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I'm Mark Baumgarten Managing Editor for Crosscut and your host for this edition of Northwest Newsmakers.

Today, I'll be speaking with Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant about her role as the longest serving City Council Member.

The challenges facing the City of Seattle and whether her socialist solutions are the answer to those challenges.

Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that there will be an audience Q&A near the end of our conversation.

You can submit a question in the chat section on the right hand side of your screen, right over there.

Okay.

Now onto the show.

A new year arrives with ongoing challenges for the city of Seattle among them.

The COVID-19 pandemic intractable homelessness widening wealth in housing gaps and strains on business, a new Mayor and a slightly more moderate city council suggests a new approach, but longtime council member Kshama Sawant is emerging from her own election victory with ahead of steam and solutions from a familiar socialist playback that seeks to place working people, renters, and other disenfranchised Seattleites at the center of city policy.

After narrowly defeating a widely watched recall attempt in December, Sawant called the result of progressive victory over big business influence, but the recall effort also affirmed how much of a polarizing figure she remains.

Today we'll talk with the council member about how she's approaching legislating after the recall attempt and what path she proposes for our city.

council member Sawant welcome to Northwest Newsmakers.

- Thank you for having me.

- Okay.

So like I said, I wanna talk about the, the future of the city, but I wanna talk about the past a little bit as well.

You are the longest serving Seattle City Council Member.

You started your term in 2014 briefly.

I'm wondering if you can share what you see as the biggest difference between the city when you came into the council and today.

- I think the victory that we had against the recall effort like last year was the culmination in many ways of what we had demonstrated already in 2013 with our first city council victory.

And then since then we won two other elections.

And then, then we defeated the recall.

So essentially you can say that socialist politics have been able to win concretely for different elections, not to mention the historic $15 on our minimum wage victory, the Amazon Tax Victory, and the unprecedented renters rights that we have won using this sort of fighting worker led approach, worker and renter led approach.

And so I think what we've seen to the November elections is what...

If you are genuinely a progressive, if you are a worker who's looking for a city that becomes affordable and liable for like yourself, then what did November show in Seattle?

November showed that both progressive performative politics did not win, did not carry the day and as a matter of fact, Lorena González lost their elections to they openly pro-corporate candidates.

And instead with everything stacked against stars getting an unprecedented December election, thanks to the State supreme court, the so-called Liberal Supreme court, we were able to defeat the recall, despite everything stacked against us that shows you that a fighting approach does work and that has been working.

And ultimately this whole year is going to be a year of labor struggles and it is going to be as you alluded to how it's polarizing.

It's not that I'm personally polarizing.

What I stand for is a polarizing idea and it shows you the deep class divide in our system and that's going to continue to play out.

- So get to the recall.

I do wanna talk about it a good deal.

I am just wondering more of aside from the politics, just as you look at the city and you looked at the city in 2014 and you saw a city with a lot of problems and a lot of promise and I'm just curious, just sort of, as you look at the city, what the problems that have diminished and what are the ones that have increased in severity in your eyes?

- I mean fundamentally, if I was to given an honest viewpoint on this, then I'll have to say that ultimately, this is still, we are still under a capitalist system, which is overwhelmingly not in favor of the interest of the majority.

I mean, regardless of what your ideological viewpoint is, let's look at the facts and the facts are that even since the pandemic and the pandemic happened well after our first election victory.

So what have we seen in the last eight years?

One of the things we've seen is that housing has become less and less affordable for the majority.

As a matter of fact, it is an issue that is creating...

Despite all the polarizing that you're talking about, it is an issue that is actually creating more unity among working people, because even people with what used to be considered as a decent salary are hardly able to maintain a foothold in this city and this entire region.

And that problem has only gotten exacerbated because of the pandemic throughout the pandemic.

We saw the largest corporations, the wealthiest continued to amass trillions of dollars in fortune while working people saw a crisis like never before.

So I think that is part of the change in this city as well.

So in terms of what has gotten better, what has gotten worse?

I would say, what is dramatically different in a positive, progressive direction is the overall consciousness.

The idea that ordinary people can get organized, can get can fight back and we can win that has seen a complete shift.

