donald Trump won last night. We’re concerned about the growth of right-wing populism in this country and what will happen as Trump rebuilds the federal government in his image with his cadre of idiots: JD Vance, Elon Musk, RFK Jr., and his dumbass sons. So it’s heartening that Washington elected Democrats who will fight that version of the federal government and that voters heartily rejected the right-wing in this election.
In the 43rd District, “Democrat” Andrea Suarez suffered a colossal and deserved loss. The Executive Director of We Heart Seattle, who zealously aligns herself with far-right proponents of treatment-first homelessness policy, ran a stupid campaign that played to the basest, most reactionary fears of Seattleites. Even more concerning than her ideology was her sheer ignorance of how policy even works. The fiercely progressive Shaun Scott earned 67 percent of the vote in the first ballot drop because he was a strong candidate with popular policies that appealed to a broad coalition of progressive voters in a renter-heavy district. Also likely to face sweet defeat is Trump-backed Joe Kent, who currently trails Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
The statewide races for Superintendent of Public Instruction and Attorney General were not blowouts like the Suarez-Scott race, but the MAGA-y candidates David Olson and Pete Serrano are lagging far behind Superintendent Chris Reykdal and Nick Brown. Olson ran on proudly opposing DEI and “critical race theory” as a school board member and encouraged voters to join Moms for Liberty, an extremist group. Serrano is all about undermining gun safety laws and wouldn’t commit to enforcing our shield law for people seeking abortions and gender-affirming healthcare, which will be a very big fucking deal now.
State Executives Ready to Tangle With Trump
With President Donald Trump primed to retake the Oval Office, Washingtonians can at least take comfort in the fact that we elected two of the best people to defend Washington’s laws in our future Governor, Bob Ferguson and future Attorney General, Nick Brown. Ferguson, who as of election night led the race with 56% of the vote compared to former US Representative Dave Reichert’s 43%, took the stage Tuesday night to thank his supporters before acknowledging the grim outlook facing the nation in its presidential election. Ferguson declared that if Trump once again became commander-in-chief, no other statewide candidate in the nation would be more “prepared to defend your freedoms against that administration than I am.” During Trump’s last term, Ferguson sued the administration 82 times, challenging policies on issues such as access to contraception, 3-D printed guns, and most notably Trump’s initial travel ban on people from seven majority-Muslim nations. Right alongside Ferguson working on the response to Trump’s travel ban was Brown, who ended election night with 56% of the vote compared to Pasco Mayor Pete Serrano’s 43%. At the time of the travel ban, Brown worked as general counsel to Governor Jay Inslee and worked closely on that issue with Ferguson’s office. He also promised in his campaign to defend the state’s shield law. Together, Ferguson and Brown seem to be the perfect dynamic duo to fight any policy that a Trump presidency could bring to Washington state.
Washingtonians Love A Tax
With the projected defeat of three out of four of the proposed ballot initiatives, Washington voters sent a clear message to millionaire hedge fund manager Brian Heywood: We love taxes, especially on the rich. Washington voters seem likely to reject I-2109, I-2117, and I-2124, all of which would have cut taxes. I-2109, which early results showed 63% of people voted “No” on, would have eliminated the state’s capital gains tax. I-2117, which 61% of people voted “No” on as of election night, would have ended the Climate Commitment Act–a cap-and-trade program that effectively acts as a tax on companies exceeding the emissions cap. Finally, I-2124, which 55% of people rejected, would have eliminated the WA Cares program, a tax that helps people pay for long-term care.
Heywood billed these initiatives as “Vote yes, pay less,” and Washington voters took one look at how voting “Yes” would cut funding to schools, cut money for transportation and clean water, and end a program that could help them and their families in a health emergency, and they said, “No.”
In fact, the only bill they did vote “Yes” on had no clear fiscal impact, I-2066, which sought to make it easier and more affordable for people in the state to switch from gas to electric power. On election night, I-2066 still remained tight, with 51% of people voting “Yes,” and 48% voting “No”. It’s easier to scare Washington voters into voting against a bill based on unfounded fears of being forced to give up their gas stoves than it is to convince them that cutting taxes benefits them.
So THIS is Why Even-Year Elections are the One Thing Sara Nelson Hates More Than Progressives
Council President Sara Nelson argued against moving local elections to even years and it’s clear why — under a more representative democracy, her pearl-clutching ideology would lose every single time. Typically, Seattle elects its City Council members, Mayor, and City Attorney in odd years, which tend to have much lower turnout than even-year elections. This year, because Council Member Teresa Mosqueda ditched her citywide position early, Seattle got to vote for a council member in a presidential year, the highest turnout opportunity of them all.
