This article begs the question then: why the fuck didn't you support Sanders when it fucking mattered????

We don't need the Republican voters, we need to get our people to vote! In 2014 only 17 % of 18 - 24 year olds voted, solidly Democratic, but not enough to defeat the Republicans. The same goes for racial minorities, LGBT and the poor. Bernie would have won.

Reading the Stranger's radical chic anti-capitalist editorials juxtaposed with Sponsored Content from Delta Airlines Inc. is pretty hilarious actually.

@3

The first rule of showbiz is "know your audience."

Oh FFS, not her again.

I'm still waiting for your apology for actively using your influence to get people to vote for Jill Stein instead of Hillary Clinton -- not just in Washington, but in swing states like Pennsylvania. You have no right to criticize anyone else for anything, Kshama Sawant.

https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-w…

I respect her fanatical and uncompromising positions, but Kshama Sawant represents a small political pond, and her political reach is short, a few Seattle neighborhoods. One wonders if she would enjoy the support she now gets, if she tried to serve a larger slice of the pie, a slice that doesn't mirror her views...Me? I like blueberry...

1. Clinton received more votes than Sanders in the primary. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-…

2. Why won't Sawant commit to no longer appearing on Kremlin propaganda TV? (e.g.: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/3474…)

WE VOTED FOR THOSE TAX INCREASES, KSHAMA. It's not City Councils fault that the WA State Constitution forbids a state income tax! Stop picking fights, for fucks sake! Can we get some sane socialists up in this city, please?

For 100 years, all class politics has ever done is get a lot of poor people killers in revolutions, or oppressed under regimes.

People that vote for 'equality' over 'liberty' inevitably get neither. Politics that puts the right of the individual, not the grouping of the politically advantageous, is the only way to assure lasting peace, prosperity and opportunity.

why is Sawant supposed to have republican friends in the 1st place?

I don't. I have republican relatives.

This sounds grand except for the small problem that the preponderance of evidence clearly shows (to anyone not hermetically sealed in a left coast bubble anyway) that the masses of middle America are not seething with class resentment, they are seething with resentment of (their caricature of) hoity toity urban elitists, and minorities who are somehow simultaneously all on welfare and also taking their jobs.

Seriously people, read something else besides Slog. The views of your fellow Americans in the exurbs and small towns out there have been covered with forensic detail by such publications as the New York Times and the Atlantic. Your fringe left fantasies are completely out of touch with reality as is your conviction that there's this great groundswell of support out there just waiting to be tapped if you can manage to force the Democratic party to embrace your uncompromising positions (many of which, such as hefty tax increases combined with upending the employer provided healthcare system are wildly unpopular, regardless of how much sense they make).

Approximately seven minutes ago, Seattle reached peak Sawant. Now...It gets better.

@14,

You're correct, though you left out that one of the non-city dwellers biggest gripes is that they believe the cities are getting more in the way of services paid by tax revenue than the rural parts get. They think all their taxes go to pay for stuff in the big cities and they're ignored. The truth, of course, is that cities are the economic drivers and produce far more than they take. Whereas rural areas typically take more than they produce ("take" and "produce" meaning "tax revenue").

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to matter to them that they're wrong. Show them the facts and they simply say "well, it doesn't look that way where I live, all our streets are still full of potholes." They already take more than their share of public utility and assistance and they still want more.

When you never see anything other than your own backyard, it's hard to care about anything but your own backyard. Unfortunately selfish beliefs but that's what we're dealing with.

You're right that democrats aren't going to appeal to them... well, unless they do what the repubs did and simply lie to their faces that they cared about them. But I think that lie can only last so long.

@18 Ha! Funny I was just reading something yesterday that mentioned that belief about the cities getting a disproportionate amount of tax dollars. I must admit I was not aware of the prevalence of that particular alt-fact before. Must be careful not to give oneself a concussion by slapping one's forehead.

So, your proposal is to send Kshama fan boys to rural Washington to win over the Trumpies?

@20, no need to go to rural Washington, try leaving Queen Anne once in awhile; the Trumpsters are like,,,everywhere, almost like they're, like, Americans or something!!! It's shocking...

Sure, Americans' delusional self-denial about the existance of economic classes, and the slavish obeisance to the taboo against class analysis by the right and the left, certainly does inhibit progress. However, until I hear Sawant's apology for supporting the election of Trump, I will assume she still believes she can personally triumph with Shock Doctrine Socialism. Actually solving problems ultimately goes against this doctrine, so I wouldn't trust working with her on anything anymore than I would knowingly jump in a pool filled with water moccasins to cool off on 120 degree day in Phoenix.