When we were talking about these things in 2030 in our campaign even the most run meaning working people were skeptical about it because in our lifetimes we hadn't seen that kind of fight back and victory.

And since then, not only have we seen the socialist victory through our office in Seattle, we've seen the West Virginia teachers struggle win, and we've seen a debate, a genuine debate really spring up around the nation.

And Seattle is the microcosm of that, of what is really the way forward if we want to head in a progressive direction.

But I'll just end on the question of polarizing, because that's a crucial one.

I think the right has also made...

Dangerous games since in the period of the last eight years.

And that is genuinely scary and it is genuinely something that should concern us.

But the question is, what is the best way to defeat that right.

Is to build a left.

- Okay.

So you, you mentioned the the pandemic there and like certainly pandemic has a major influence on the city, in the last couple of years and early on, there was a good bit of chatter that this kinda shared emergency that we were living through or still living through would result in policy that served those in need better.

And I think that contention has been tested.

I'm curious what you've seen in regards to that.

Do you think that the pandemic has made us a better society that does more to take care of the people most in need or has it reaffirmed doubts in the ability of our society to do that?

- I think it has done both but which point you're looking at, I think really depends on a major class divide in the sense that ordinary working people globally, not just Seattle in the United States, but globally really demonstrated, incredible shared sort of, a shared commitment to help each other out.

The idea that we can all... That we are all in this together really got amplified, really came to the fore you know, people know this instinctively, ordinary people know the instinctively, but it really came to the fore to the crisis of the pandemic because it was a shared crisis.

What was not shared though, was the burdens of the crisis.

And also, as I said, even despite the pandemic, actually during the pandemic and this is just an...

This is stunning indictment of the failures of capitalism that even during unparalleled crisis, the rich got even richer than ever before the investment by banks into fossil fuel infrastructure.

It kept increasing in at record levels.

So all of these shows that you cannot look at that's happening in society.

And then in an honest way, without a cost lens, I mean, ultimately who suffer in the crisis and who continues to suffer is very much the working class and the poor.

And this is not...

It's not a beating hard idea.

It's a question of recognizing reality and then trying to respond to it from a human angle.

And if you're a human being and you are not outraged by what has happened, then the is something wrong there.

And so fundamentally if we agree that we have to have a humane outlook, those are the facts to pay attention to.

And just to make it very concrete.

The City Council Members make six figure salaries.

I'm the only one who takes home the average workers wage and donate the rest after taxes to a solidarity fund.

So City Council Members make six figure salaries.

They're still sitting in the safety of their homes, comfortably doing zoom meetings.

so that's their work.

And at the same time all eight Democrats on the city council in November voted in an attempt, they didn't succeed in that attempt, but ironically thanks to Mayor Durkan, but they didn't succeed in...

They had an attempt to end the $4 an hour hazard pay for our grocery workers who among those who are on the front lines in this crisis.

And these are the same workers that are survey recently, show us that are facing historic levels of homelessness and hunger.

This is outrageous.

We just saw days ago, Mayor Harrell has to end the eviction moratorium at a time that the pandemic is still going on.

And that fatality rates actually are as high as they have ever been at times during this crisis.

So now it not shared sacrifice.

It is not a shared crisis.

And we cannot talk about it in those terms.

- Your answering all my questions before me, before I can ask them council member.

I do wanna talk about, about the council.

So let's zero in on city politics here.

Of course we had a general election last fall.

We have a new Mayor.

We have a new council member.

The read on this is that it is that city leadership has shifted somewhat to the right.

I know that you reject this kind of right left dichotomy.

I'm curious how you see the evolution of the council over the last year.

- I don't actually reject what you're saying.

I mean, it is a fact that Mayor Harrell won, Mayor Bruce Harrell ran an openly pro-corporate anti pro-police and a sort of fear fearmongering campaign.

There was nothing disguised about that.

His agenda is very clear as I said, his two main actions right away have been to expand the police project and which is not going to address the public safety crisis, which we can talk about if you like, but also to end the eviction moratorium at the end of this month.

So these are actions by a corporate Mayor.

We saw Sara Nelson defeated and Nikkita Oliver.

So yes, this is a council that is left to itself.

