Photography by Ananya Mishra

Seattle lefties gathered at the Space Needle this weekend to hype themselves up for what promises to be a rough four years under a second Trump administration. Speakers acknowledged that the future feels foggy, and that it’s unclear what the first fights will be.

Unlike many of the protests around the country, Seattle’s wasn’t organized by the Women’s March or driven by Trump’s attacks on abortion, women, and LGBTQ rights. But it was an important opportunity for local activists to start saying some of our new realities out loud: that we’re about to have a president that seems determined to level Gaza, deport both documented and undocumented immigrants, undermine worker power, and continue to allow cops to kill with impunity. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, not everyone left feeling hyped. The protest lacked the same energy that they harnessed in the wake of Trump’s election eight years ago, or even some of the other protests around the country this weekend. The calls to action—“resist, organize, fight”—felt too vague, especially when the left has had so little success organizing on the national stage. “It felt like we went from resistance to resignation and that this was just perfunctory,” one attendee said. 

But we’re also only six days into this new paradigm. And we captured what promises to be the first protest of many as Seattle’s left finds their footing, and their energy. 

 

 

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

21 replies on “Seattle’s First Rally Ahead of Trump 2.0”

  1. Thank you for the headline photo. Ten solid years of CM Sawant ends with a banner (begging?), “Build the People’s Movement!”

    That may well have been the most damning critique of her ever published.

  7. The anti-Space Needle person looks like a whiny little bitch. Move back to Helena, or wherever they come from.

    Thumpus dear, the “left” did more than its share to guarantee there will never be a Free Palestine, but they’ll continue to advocate for it, even as The West Bank gets annexed and Gaza becomes the next trump Golf resort (until it becomes the next 70’s era Beiruit)

  10. @7: “…Gaza becomes the next trump Golf resort (until it becomes the next 70’s era [Beirut])”.

    Difference being the Lebanese capital required a long civil war (partially fought by the PLO) to level it, whereas Trump’s tacky, overpriced, cheaply-built constructions will all soon collapse in the first stiff breeze off the Mediterranean.

  12. “The calls to action—“resist, organize, fight”—felt too vague, especially when the left has had so little success organizing on the national stage. “

    That is both the strength and the Achille’s Hell of the left, Hannah dear. How do you craft a message that will appeal to the broader public without a bunch of hangers-on diluting it? How do you make your message accessible without being either condescending or “my-way-or-the-highway”? How do you eliminate the purity tests?

    “The Left” used to be pretty good at all of that, but – like “The Right” – its gotten smug and self-satisfied. The difference is the right has the infrastructure, and has convinced the working class and elderly that they are on their side.

    We need a Joe Rogan. By that, I don’t mean a middle-aged, drug-addicted bro boy, but rather a media figure who is not dogmatic, and doesn’t care about purity tests. Rogan’s talent is that he presents himself as an everyman, he invites conservatives on, asks a few lame questions that his audience would probably ask, and his message is “I guess that sounds good, but what do I know?” He’s not trying to be the smartest kid in the room.

  13. “ Seattle lefties gathered at the Space Needle this weekend to hype themselves up for what promises to be a rough four years under a second Trump administration.”

    Still no mention in The Stranger that this “rough four years” is exactly what Kshama Sawant wanted. Maybe the protestors aren’t super energized because the people they thought were there leaders turned out in the end to be Trump supporters.

  14. pretty sure

    the donold’ll give

    the Left plenty enough

    repression to re-Energize it

    after they’ve turned in all the Lefties

    which way will the Center go?

    will they become the

    New left?

  16. @13: For ten years, Stranger commenters wondered what force in the universe could possibly have the power to make the Stranger stop promoting Sawant. Turns out it was her openly being exactly what we commenters had always said she’d been, “Seattle’s Very Own Trump of the Left.” Who’da thot, huh?

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