@11. 40+ million murdered or frozen to death in Russia. 80-100 million killed in Maos cultural revolution.

It's a political philosophy that appeals to people who value compassion and fairness. Which is why it's attractive. But you have to read further to get to the application and where it goes wrong. It also calls for a 1000 year vanguard. Which is exactly where it gets murderous every time it is instituted. A dictatorship is set up which becomes synonymous with "the state" to oversee transition and redistribution. Humans can't have that kind of power and stay benevolent. We just don't have the track record. We do have a track record of killing people in the name of the people in these instances though. By the tens of millions.

Great article, good points. People need homes, jobs, healthcare, education and neither the republicans or democrats seem to have that as a goal.

"If only Hillary had been Bernie, then Democrats would have won!" Ignoring, of course, that Bernie WAS Bernie, and lost.

Funny how that worked out...

@24 ... oh, what's the use. Everybody else, at least read wikipedia before you spout off the these random numbers and the received wisdom you are supposed to accept that goes with them, particularly about China. Actually, in many more impactful ways, the science-bows-to-ideology of the current GOP is far more like the programs Mao pushed through that led the big famines in the late 50s than they are like the policies of Hitler. And the death toll from the Cultural Revolution 10 years later was probably 1/10 to 1/20th of your figure. On the other hand the adherence to the idea that facts of the natural world must bow and conform to ideological truths does move the famine death toll from the three years between 1958 and 1961-62 up to 45 million souls give or take. The GOP push back against those who want to try to do something about global climate change has likely already delayed things enough to leave Mao level excess deaths in the dust, and probably Stalin's too. But America is good, unlike those guys, so its all good.

@27. Youre right. I had included the famine toll (estimated 66, upper end) in the 80 number i put in my previous comment about the cultural revolution. Which in hindsight was misguided because the revolution wasn't about instituting communism as much as it was about Maos great leap forward and all the worthless steel and educated farmers that produced. Also, pretty much all death toll numbers from that era in china's history are educated guesses at best because why would china want to look at that part of their past with any degree of scrutiny?

My comment wasn't coming from a politically right or left standpoint, but thanks for the mansplain anyways. It was merely a,"look at the history of communism set in motion". Which as far as track records go, probably couldn't be worse... unless you're in the future and looking back at the current GOP??? Is that on wikipedia? Alas, i left my time machine in 1975, if you could take some pictures and send them back somehow i'd totally appreciate it and update that wiki page.

@28 You lay down the "capitalism is all good because Mao and Stalin" line - then you say I'm mansplaining when I point out you are being inaccurate and simplistic. What do you mean you aren't "coming from a politically right or left standpoint"? Pulling out those numbers in this context is inherently political. It is the main up against the wall argument put forward by the right for why we can't have national health care.

The rest of your second paragraph seems incoherent. Are you trying to use a time machine analogy to criticize my pointing out that the American right wing climate change denial is an ideological twisting of science that might now be losing us so much time that it results in an increased number of global deaths that will dwarf the death numbers of the Great Leap famine?

You should take same time someday to read up on the arguments that say broadly competitive capitalism is not only the best foundation for democracy, but actually a necessary precursor to stable democracy - because it works against the control of economic power, resources and decision making in a small number of hands, and undercuts nepotistic control of political power. This is the best argument for capitalism and democracy working togther, but the current trend towards wealth consolidation at the top and increasing monopoly control of production and resources undercuts the necessary competitive component.

I'll bet there are a lot of small brewers right now that wishing that there was public ownership or regulation of the world hops production now that Anheuser-Busch has captured enough of the world supply to have a functional monopoly control over US supplies for small brewers. But just like with the Epi-pen price gouging debacle, we can't have a constructive public discussion about what to do about these things because "Mao and Stalin." Teddy Rooseveldt wasn't such a coward when it came to monopoly as our current leadership is. Bunch a freakin toadies, Democrat and Republican. On the other hand, one of those two groups is happy to just up and have thousands of people die so they can get their treats, more Stalinish than Maoish, I'd say, since Stalin had explicit knowledge that the purges would cause large numbers of deaths. Mao was more of a fantasist.

The problem with Sawant isn’t that she wants to implement policies that will kill millions. Her problem is that she deliberately distracts people from grappling with the unpleasant realities that could cause the death of thousands in the near future, while embracing the idea that her particular political sect will some how be the beneficiary of major instability in the United States, although we seeing her work harder lately to gloss over that last part of her archaic mind.