That is if there was a complete absence of movements by ordinary people, it is moving to the right.

In fact, I wouldn't call even call it moderate.

It is very obviously pro-corporate.

We have four pro-corporate City Council Members and a four work progressive Democrats, I would say, self-describe progressive.

And you have one socialist city council office.

And so in the context of this what outcomes we will have is not something that is, I mean, it's not preordained what will happen will depend on, again, it's a clash of forces.

If working people are in able to prevail through building movements, then absolutely we can win despite the fact that things are stacked against us.

But if we don't then expect policy making to move to the right.

- Yeah.

I mean, this is interesting I think that you, I've watched you legislate for the last eight years and you have a very different strategy I think, than most other city leaders.

I mean, this this idea of a clash is really embodied in a lot of the ways that you approach your work.

But I do wonder if like how you approach when new leadership comes into city hall, do you have you had one on one conversations with Mayor Harrell or with council member Nelson at all?

I mean, is there sort of an introductory phase where you're having discussions with them and have understanding, where they're standing on certain issues?

And if there are areas of common effort that you can join them on.

- I've definitely had a very cordial conversation with Sarah Nelson.

I've had a cordial conversation, a series of conversations with Alex Peterson.

I've not had a chance to talk to Mayor Harrell but my office has talked to his office and we are going to be talking very soon.

But look at the end of the day, what matters is actual outcomes for working people and so nothing in this universe stops any council member from doing the right thing by working people.

I didn't tell Mayor Harrell to issue a dictate that the eviction moratorium is going to end when we know that nine out of 10 evictions end in homelessness that evictions disproportionately hit black women working class led households that half of the evictions are default evictions because people don't understand how to go to court and fight it.

So it's not like they are not privy to the facts.

It's not like anybody stopping them from doing it.

This is what the...

These are the choices they have made.

So when any given politician makes a choice to present the interest of corporate landlords or big business, then that's a choice they're making.

I have made a choice to fight unambiguously for working people.

And that is what I am going to continue to do.

So I would really urge us not to continue to look at this from a personalized angle of who do you make a phone call or what I mean, for that matter, I'll tell you that I am actually far more providing cordial to them than they are to me, all the Democrats put together, I'm not singling anyone Democrat out.

None of them has a copyright on treating me really badly actually they all do.

But that is not the point.

When I ran for office I signed up for what I knew would be with big business, because capital in itself is a zero sum system.

The chamber of commerce and big corporations gain at the expense of workers.

So any politician who tells you that I'm trying to square the circle, I'm trying to get two sides to me together.

They're not being honest or they're completely naive and have no understanding of how the system works.

In reality, the interests of big business are bio metrically opposed to the interests of the vast majority of people including small businesses.

And so what I'm doing that's different is being 100% honest, whether somebody's on my side or not, I am being very honest, but when politicians... Other politicians they're Democrats say, well, I'm not like her.

I'm trying to get everyone to unite.

What do they really mean?

They really mean that they're capitulating to big business interests while wanting working people to have illusions in them.

That's what they're doing.

- Well so I wanna get to specific issues in a bit, but let's move... Let's talk a little bit about the recall, because I think that I'm a little bit curious about how that has affected you and the way that you approach your job.

Of course, the recall election was in December, you came from behind, which has become a bit of a trademark with you to defeat that recall.

And I'm just curious if it you've said that really the power, and I think that you've just said it here, the power that you have is in the movement, is in sort of your, your ability to mobilize people, right?

And in this case, mobilizing your constituents to win a recall election in a really like off time in the beginning of December, which was not a given.

And I wonder if you enter this new year feeling emboldened and that actually did the recall effort turn into just an opportunity for you to mobilize and consolidate your support.

And I mean in the last few weeks we've seen you, you've accused your council colleagues of a performative progressivism, which you, you just mentioned.

And also Mayor Harrell of hypocrisy when it comes to the, the eviction moratorium.

And I'm...

I mean, you're coming out strong.

Are you feeling like you have the... Did the recall effort embolden you, I guess, is the question?

- That's a very good question.

And I would like to answer it from the standpoint of working people's movements and not just me personally, because I never see this as a personal thing but yeah, I think that is accurate to say, that we...