In a more representative sample of voters, Seattle picked a progressive, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, over conservative Tanya Woo. This marks a strong rebuke of the policies of the current conservative council, headed by Council President Sara Nelson. The current council won their seats in 2023, when about 46% of voters cast a ballot for their district seats. In all seats but one, a race between progressive Council Member Tammy Morales and Woo, the conservative contender prevailed.
This year, more than 56% of registered Seattle voters cast a ballot and the progressive candidate, Rinck, scored 57.3% on night one. Her support will likely increase as late ballots come in. But even if her results froze, she garnered more votes than all the council winners of 2023 combined. She’s also a few thousand ahead of where Nelson finished in 2021. So maybe the NextDoor types hold the “majority” of seats, but Rinck holds the majority in representation.
Capitol Hill is Still a Communist Hellhole
And we wouldn’t have it any other way. After Council Member Kshama Sawant decided to give up her long-held City Council office, political commentators began lamenting (or mostly celebrating) the end of socialism in Seattle. No clear successor emerged from the barrage of milquetoast candidates who ran in the District 3 race in 2023. Instead, the city’s most progressive district elected Joy Hollingsworth, a centrist who attempted to permanently enshrine a subminimum wage for restaurant workers. Politicos forgot the neighborhood’s lefty sensibilities so quickly, 43rd LD candidate Andrea Saurez tried to smear her opponent, Shaun Scott, by calling him a communist. As it turns out, the LD that contains Sawant’s old stomping grounds doesn’t consider “communist” an insult. Scott, a candidate endorsed by both Democrat and lefty organizations, won his seat in a landslide – almost 68% to Saurez’s 32%. So basically, if you’re a Capitol Hill communist (bonus points if you have a funky colored mullet), you might have a chance at beating Hollingsworth if you run a truly leftwing campaign. Or maybe these results give Hollingsworth a little wake-up call. An image of Hollingsworth at a Saurez campaign event floated around Twitter a few months ago. If your preferred candidate, who shares your constituency, loses dramatically, you should probably take note and adjust accordingly, i.e., stop attacking workers’ rights.
“After Council Member Kshama Sawant decided to give up her long-held City Council office,”
… She campaigned in Michigan for Trump, with her stated purpose to “punish” Harris by denying the Democrats the presidency.
It appears she has succeeded.
I hope Sawant supporters everywhere, but especially at the Stranger, will take their appropriate amount of pride in their long enablement of her.
“Our endorsement has never carried more heft and girth. We promise to protect you from the loathsome choices of the Seattle Times Editorial Board in perpetuity. ”
Jesus Christ, fuck you all.
@1 you apparently can’t count because even if Harris won Michigan she’d still have lost the election. So assuming for the sake of argument Sawant actually had anything to do with the Michigan result it was still irrelevant. Do yourself a favor and get over her.
@3: And, as expected, the very same persons who once described her greatness now say she’s utterly ineffectual at advancing her political agenda.
Thank you for agreeing with her critics; we started saying that exact same thing, a long time ago.
What took you so long?
Kshama Sawant is a horrible person.
We’ve got a lunatic for president, but I guess the purity of the democratic socialist’s is intact.
dear kristofarian
[Bernie’s always so Formal],
this is Bernie’s latest
Missive* to Me:
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
First, it was the white working class,
and now it is Latino and
Black workers as well.
While the Democratic leadership
defends the status quo, the
American people are angry
and want change. And
they’re right.
Today, while the very rich are doing
phenomenally well, 60% of Ameri-
cans live paycheck to paycheck
and we have more income
and wealth inequality
than ever before.
Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for
weekly wages for the average American
worker are actually lower now
than they were 50 years ago.
Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents.
[marinade in That
for a moment]
And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse.
Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
We,
alone among
major countries,
cannot even guarantee
paid family and medical leave.
Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.
Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?
[only when it Hits them where it
Counts, Berine – in the
fucking Wallet ~ til
then, then
Nope].
Will
they understand
the pain and political a-
lienation that tens of millions
of Americans are experiencing?
Do they have any ideas
as to how we can take on the
increasingly powerful Oligarchy
which has so much economic and political power?
Probably not.
[Not
Their
Problem].
In the coming weeks and months
those of us concerned about grassroots
democracy and economic justice need to
have some very serious political discussions.
Stay tuned.
–Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
thank Gawd we Never elected
THIS GUY ^ in the 1st fucking
Place, eh? The “D”NC’s
Got it under Control
Tho. Trust Them.
And Welcome Back
To the Whitehouse,
Mister “president.”
will it be a
Schweep!?
*Bernie sent This
to Me TODAY.
can you Believe it?
