(Image: Office of Kshama Sawant)
Capitol Hill’s representative on the Seattle City Council is holding a town hall to help coordinate and organize a busy month of protests, walkouts, and actions centered around MLK Day and Inauguration Day.
District 3 rep Kshama Sawant will host the Resist Trump Coalition Town Hall January 14th at City Hall:
Brothers and Sisters,
We don’t have a moment to waste in getting organized against Trump’s racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, anti-lgbtq rhetoric, proposals, and cabinet members.
Join the Resist Trump Coalition and my office at City Hall to help build the biggest possible protests against Trump on January 20th and 21st.
Detailed information about the agenda for this meeting will be provided asap.
Solidarity!
Kshama
A Sawant staffer tells CHS the Socialist Alternative councilor is focused on Seattle’s response to the incoming Trump administration and the threat she feels it poses to constituents.
Sawant has led her party’s call for “global days of protest” on January 20th and 21st.
Let me guess… This will turn out to be all about promoting Kshama Sawant and not so much about any kind of useful resistance.
Exactly. Sawant is all about herself. We, the constituents of her district, take a back seat to her other priorities.
Our city has a lot at stake in making a Trump Presidency ineffective and organizing a strong resistance. Those who suggest that Kshama Sawant is grandstanding for her own purposes are the same people who are fine with sitting back and letting the policies of the new administration unfold and run roughshod over vulnerable communities.
Yeah. Besides, it beats doing her real job.
Ryan, what’s up with your false dichotomy? Your last sentence makes you come across as a social justice warrior with a great white hope complex.
There are a lot of us that are all about preventing Trump’s campaign rhetoric from becoming policy but are turned off by Sawant’s ineffective grandstanding. Attending protests in Seattle are not going to change a single thing in DC. If you really want to make a difference, stop with the slacktivism, go to swing districts in the Midwest/rust belt, recruit and campaign for local talented candidates. If that’s a bridge too far then spend your money on them. But don’t trick yourself into thinking that participating in liberal protests in one of the most liberal cities is actually going to do something other than making you feel good about yourself.
The country already has a pretty good system of checks and balances without a few liberal warriors whining about a lost election. It won’t change a thing and Seattle will just become the laughingstock of the nation.
Just check out Jaypal being shut down by Joe Biden.
“It’s over” pretty much sums it up.
Jayapal.
Rachel Maddow covered the Indivisible Movement on her Wednesday show. The Indivisible Guide was written by Congressional Staffers and they explain what does, and doesn’t work. Signing online petitions, sending form letters, and doing protests in areas where your politicians are already with you is a waste of time. Protesting in Seattle is pointless. Apparently Sawant hasn’t figured this out yet. But when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Watch: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/online-guide-helps-focus-anti-trump-movement-847942211696
Sawant grandstands in a parasitic way, plastering her face/name on to events others have worked hard to create, thus taking away (massively) from the message and experience of those actually involved. Meanwhile she can’t be bothered to respond to constituents reaching out to her on a regular basis.
ryan just because we oppose Sawant’s tactics does not me we will standby and let trump ruin this country. Frankly I put both of them in the same category of useless,ineffective, loudmouth politicians.
I get it that people like Sawant basically lump Democrats and Republicans together, and see the entirety of them as the enemy*. But when the choice was as stark as the one this past election, sometimes putting aside your personal politics and supporting the non-insane of the two viable candidates for president would have been more productive. But instead, we get more pointless grandstanding.
*From the Socialist Alternative, posted on their site on 1/4/17:
“The Democratic Party is tied by a thousand threads to big business and Wall Street. While many reason that the existing framework of the party is valuable and makes reforming it easier than launching a new party, the opposite is true. The Democrats’ existing structures will be used as weapons against Our Revolution and other progressive reformers, as was already on display during the elections. To even have a chance at seriously challenging the Democratic leadership, Our Revolution and groups like it would themselves need to have a grassroots activist character, with local groups and democratic decision-making instead of the current top-down model. But this would actually point toward the outline of a new party.”
Is Sawant still planning to go to D.C. And “try and disrupt the inaugeration”?I think the Secret Service and Capitol police are prepared for her.
Kshama is a public figure. A lot of what she does will bring her attention, good or bad. Going to her home in India for her wedding raised some eyebrows.
The resistance to Trump has to start somewhere, and cities like Seattle will be at the forefront. CA is also gearing up for battle. Reaffirming Seattle as a sanctuary city is one positive move. I didn’t see people here accuse Murray of grandstanding then. Rallies like this energize people, and give them hope. What, are we supposed to lay down and hope that things will be different in four years?
Affirming Seattle as a sanctuary city was a concrete action that actually accomplished something. This rally is just a bunch of screaming by people who mostly won’t do anything else tangible or productive. But Seattle excels at that.
Seattle’s been a sanctuary city since 2003, so Murray’s declaration was more symbolic than concrete action. Rallies bring people together with a common purpose, energizing them and bringing ideas together. It isn’t a result in itself, but it’s a beginning.
Can I ask what your plans are for the next four years? Or will you wait for the next election and hope and pray other voters come around to seeing your point of view?
Yeah, you can ask. I’ll probably just keep volunteering at the same non-profit I’ve been at for the last 15 years, trying to provide actual direct-benefit to people. I don’t have time to waste stomping around screaming and preaching to already-converted, when my Congressperson is already on the right page and the end result of all the “focused rage” is pretty much nothing tangible. Maybe I lived in a “Red” district, or the protest was staged elsewhere, where their Rep hadn’t seen the light, it might be a different story. But these protests aren’t happening anywhere like that, are they?
There is a difference. Murray is the Mayor of the city, and therefore it’s appropriate for him to speak out on a city-wide issue. Sawant is a district rep on the City Council, and so it is not appropriate for her to grandstand on a national issue (Trump’s Presidency). She needs to stick to doing the job she was elected to do.
Jim, you seem to be assuming that people at these rallies have no other involvement. That isn’t true, and even if it were, gatherings like this can empower them to go further.
A movement has to start somewhere. Silence is our worst enemy.
Bob, that’s ridiculous. Among other things, council members vote on all city wide issues, and often sound off on national issues. Seattle takes a national leadership role on some matters, including a living wage.
“Jim, you seem to be assuming that people at these rallies have no other involvement.”
Yup, that’s pretty much what I’m saying. I have no doubt that for about 80-90% of them, they contribute not one hour on any regular basis to any community service organization that provides any tangible benefit to at-risk or people in need in their community. For the vast majority of them, all they do is congregate when any random protest happens, then go back to their normal lives. As a city, we’d be in far better shape if we had fewer incensed protests and even 20% of these crowds actually pitching in to concrete, tangible activities that helped their local citizens and neighbors. That’s my point.
Please note that I did not criticize Sawant for speaking out on city-wide issues….that of course is her responsibility. But she has shown on many occasions that she wants to become a player on the national stage and that this is a priority for her. Again, she should stick to what she was elected to do, and that is to represent the citizens of Seattle, and specifically our district.