I looked her up. She is an educated woman. And she must be an amazing politician if she was elected by American constituents despite her genuinely socialist ideals. These people probably ignored her socialist propensity and voted for her so that they should have a smart and eloquent representative who seemed to fight for some of the things they believed in.
Ah, thanks!
She represents a very liberal area (so liberal that “liberal” is probably an insult there). She’s not an idiot, but I’d hardly call her eloquent or an “amazing politician.” It might be because I often disagree with her, but I find her public statements nonsense most of the time.
No. First of all, she really comes off a troll, not some ivory tower intellectual. Secondly, she’s running in the single most left-wing district in Washington state *, so I think the socialism is the appeal. She wins because of it, not despite it.
.* She won her initial election citywide, but we moved to districts for city council races after that.
Looks like you ninja’d me while I was trying and failing to figure out how to format that superscripted asterisk.
LINK from a local source This link also has the response from her.
The Fox article is lacking context and one-sided. The straight dope can be found in the local source urbanredneck cited, which hosts copies of Durkin’s letter of complaint and Sawant’s letter of response. The article also links to previously dismissed ethics complaints against Sawant, which are relevant since part of Durkin’s letter covers the same events that were previously dismised by the ethics and elections commission.
Basically Durkin accuses Sawant of “disorderly or otherwise contemptuous behavior”, and asks the City Council to exercise its right to punish or expel members for such behavior. The first two allegations are identical to complaints already submitted to and dismissed by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, but Durkin writes as if those investigations were still ongoing. It’s like a child who couldn’t get permission from daddy, now she’s asking mommy.
The third complaint is missing a date (it should be June 9, 2020). I think the complaint is basically that Sawant unlocked the door and gave a speech inside City Hall during a protest which was not following the City’s COVID-19 precautions (eg: masks, occupancy limits, distancing). If this allegation is true I agree that it amounts to “disorderly or otherwise contemptuous behavior”. That being said, I do not think this alone is bad enough to expel her. The protest was already going on so the only fault I can see is that Sawant opened the doors. A slap on the wrist seems more appropriate, and if voters care, the people won’t reelect her.
The fourth complaint alleges Sawant of illegally holding a rally and occupying City property on June 28. A photo was attached of a flyer, presumably for Sawant’s rally, calling for people to peacefully “camp/occupy in front of the East Precinct.” My opinion of this is identical to the above paragraph.
The fifth complaint as detailed in the OP and other comments is a more personal accusation that Sawant put Durkin’s family at risk by exposing her address, which was protected under a state confidentiality program due to violent threats against Durkin and her family. Presumably Sawant knew Durkin’s secret address because of her position as councilwoman. I think this one is actually a serious offense, and if true, I would probably want Sawant kicked off.
Unfortunately Sawant’s response letter basically reads, “Durkin bad person, Sawant good person” and offers no defense to any of the above allegations.
~Max
Just FYI: at the time I saw the story I couldnt find any other news sources besides the FOX piece and the other one.
Just FYI, it’s Durkan, not Durkin. And I’m no fan of hers (or of Sawant’s), but I think your summary here is on the nose: Sawant’s letter is completely non-responsive to the allegations. I’ll be very interested to watch how the council treats this. I don’t get the sense she has a lot of allies there.
You liberals here at the SD are all defending Sawant because she’s a socialist! If she were a Republican, you’d want her expelled immediately!
…reads thread…
Never mind. /Emily Litella
So somebody else described her as a self-described socialist?
I’m in her district. It is a left district (not left leaning, there’s no leaning). People here voted for her because of her socialism, not in spite of it. The area votes reliably 70%+ for the Democratic party and usually 80%+ (sometimes, a Green or further left candidate shows up and pulls part of the vote). The district has some of the richest and poorest areas in the city. She’s controversial, but her beliefs are very much in line with a lot of her constituents and not that far out of line for many of the rest.
How about you stay and puddle_glum leaves?
How are her actions being taken by her supporters? Would they allowed her to be expelled?
"The Seattle City Council won’t fulfill Mayor Jenny Durkan’s request to investigate and potentially expel Councilmember Kshama Sawant for alleged bad behavior, Council President M. Lorena González said Wednesday.
González said she wants the council to concentrate on other work."
It seems like the suggestion was to remove a politician from office for political activities. Short of being convicted of a crime and imprisoned it should be up to the voters whether she stays in office or not.
You can thank Trump for that. US “socialist” groups grew exponentially as a backlash to Trump, similar to how the far right grew exponentially as a backlash to Obama.
Most Americans don’t know the difference between socialism, social democracy, democratic socialism, communism, fascism, and universal healthcare (I don’t think I do, either). Ours is a short, violent, abrupt history full of race and class struggles, but under a mostly similar economic system and an elitist republicanism with limited suffrage – all mostly eclipsed by our post-WW2 prosperity and (until recently) status as the global hegemon. But once Trump dug our skeletons out of the closet and put them center stage, purposely stoking race and class fears for political gain, the natural response was to run in the other direction. We don’t have the history of experimentation and revolution that Europe, Latin America, and Asia have had. We’ve lived mostly behind a one-way mirror that allowed America great influence abroad, but not the other way around, and cultural flow from the rest of the world to the USA has been very slow. Americans are now busy relearning political lessons long ago learned by more mature societies.
Sawant is a symptom, and the underlying cause is our two-party system that doesn’t really allow nuanced democratic debate, just polarization. Once the Republicans decided to go all-in on the crazy, the only rational response for everyone else was to move in the opposite direction. At the federal level, a winner-take-all system with no parliamentary congress means the center is stronger (except where the Republicans use anti-democratic tactics to hold onto power), but those restraints are less powerful at the state and local levels. So ordinary citizens, fed up with the status quo from both legacy parties, are seeking alternatives, be they socialist or ethnonationalist.
So Sawant joined a protest. Big deal? Meanwhile Trump killed 100,000 Americans on purpose and continues to bait race wars. A little bit of civil disobedience here and there are just the death throes of our democracy, a failed civics killed not by the socialists but by a system of government so detached from its populace and so corrupt that it’s no longer meaningfully a democracy except at the local levels. These small spats between a councilwoman and the mayor are just reflective of American society in general growing ever more polarized and edging ever closer to collapse. There is no reconciliation possible under our current structure. It’s a take-no-prisoners kind of politics now, and only going to get worse if Biden beats Trump.
Seattle is just being real about it. Polite discourse is a relic of the last century, and no longer has meaning in modern America. We’re on a pre-war footing.
Sawant was first elected in 2013.
Got it, thanks. Still, Trump (and Sanders) did fuel a strong resurgence of the American Left.