The fact that working people were able to defeat this right wing big business back recall despite virtually everything stacked against us, including as I said, the collusion of the state Supreme court.

That should absolutely embolden us.

It should not make us complacent because we have to understand that this first of all, this will be far from the last attack by big business also by the right wing against our office in the next couple of years, expect that there will be other types of attacks.

It's a question of what attacks succeed and not.

So we should not take it as an act of God.

We should absolutely fight back.

And through the recall the defeat of the recall and through the other three election victories, we have shown that it is absolutely possible to have a fighting strategy where you are unapologetically fighting for working people, not attempting to carry big business of the favor with big business or their political representatives, not trying to ingratiate yourself with a democratic party establishment and yet win by a mobile the rank file.

It is possible to do that.

That should be an emboldening message.

And I would draw actually a larger lesson from that.

It's not only about districtly or just about Seattle.

It's really about what is the strategy working people need going forward.

Now that the pandemic especially has laid bare the failures of the system and also the inability and the betrayals of the democratic party.

I mean, look we talked about what happened in last November in Seattle, but we also have to talk about what's going to happen in November this year and you don't have to take my word for it.

Everyone from CNN to the New York times are predicting a shellacking of the Democrats in the midterms, primarily because of the failures and betrayals of the Biden administration, the failures of the democratic party to deliver on anything including the, Biden* that dynamic is going to be reflected in Seattle also, in a different way obviously it was already reflected in December, given that, as I said, the work progresses, failed to bring their elections, whereas we were able to win instead.

So absolutely should be emboldening to us.

But as I that it should not make us complacent because the right wind is still growing.

And at the end of the day, it's not enough for me and a few people to understand that the funding strategy works.

It is important that rents and working people as a whole understand that.

And I think that there is going to be a clarifying of that.

Look at Starbucks workers nationwide, they are now fighting back.

- So I just wanna stay on, on the recall a little bit.

I'm glad you mentioned the State Supreme court.

I know that, that in the lead up to the recall you had accused the State Supreme court of collusion with Democrats to....

I think, to put the issue on the ballot after the general election.

And that's a pretty serious charge.

And I just wonder you are approaching this with a great amount of enthusiasm.

You are doing whatever you can to really to get your to mobilize working people and renters despite...

But when you throw out the idea that the State Supreme court is colluding in order to get an intended political result, I mean, that's Conspiracy theory and isn't that--- - It's not a Conspiracy theory.

I'm not accusing them of actually having a meeting to do this.

What I'm saying is that politically, when I say collusion, what I mean is that politically speaking, when you have a system like capitalism, you have every institution of the state really having a certain kind of agenda.

So if you look at what the actual decision, I'm just looking at the decisions of the State Supreme court and saying what side they're on.

I'm not, I hope you understand that.

So in other words, the State Supreme court said, that the recall against my office should go ahead.

Okay.

But they rejected the recall against Mayor Durkan, even though that recall charge was based on under her direction, the police department deploying just unprecedented amounts of cure gas and other weapons against peaceful protesters.

Now, I don't know of a charge that is worthy of a recall election than that.

I'm not against recall perse.

I think that in any genuine democratic process us to hold elected officials accountable.

Absolutely, that should be in part of the strategy, but this was not a recall that was decided by ordinary people.

This was the Supreme court deciding that the recall against Durkan should not go ahead.

But the recall against me should go ahead.

The other kinda, the other example of a recall... Let me just give you another example of a recall that the State Supreme court rejected at the same time that they allowed the recall against me to go ahead.

Thurston County Sheriff John Snaza refused to enforce the mask mandate during the pandemic on his officers and the State Supreme court decided that was not worth the offer.

Recall the state Supreme court decided for whatever reason again, I'm not claiming to have knowledge that I don't have, but what I'm saying is look at the outcome.

All the other recall rulings whether yes or no, the recall rulings by the State Supreme court were delivered in a matter of weeks.

Whereas the ruling very unusually I don't know of any other example to my knowledge was delivered months later, which is what was part of what allowed the recall campaign to prepare election on the ballot in December, and just hold off December election.

That is what I mean.

So if you look at the actions taken by the Supreme court, they are not actions by affairs Supreme court.