@4
my
how
Good
your are
at the Cutting
here’s another election
nite takeaway from
one of my
Faves
at the Chris Hedges Report
The Politics of Cultural Despair
It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what the Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.
In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs.
Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering.
Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating.
The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump.
It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base – 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel.
The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement.
The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
–by Chris Hedges; Nov 06, 2024
oodles more of this brlliant, big-pic little essay:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-politics-of-cultural-despair
@7: “my
how
Good
your are
at the Cutting”
Thank you! Are you now beginning to understand* how I swiftly cut straight through your nonsense, no matter how much of it you pile up, or from so many sources?
*For only those values of “understand” which can possibly apply to you.
so
Bernie
Sanders
the Independent
JEW from Vermont
whose policies Americans
Adore is nothing but “nonsense”?
oh
wormmy!
how Far you’ve
fallen. but congrats!
on your trumpfian Victory:
you’ve
Earned it!
now, kindly,
bugger t
f off.
from Democracy Now:
Robin D. G. Kelley
on Trump’s Election Win:
“We Can’t Keep Relying on the Democratic Party”
We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump’s election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party’s traditional constituencies.
Kelley says he agrees with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Democrats have “abandoned” working-class people. “There was really no program to focus on the actual suffering of working people across the board,” Kelley says of the Harris campaign.
He says the highly individualistic, neoliberal culture of the United States makes it difficult to organize along class lines and reject the appeal of authoritarians like Trump. “Solidarity is what’s missing — the sense that we, as a class, have to protect each other.”
oodles:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/7/robin_dg_kelley?
Or we can just listen
to the Wormtongue.
@10: I once lived in Vermont. Yes, Bernie is a local hero there. Everyone understands he has the right views and does a good job. Here’s a couple of things persons not in Vermont may not understand:
The Democrats choose not to nominate a candidate to oppose him. This is because he tends to caucus with him, but also because if they split the general election vote with him, then Vermont’s REPUBLICAN governor may win the senatorial seat he has long coveted. (Said governor is an old-school Republican, pro-choice and all that, but he would still caucus with the Rs.)
So, local-hero and all-around great guy Bernie continues in the Senate from Vermont, but only because the Vermont DEMOCRATS graciously allow him to do so. There is no guarantee they will continue to do so, and if you want them to continue doing so, you might not want to antagonize them. Just sayin’.
@12
yeah
Wormtongue
you’re Always juss sayin’
here’s what They’re
“just saying” over
to the nyt:
Devastated Democrats Play
the Blame Game, and
Stare at a Dark
Future
In interviews, lawmakers and strategists tried to explain Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to misinformation, the Gaza war, a toxic Democratic brand and the party’s approach to transgender issues.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/politics/democrats-kamala-harris.html
the top two
Readers’ comments:
The only reasonable response I’ve read here is from Bernie Sanders and yet they keep ignoring him and his points. It’s infuriating to listen to other democrats pretend the issues they care about the most are going to get them elected.
–Josh; Queens, NY
Harris voter here. I really wanted her to win.
But if you lose the senate, house, electoral college, and popular vote, and you think the lesson is that half the country is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and stupid, then that is the wrong lesson to take away from this election.
Democrats have to seriously look back at themselves and a party as a whole, understanding how important the economy really is to Americans, and the certain bit of moral flexibility which comes into play when people are struggling to afford basic necessities.
It wasn’t Israel and Gaza that lost us the election, but the bank accounts of over half the country living paycheck to paycheck. Being the VP of the country during this time put Harris in a particularly hard position, and the voters are looked for a change.
–Luke; Minnesota
oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/politics/democrats-kamala-harris.html#commentsContainer
@13: The higher the turnout, the better the Democrats do. So maybe the lie about how there’s no difference between the two parties needs to be corrected wherever it is heard?
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this “Just In!” :
from Democracy Now!
Breaking the Sound Barrier
Biden
Can Make
Every Lame Duck Day
Count by Stopping the Killing Now
Donald Trump will become President of the United States on Monday, January 20th, 2025. Until that time, though, President Joe Biden remains in the Oval Office.
Biden spoke to his cabinet and staff Thursday in a Rose Garden address: “Now we have 74 days to finish the term, our term. Let’s make every day count. That’s the responsibility we have to the American people.”
There is much Biden can and should do in this “lame duck” period, before disappearing over the horizon in one final trip aboard the presidential helicopter, Marine One (unless he takes the train to Delaware, as he proudly did throughout his Senate career).
He has a narrow window in which to act, and could do significant good, repairing some of his own mistakes and blunting some of what Donald Trump has pledged will begin on Day One.
First and most importantly, Biden should suspend all arms shipments to Israel. Period.
