Yay!!!!! She only won her recall by 300 votes so probably sees the writing on the wall.

Finally, some good news.

She retires undefeated, on her own terms and no one else's. All you haters might think you can gloat, but she beat you every time, you were impotent to stop her, and that's as much a fact as anything else.

HAHAHA. Look at all these basement dwellers predictably screeching impotently.

SHE BEAT YOU. Every time. And now she's leaving because of course she was going to you and you will never have another chance to nip at her ankles again.

You can fool yourselves all you want, you sad little Troll flakes. But you never beat her. HAHAHAHA.

"So far, no socialist from Socialist Alternative, the Democratic Socialists of America, or elsewhere has announced a plan to carry on her lefty legacy in D3"

In Sawant's 10 years on the City Council, Socialist Alternative has utterly failed to win any other elections anywhere else in the country. They've been unable to build a bench or create any sort of electoral coattails, and will have no presence in electoral politics after this ever again. Congrats, all.

It’s a win-win.
The haters see this as a win for Seattle City Council - which it is, because they will have fewer media-heavy distractions.
But it’s also a win for Kshama Sawant, because she can do what she does best - get media attention while organising workers.

good riddance.

“SHE BEAT YOU. Every time.”

What exactly did she “beat” anyone at? The $15 minimum wage actually got ahead of her, and she had to chase that bandwagon, diluting $15 Now! down to a phased-in plan so she could grab some credit. “Saving the Showbox” resulted in the City getting its ass kicked in court, and a million-dollar payout to a rich, right-wing property owner. The EHT was repealed whilst she was out celebrating its passage, and after an astounding number of signatures were collected in record time to repeal it. After repeated malfeasances, she was barely able to hang on after thousands of her fellow citizens petitioned for her recall.

Again, who did she “beat,” and what did anyone gain from it?

Roger @ 6: Oh, come on. You usually present a lot of well thought out and cogent arguments, but really?

You honestly think Sawant is leaving just of her own accord and not looking at her re-election chances? She barely beats a recall which has no other candidate and is purely on herself, and now is seeing the voters choosing between her and a candidate where Sawant’s usual class and race campaign would likely fail?

Locals may not know this but Sawant is absolutely adored nationally, she is a hero to socialists. Fortunately for us, the sycophants among her and national socialist voices whisper in her ear that she is "too big" for this little backwater town. She's a lot like Inslee when his ego and his entourage thought he could be president. It's a big relief to have her not having a vote on the city council but she was already neutralized. She can do a lot more damage on the outside, and can summon "motivated" activists with a snap of her fingers. Sawant ain't going anywhere, she's just not constrained anymore.

"One City Council seat cannot replace a nationwide movement."

What she means to say is: "One City Council seat cannot replace the mega-grift I could mount through a nationwide movement."

@12: She beat you in every election, you dumb fuck. What the hell did you think I meant?

@16: Yes, she won elections by ever-narrower margins, which has now proved unsustainable. So I guess, by your puerile ‘logic’, “we” finally BEAT her? Who are “we” in your little schoolyard-bully mindset? Voters of District 3?

(Thanks for admitting you’re running multiple accounts at once. Looking to get banned yet again, are you?)

@15, That's exactly right. She's run out of suckers to grift in Seattle. By going "nationwide" she can vacuum up from a much larger pool of fools.

What pissed me off, or maybe just disappoints me, is how many of my fellow progressives have fallen for her scam. Her concern for workers runs exactly as deep as Kyrsten Sinema's concerns for middle-class families. Both are concerned . . . about keeping the checks from the gullible rolling in.

Leave Kshama alone!!!! We're lucky she even performed for us!!!!

@17: My mistake: it appears that commenter “gripe” and our oft-banned prof’ are not the same person; they just happened to engage in the same puerile school-yard taunting, and whereas I was responding to our oft-banned prof’s puerile school-yard taunting, gripe thought I was responding to his puerile school-yard taunting. (To be fair, their two puerile school-yard tauntings are almost verbatim. Great minds, and all that.)

I apologize for my error. We now return you to celebration of Seattle’s civic good fortune, already in progress.

What in the hell is wrong with righties that they can literally lose every election possible against Sawant and still think at the end of the day they've won? News flash, my mentally corrupted friends: Donnie didn't win, Sawant never lost, and the Seahawks aren't in the super bowl this year (just in case your delusions also carry over to your sports teams).

The mental gymnastics needed to live in this right wing "reality" must be extremely exhausting. And at the end of their echo chamber circle jerk sessions, they're STILL miserable. Funny how that whole "If you don't like it, leave" mantra I've heard my entire life doesn't seem to apply to those actually saying it.

@24: “What in the hell is wrong with righties that they can literally lose every election possible against Sawant and still think at the end of the day they've won?”

Because “at the end of the day,” she’s gone, with no successor and no lasting good legacy. She quit before her neighbors could terminate her employment. They already came very, very close to declaring her unfit to serve them, and so she’s leaving ahead of losing what would be her last election. Why is that so hard for you Sawant fanbois to comprehend? Other Council Members are also declining to run again, so it’s not even All About Sawant, even though you want it to be. Citizens of Seattle have tired of the bad governance delivered by the current Council, and CM Sawant is the senior Member. It’s fitting she leaves ahead of getting thrown out by the very voters she served so poorly.

“News flash, my mentally corrupted friends: Donnie didn't win,”

Yes, and the 9/10 of Seattle voters who went for Clinton and Biden are happy about that. Are you so delusional you actually believe that only Trump supporters wanted Sawant gone? Because tens of thousands of voters in District 3 voted to recall her, and there’s no way they could all (or even mostly) be Trump voters. It was the voters of Seattle’s most liberal district who have shown CM Sawant the door, not your imaginary right-wing bogeymen. But you won’t give up your own mental gymnastics anytime soon, will you?