That's, that's all I'm saying.

- So there were certainly people who organized the recall, but there were also people who voted in favor of the recall.

And I guess these people are your constituents.

What is your message to the people who voted to recall you?

- Well, I know that some people ended up voting either not voting or voting for the recall because they were understandably, and this is not fault, not just not clear what it was about.

It was a hard thing to understand.

But there wasn't an opposing candidate it's an unusual thing to have a recall election again, to my point, the Supreme court is not okay.

The recall of many other elected officials that should have that they deserve did recall election but did not.

And so it was an unusual thing for voters to grapple with.

And then on top of that you had just the onslaught of mailers, racist, sexist, completely misleading, misinformed, misinformation, mailers from the recall campaigns.

And they this is what you get.

This is the democracy for offer under capitalism.

That doesn't mean that there are no democratic aspects.

People have fought for these elections.

The voting rights act was fought for, we fought for ordinary people to have the right to the vote, but it doesn't ...

It's just having voting rights on paper, doesn't help by themselves.

And this is what I mean.

So when you have a December election, when you have working people working just so hard to just to put food on the table and pay their rent, they don't have the time to engage.

And most working people are not watching the show right now.

They're not watching City Council meetings, or they simply don't have the time to do that.

So I'm of that a certain number of people, I don't think very many voted for the recall mistakenly in that case.

I don't think it's really a matter of discussion.

It's really...

It's a question of going to ordinary people and continuing to do what we have done, which is take our message of what we need to win in order to make people much better, including for rent control.

That is how we won the Amazon tax.

That is how we won $15 an hour.

That is how we won all the renters, right.

That we won as we were fighting against the recall last year.

But there of course there are people in the district and there are people nationwide who are working people that they are wealthy people.

They may have voted for the right wing.

I mean, for the recall, I know that they did.

I'm not under any illusion that there's a difference of opinion.

As I said, I'm not shy about admitting.

Yes, there is a polarization, it's a question of which side you are on.

And at the end of the day, you can win a lot of working people over to your message.

If you are actually willing to help them understand that this is in dangerous.

And I'll just end on this point.

A lot of people who voted ended up voting for Trump, they had supported Bernie Sanders and it was a democratic establishment that crushed his campaign and ultimately paved the way for Trump to win.

So we should not have this idea that although there's a certain section of our country that is just white wing.

No.

There are working people who are fed up with corporate politics and we have to have the left develop.

- So the message to some of the people who voted against you is that they were manipulated then.

And that you're still working for them essentially.

- Well, I mean, what I've stood for and whom I'm working for has never changed as you were indicating earlier.

I mean, having my ninth year on the City Council.

And if people are paying any attention to the politics, my office has stood for, they can see that it has not touched whether, as I said, you may agree or disagree with any position I stand on, but you can never accuse me of lying or being dishonest.

This is the one City Council office that does not do that kind of thing.

So ultimately, yes, it is a question of reaching people on the issues that matter to them.

And I can tell you, I mean, just to use rent control as an example, I mean, when we started... First started talking about it in 2013, there were a lot of people who didn't believe one that was needed or that it could work or that we could even win or whatever.

But now the crisis itself... With socials didn't create this crisis gap, created the housing crisis, the real estate market and speculative.

Real estate investment is what has created this crisis.

It's on their door step.

And so the crisis is so huge that I have never seen support for rent control and for expanding social housing.

Like there is now in the last eight years that is precisely why we were able to win the Amazon tax because the message of taxing the most profitable profiting billionaires in order to fund an expansion of social housing was just immensely popular.

- So, let's talk about the issues a little bit before we get to our audience questions.

And just a reminder to the audience that we will be doing a Q&A section here in a few minutes.

So get your questions in.

Let's talk about homelessness.

When do you think we can start actually tackling the issue of homelessness?

I mean, if you had an ideal timeline, how quickly could we really address it in a real way?

And what is the policy that's gonna get us there.

- If you look at the incredible amount of statistical analysis that is being done about the homelessness crisis and I don't just in Seattle, but nationwide and also globally, the thing that emerges, the analysis shows... Again, as I'm stressing this because it's not just my opinion.

It is based in sociological and economic analysis.

