A Socialist Councilwomanfrom Washington

Kshama Sawant, Washington’s first democratically elected Socialist councilwoman in decades, won thanks to an etiquette that the local political system wants to avoid at all costs.

“People in this country are extremely frustrated and angry and outraged at the status quo, at the deepening income inequality, poverty, the political dysfunction of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party,” says Kshama Sawant in an interview with Amy Goodman. Such a statement could be made in any of the campaigns now taking place in countries within the Western hemisphere. In his essay “In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?”, Ivan Krastev explains that, in a situation of increasing dissatisfaction with a political system addicted to financial markets, parties of protest seem to be a natural choice and their populist rhetoric is typical for the postcrisis reality. Something totally opposite can be said about Sawant, Washington’s first democratically elected Socialist councilwoman in decades. She is a politician who opposes all the rules of the U.S. electoral system.

Sawant is a 41-year-old teacher of economics in a public college in Seattle. She speaks English with a strong accent, an immigrant from India. Sawant used to dream of a career in the technology industry, maybe in one of the hundreds of startups being set up in Seattle every five minutes over a coffee from Starbucks, which was also founded there. Eventually, going against her previous plans, she started studying economics. She became an activist under the influence of Karl Marx’s works and through the opportunity to observe the birth of the alter-globalization movement, and she has gone by classic Marxist theories until now. After 18 years in the United States, she took part in her first campaign, and in another one, last year, for City Council — and she won.

Sawant’s campaign was unusual because it did not draw on corporate funds, which is the basis of almost every campaign in the U.S. — the Obama-Romney race saw the climax of this tendency. Instead, she went a step further. She is connected to the “Occupy” movement and cooperates with local labor unions. Her political party is called Socialist Alternative, what may seem like a step toward disaster in polarized American public discussion. As rightly pointed out by The New York Times, Sawant won thanks to observing an etiquette that the local political system wants to avoid at all costs. The new councilwoman is not afraid of the S-word:

“We live in one of the richest cities in the richest nation on earth. There is no shortage of resources. Capitalism has failed the 99 percent. Another world is both possible and necessary — a socialist world based on the needs of humanity and the environment,” reads the official website of the campaign.

However, Sawant does not owe her success to slogans. In the last few years, she has proved to be an efficient activist, engaged in broadly understood politics. Better than anyone else, she sees the necessity for building effective coalitions, based not only on common dissatisfaction with the American political system, but also created on the strength of precisely defined class interests. Sawant is one of the organizers in the battle over increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour for city workers. If it comes out right, and the chances are high, it will be one of the highest minimum wages in the country and a step to federal reform — and $15 an hour does not come out of nowhere. Sawant explains that this is the demand created by the image of Seattle, which prides itself on one of the highest standards of living in the United States, as well as by the gentrification and success of the local economy. This graduate in economics has already convinced Ed Murray, mayor of Seattle, formerly a skeptic and ally of great tech corporations. The next economic battle will concern Boeing, which received the highest tax breaks in U.S. history, and still — in the face of unionist protest — threatens to reduce its job posts.

“That will be nothing short of economic terrorism,” repeats Sawant on any possible occasion.

It is hard not to compare her to historical female and male leaders of the labor movements. Sawant, just like Eugene V. Debs and the exceptionally strong unions in the Northwest, or the labor movement of the “Wobblies,” 100 years before, keeps referring to Marx and is a defiant supporter of working people.

Use of new media, disappointment with traditional structures and an emphasis on horizontal practices all seem a transfer of the best traditions of American Socialism to today’s times.

On the other hand, such comparisons are off the mark because we do not know if lower class still means anything in the United States. The Precariat, working poor and millions of those earning minimum wages have their common economic interest. Yet, electoral mobilization and snatching them [voters] from Republicans and Democrats differs from Seattle’s success, which was based on local coalitions. Sticking to Marx, Sawant needs to realize that, if she wants to promote a real socialistic alternative in the American political system in the years to come, she needs to take care of the foundation as much as superstructure.

She still needs to answer a few important questions. Perhaps, she should start with the famous [book] “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”, since she knows perfectly well what the matter with Seattle is.