Not one more bomb, not one more bullet. Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza is increasingly described as outright, livestreamed genocide.
The Israeli military is now forcing the entire population of the northern quarter of the Gaza Strip to leave for the south.
This follows the release of “The Generals’ Plan,” drafted by retired Israeli military officers, calling for the systematic denial of humanitarian aid in the north, which has been labeled ethnic cleansing.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this week, “The army has begun the stage of cleansing the northern Strip while it prepares to hold onto the area for a long time to come.”
Israel is using US taxpayer-funded arms to decimate Palestinians in Gaza, in clear contravention of US and international law.
The people of Gaza are trapped, under siege, surrounded by the Israeli army and navy, with armed drones, helicopters and …
–by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan;
tonnes more:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/7/amygoodman_column_11_07_2024
smokin’ Joe’s
Legacy can soon go
from the Democratic Spoiler who
Handed it All to eltrumpfster – an RBG-
sorta gambit – to the Man who Slowed bibi
nutnyahoo’s
little Genocide
Down, somewhat
it
Ain’t
Too Late
quite Yet Joe to
DO the Right Fucking Thing.
@16: Yeah, making the last thirteen months All About Gaza just worked so well for everyone in the United States (and the world), you guys really need to double down on it now.
What would Sawant do?
a shitstain
you are to
tS’s pages
Wormtongue.
bugger
off.
@18: The erudition, sophistication, and respect with which you support your (and the Stranger’s) positions never fails to impress.
Please keep up your great work! 😀
“The
Cruelty
IS the Point.”
–@Wormtongue
oh and first runner-up:
(re Israeli Genocide)
‘There
is no Excuse
for Terrorism.
Fucking
Ever.’
–@also wormmy
lightly paraphrased
& yet 100% Accurate
(see: “tensorna” and its
insidious comment history)
@20: You’re the one here who persistently fails to quote yourself saying the things you loudly claim to have said. You might want to demonstrate some ability with your own words, before you start your cliff-face ascent of paraphrasing anyone else’s words.
nah. they can
either read my
history or not but
I pity those tasked
with consuming yours
if you’re truly
Desperate I spose
I might scare up a few
more reviews of youse, wormmy
your
rebuttals
of which’re
Brilliant I am
Certain even tho
I Seldom take the
time to peruse them
[your ‘vile pro-
jections’ being typ-
ically just too Much]
let me
know perhaps
I’ll be forced to set by
this miserable Machine & a little
precipictical distraction might prove Welcome
@22: “nah. they can
either read my or not…”
“they” didn’t repeatedly and confidently state you’d written certain things, then repeatedly and utterly fail to provide so much as a single example of your having written those things. That was you, on both ends.
“I pity those tasked
with consuming yours”
You read my comments, even (or especially, as here) when you loudly claim you haven’t. So we should pity you, then? (Hey – that may actually be the most accurate comment you’ve ever posted here!)
Please keep us updated on Biden’s upcoming suspension of all arms shipments to Israel.
Period.
Biden spoke to his cabinet and staff Thursday in a Rose Garden address: “Now we have 74 days to finish the term, our term. Let’s make every day count. That’s the responsibility we have to the American people.”
There is much Biden can and should do in this “lame duck” period, before disappearing over the horizon in one final trip aboard the presidential helicopter, Marine One (unless he takes the train to Delaware, as he proudly did throughout his Senate career).
He has a narrow window in which to act, and could do significant good, repairing some of his own mistakes and blunting some of what Donald Trump has pledged will begin on Day One.
First and most importantly, Biden should suspend all arms shipments to Israel. Period.
Not one more bomb, not one more bullet. Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza is increasingly described as outright, livestreamed genocide.
The Israeli military is now forcing the entire population of the northern quarter of the Gaza Strip to leave for the south.
This follows the release of “The Generals’ Plan,” drafted by retired Israeli military officers, calling for the systematic denial of humanitarian aid in the north, which has been labeled ethnic cleansing.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this week, “The army has begun the stage of cleansing the northern Strip while it prepares to hold onto the area for a long time to come.”
Israel is using US taxpayer-funded arms to decimate Palestinians in Gaza, in clear contravention of US and international law.
The people of Gaza are trapped, under siege, surrounded by the Israeli army and navy, with armed drones, helicopters and …
–by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
tell us again
Wormtongue how
all this Terrorism we’re
raining down on Palestine
is totes Justified and a little
Retribution is Good for the Soul.
if I happen to
skim your “Vile Projections”
(thanks & HT, Catalina Val duRay!)
& vomit all over my laptop it’ll be mine own fault.
@24: So, did Biden suspend arms shipments to Israel, or not?
my gott
but you’re
a Time thief.
pass.