That the one thing you need to do, firstly, I mean, it's obviously it's a complex thing, but the first thing that you need to do, and the main thing that you need to do is to provide housing.

That is what the solution to this crisis hinges on.

That's going to be the backbone of addressing the homelessness crisis.

So you wanna address the homelessness crisis.

We've got to have affordable housing, high quality affordable.

And that is why I have been relentlessly talking about both rent control in order to make privately owned housing affordable because skyrocketing rents has been the bane of the existence of ordinary people.

And also the expansion of social housing, which is publicly owned, high affordable housing, which generates union labor as well.

So because jobs and a livelihood is also part of why people lose home.

So ultimately those are the kinds of progressive policies we are going to need.

And again, I would urge people not to think about this as, oh, we just need a new creative Andrew Yang type of some technocratic idea in order to solve this crisis.

No, what you need is courage and political will to point out that we need affordable housing.

That's why we need rent control.

We need an expansion of social housing.

Funding social housing requires taxing big business.

The Democrats are not going to do any of this.

That's why we need a mass movement, ordinary people.

That is what we need.

Ultimately, if we don't have a mass uprising of ordinary people, we are not going to win any of those things.

And again, as I said, you should not be shy to reuse ideas that have been proven successful building and organizing an independent mass movement works.

We have shown that again and again and again, that is what we will need to win rent control, and also an increase in the Amazon tax to fund an expansion of social housing.

- And another issue and Mayor Harrell in his first state of the city address really focused on homelessness and then public safety.

And he's prescribing a tougher on crime approach.

Also adding officers to the police force while also acknowledging that alternatives to traditional law enforcement are a part of the recipe as well.

What do you think we can do to address concerns around public safety in the city?

- Again, you want to address public safety, let's have a scientific approach, and what do the various analysis tell us again, public safety is very much related to inequality in society.

The more polarized and unequal society is the more you will start seeing these problems.

And, let's be clear about who the victims of increased problems in public safety are I mean, whose cars are being broken into, whose homes are being broken into it's ordinary people, working people, the smallest of businesses, the people who are the most vulnerable are the ones who are dealing with the fallout of this inequality.

It's not that very rich who are dealing with it.

It's ordinary people and small the smallest and the struggling of businesses are dealing with this.

So ultimately, if you wanna again, address this, we have to look at scientifically.

And what we see is that the best way of addressing public safety really the only way of making a safe city and the safer society is to address the problems of inequality.

And that includes obviously the housing crisis, the main thing, if you address that, then it'll have a huge positive outcome overall on the city in many different ways, including public safety.

But let me tell you something it's really rich for Mayor Harrell, to be talking about addressing homelessness at the same time that he has lifted the eviction moratorium.

Again, you don't have to take my word for this as a socialist State studies show that nine out of 10 evictions result in homelessness.

studies have also shown that the people who are hit the hardest from homeless are from evictions are as I said, working class and poor black women led households.

And that studies also show that half of the evictions are default evictions.

Meaning the person is so vulnerable, that family is so vulnerable.

They don't know how to go and fight in court.

And so the eviction just happens because they have had no recourse in the first place.

And it is very hard to address it.

I mean, that is something that I've committed to address through my office to end default evictions.

And we working on that with the housing justice project and other organizations.

But the point is that, how are you taking the word?

You mean not you, but how is anyone taking the word off a male administration who says, all these nice sounding words, again, as I said, there's lots of performative art going on in city hall, oh, we need to address home homelessness.

We need to do this.

We need to do that.

How on earth are you claiming any honest way to address homelessness when in the middle of the worst crisis that people have faced and are continuing to face, which is the pandemic you are ending, the eviction moratorium when every single piece of data shows that that is going to be devastating, then that is going to lead to a tsunami of the evictions.

And that nine out of those 10 evictions are going to end in on business.

- All right.

Well, council member we're gonna turn it over to the viewers now.

So we've got some, some good questions from the folks who are watching and we've got about 13 minutes here.

So let's dig in.

Sue's got a question that I think is at the root of really of your politics and really what you do every day for your work.

And that, is there a way that we can take socialist ideas and ideals and make them work in concert with capitalism or is... And I'm adding this, or is capitalism antithetical to socialism?

Which is sort of my understanding of it.

What's your understanding of it?

- I think your understanding is pretty spot on, but just to explain a little bit, and I really appreciate that question, which is that it is possible to win reforms under capitalism.

So the system is the same can improve things for working people and that has been done again and again.

In fact, today life overall is far better than it was for most people a hundred years ago.

I'm not one of those.

I'm not a...

I don't...

But as I said, I have a very... As a mindset, I have a very scientific... And as an an engineer myself, I have a scientific view on these things.

And I'm not one of those people who says, oh, the good old days.

No, the good old days weren't very good for children, women, most poor people.

We still have a long way to go.

And in my view, it that long way also has to involve separating from capitalism itself and having a new social socialist society.

But at the end of the day yes, you can win funds on capitalism, but I would say it's important to remember a few things.

One is every single reform, as small as it might be, has been one throughout the history, not just of capitalism, but of class society.

Every single reform has been one because ordinary people, the people who are suffering under those regimes decided to show incredible courage.

And for back got organized and for back made incredible sacrifice.

The whole history of the union movement, labor movement, which was the backbone of improving people's lives under capitalism in every country.

That is that the history of the labor movement is littered with stories of self-sacrifice heroism, even labor leaders giving up their lives, Marxists, socialists, labor, militant labor leaders, giving up in terms of their lives in order to build this movement.

So don't ever get the idea that you can win these nice things under capitalism because of the largest or some shift in conscience, by the bosses that never worked.

Ink fact, they fight to the nail against anything.

And then when they're forced to concede, they will concede and then try to see the narrative by saying, oh, we are so nice.

Starbucks executives are so nice.

They're now moving their workers to $15 an hour.

No, it's because they're afraid of the unionizing drive that is going on.

That's why they're trying to make these concessions and make the union drive go away, which we should not let them do.

But at the end of the day, I will say, and this is where your dead right, Mark you cannot have socialism and capitalism coexisting that doesn't work because of the simple the reason of... Just it's a brutality of numbers.

I often call it the brutality of data, which is that the wealth of billionaires, which is part and parcel of a system like capitalism cannot coexist with fulfilling the needs of the billions of people.

So, in other words, if you want the billions of people to have a standard of living that cannot happen while you have these billionaires holding trillions of dollars.

It doesn't work that way because it's a zero sum game.

That wealth came from impoverishing, millions and billions of people.

That's one thing.

But the other thing, which is it's really the elephant in the room right now is the climate catastrophe.

If we don't solve the climate catastrophe, there is no livable planet for us at this moment and that's not hyperbole.

Climate scientists are telling us is at our doorstep.

So can the climate catastrophe be addressed on the basis of capitalism?

No, it can't.

- So lots of, I mean, big issues that you feel you like you have solutions for and your constituents do as well.

And a lot of people who have been following your career, one of them, I think is Paul, who's one of our viewers here.

He asks if you would consider running for state office.

And I guess, I would add to that, whether you view any higher office in your political future here in the near term.

You're were talking about all these larger problems and very pressing problems right now.

And even though you're doing a lot work at the city council level.

There's only so much you can do, what is your political future like?

- No, that's absolutely a very concerning point that you are bringing up that.

These are not problems that we can address at a city level.

And in fact, not even only at a national level.

Dealing with a climate crisis will require an international coordinated effort.

And I take the question in that spirit, and I think it's really important actually to point out also that this kind of politics, the kind of politics that we have demonstrated through our office, and I don't just mean me, this has been a collective effort by many working people who have been part of all these movement that is crucial.

That it shows up at the state legislature and also in us Congress, absolutely.

So as far as furthering this kind of fighting approach in a sort of a rejection of this business as usual, politics of the democratic party and the Republican party, I absolutely want to see that go forward and I will do anything in my power to make it happen.

I can't answer the question directly about whether I will run for a higher office or not, because that is not how we approach those questions in socialist alternative.

And I don't think working people should accept that kind of careerism where somebody decides they're going to run.

No, what we really need is a new party for working people where there will be genuine democratic structures in the party.

Whether rank and file of the party can decide together through discussion and debate, through open discussion and debate, who should run, what the campaign platform should be, what should the campaign strategy be, and all of that.

That's how we ran all the campaigns.

I mean, I did not pick on a candidate kin the first place by deciding that I want to run.

I would never have chosen this for myself to be perfectly honest, but democratically, if we can decide who our candidates should be.

Do we have confidence in them for really fighting for working people?

That is what we need.

I mean, this is urgent because we've already seen that the establishment Democrats don't have a strategy at all.

I mean, it's just epic failures.

But also the squad, the progressive caucus of the democratic party, they have simply failed to win on anything that they said that they are supporting.

And so what working people are saying, especially Gen Z people are saying this, that it is not enough to have a squad in Congress that occasionally tweets out about Medicare for all, or whatever, you need somebody... you need an approach.

It's not about a person, but an approach that will actually bring a fighting strategy to US Congress and not have politicians who see their work as, oh, what can I do by having individual conversations with Nancy Pelosi or Kyrsten Sinema?

No, That's not where it's at.

You need Congress members who will turn around and say, we need mass rallies in West Virginia, and Arizona, in Washington DC, and bring that pressure from millions of people to bear on Congress.

- Hmm.

A'ight.

So again, mobilization is the key, right?

- Absolutely.

And in fact, the Labor Movement has a role.

- I do have to ask you though So you're up for reelection in 2023?

Are you going to run for reelection to the city council?

Do you think?

- Again, as I said, what happens then will depend on what we feel are the most pressing needs of working people and what else is happening at that time as well?

So, absolutely, if that is the best way that we can serve the needs of working people, absolutely, we will do that.

- So we're getting a few questions here that are, there are really a follow up to when we were talking about public safety during the previous portion.

And your answer to public safety was that, really eliminating the inequality that we're seeing in our society through different measures.

But in the near term, what can we do to address crime while like these larger changes are taking place?

I mean, a number, people, some Seattleites are very concerned about the levels of crime that we're seeing right now.

What's your near term sort of bridge that gets us to that longer term solution?

- I mean, I would, again, just being honest and not just trying to stroke people's fears.

We have to resist looking at it in that way that well housing will happen when it happens, but right now isn't there something we can do.

I understand that it's tempting to think that way.

And as I said before, it's ordinary people who are facing the brunt of the incidents that are happening, that are making people feel less safe.

I'm not saying that there's not reality to it.

But what I am saying is that as tempting as it might be for some people, and I don't believe that as this is actually a popular position, but as tempting as it might be, that, oh, well, if we increase the budget of the police department that will address it.

Well, let me disabuse you of that notion.

Again, based on data, you don't have to take my opinion for it.

If you look at the last many years; last two decades for example.

Certainly the last decade, does police department funds have gone increased disproportionately to the funds for other departments?

And even despite the very large budget that the police department has had, it has had no positive effect on crime.

I'm not saying that it hasn't had any effect, but what I am saying is that the link that people want to see between increased police budgets and a really enhanced sort of outcome for public safety, that is not how it works, because the problems of public safety are not emerging from just these miscreants that need to be locked up by the police department.

Yes.

Absolutely.

There is a real crime that is happening, but ultimately the biggest crime that is happening in our society is the inequality, is the lack of housing, is the fact that our homeless neighbors don't have anywhere to go.

So if you want to address it I would urge people, genuinely, if you want to address this, and you are not just fearmongering and engaging in poor-bashing, then join me in fighting to increase the Amazon tax, to expand affordable housing.

Demand that the Mayor, and the eviction moratorium.

So most immediately, I'm putting forward a legislation to extend the eviction moratorium for at least as long a public health emergency exists.

I mean, that is the single most urgent thing you can do.

I mean, if you're asking, what can we do today to prevent this crime from exacerbating?

Absolutely, it is to prevent the eviction moratorium from being repealed, because we know that for many people that will be the ticket to homelessness and that will lead to more problems in our city.

- All right.

Well, unfortunately we are at the end of our time.

Council Member Sawant, thank you so much for coming on the show.

It's been a really enlightening conversation.

I appreciate you fighting through the technical difficulties and giving us some answers to the questions we've had.

So thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you for the audience questions and thank you, Mark.