DSA: Which Side Are You On? Vote Working Class! Vote Sawant on August 4th!

Lital and Edward are joined by Summer and Em from Labor Militant and United front for a Workers Party to discuss Kshama Sawant's independent socialist campaign for Washington's 9th Congressional District. We do a deep dive into why every socialist should vote for Kshama, the dynamics within DSA and the broader left and why so many self-described socialists are sitting this race out (sectarianism!), where the working-class is at right now and why Kshama's dalliances with the Greens undermine her campaign.

Since we recorded this episode, Kshama has endorsed Andre Easton's campaign in the Bronx, a positive development!

You can find Labor Militant on X here and here on Instagram. 

You can find United Front for a Workers Party here on X, here on Instagram, here on Facebook, and here on TikTok. To sign up for the August 1st phonebank for Kshama, the August 8th Socialist Town Hall in Seattle, or UFWP's August National Meeting, click here.

If you'd like to hear more about the clown car of characters running against Kshama, check out UFWP's latest articles here.

For background on the 2024 IAM strike at Boeing, check out these articles from Workers Vanguard.

Also worth reading: a letter by Movement for Kshama, an initiative of UFWP that responds to Kshama's sectarianism, republished in Workers Vanguard.

As always, you can follow the work of the Just Break Already Caucus at our linktree, where we post all of our statements, petitions, and resolutions. You can also follow us on X and Instagram. We're always looking to debate others on the DSA Left. If that describes you, shoot us a DM! We'd be happy to have you on.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Shama Salamant and I approve this message. I'm running as an independent socialist for the US Congress because we are getting screwed over by both the Democratic and Republican parties, which serve the billionaires and multimillionaires. We need a new party for the working class. I was an independent socialist city council member in Seattle for 10 years, and I used my office to build militant mass movements. There will be no backroom deals with corporations or capitalists. Rather than make backroom deals with the billionaires and the city's political establishment, I went to war against them and won historic victories like the nation's highest minimum wage, the Amazon tax, and unprecedented renters' rights. My campaign for Congress is fighting for free health care for all, funded by taxing the rich, ending all military aid to the Israeli state, shutting down ICE and the detention centers, stopping the data centers and the AI-related mass layoffs, and for national rent control and to massively expand public social housing. I am the only candidate in this race who is fighting for demands like this. I am also the only candidate in this race who has a track record of defeating the billionaires and winning historic victories for voting people. My main opponent is 29-year incumbent Democrat Adam Smith, who has voted for tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza, who has voted to block United Nations food aid to Gaza, and who has voted to give over $906 billion for Trump's port. Adam Smith has also voted to create and fund ICE to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid funding and to bail out the billionaires after the 2008 Great Recession. Adam Smith needs to go. Look, working people are angry. They understand that capitalism is a steeming pile of shit and they're looking for fighters. My city council office turned Seattle politics upside down to win breakthrough victories for working people. Join my campaign now so we can do the same in the US Congress. I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class. We are coming for you and your rotten system. Solidarity.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Sawant denounces this country's vicious ruling class as the enemy of progress. She calls the Democrats a dumpster fire of a party and notes that the Democratic and Republican parties as a whole represent American capitalism and have been agents of bloody imperialist wars, coups, and regime change missions. For us at the JBA, her campaign represents a breath of fresh air amidst the choking political environment we are in. And that is why the focus of this week's episode is on SON's campaign. With the election right around the corner, the vote is on August 4th. We want to talk about why every socialist must support this campaign. And if you're in this district, must vote Sawant. So to help motivate the significance of Sowant's campaign from the belly of Washington State, we have two special guests, Em and Summer. Hi, everybody. Hey. They're both with United Front for a Workers' Party and Labor Militant. So to start off, maybe you guys can just briefly introduce yourselves and tell us a little about the work that you do.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah, my name's Em Smith. I'm actually the former campaign manager for SHAMA's congressional campaign. I was with her organization for a long time. I worked on a number of previous campaigns as well, including the SHAMA Solidarity campaign, which was a fight in 2021 against a right-wing funded recall against her or an attempted recall. We won that fight and kept her in office. But I also worked on previous campaigns, including her 2019 re-election campaign and the tax Amazon fight. At that time, I was an Amazon worker, uh, delivering packages for Amazon. And then I later worked in her council office, including during some of the fights for some of the victories that we won in Seattle, like the $10 a month cap on late rent fees, the first ban on caste discrimination that we won in 2023, first in the country, and a number of other victories while she was on the city council.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

In summer, I'm also a former member of Shawma's organization at Revolutionary Workers. And I was on staff for Shawma's congressional campaign as well. I joined much later, much later than M, I believe. Quite a few, a few years less experience, but I was there for, I don't know, a year and a half, maybe almost two years, and was part of several fights after Shama left the city council office. So those included a couple of really important defensive fights against Joy Hollingsworth, who is a notorious now the president of the city council, who attacked the minimum wage victory that was won with Shama's city council office and the renters' rights victories that workers won, Renters Bill of Rights. Both of those came under attack and we were able to successfully defend against the attacks from the Democrats. And I also left Shama's organization along with M and several others to address some of the political disagreements that we had with Shama's organization and build United Front for a Workers' Party and our smaller Marxist organization, Labor Militant.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Great. And so now you guys are with United Front for a Workers' Party. That's right. And what do you guys stand for? What do you do?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, so I mean we we launched United Front for a Workers' Party after leaving Shama's campaign and her organization to address a couple of really catastrophic problems on the left, which is on the one side a whole section of the left that is just diving into the Democratic Party. You have the DSA, which is now talking about endorsing AOC in 2028, despite her role in breaking the railroad strike, of funding the genocide in Gaza, endorsing Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and all of these rotten Democrats, most recently Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the House. And you have DSA, including the so-called left caucuses of DSA, that are talking about endorsing AOC in 2028 and just dragging the socialist movement into the Democratic Party or attempting to. But then you have a problem on the other side that you have, and I know we're going to talk about this, but the total lack of support among the left for campaigns like Shamas. There's this massive problem of sectarianism on the left that because it's not their organization that's running this campaign, they've basically abstained. They've just totally refused to support independent socialist campaigns outside of the Democratic Party. And so we built United Front to address both of those problems, to draw a clear class line against the Democrats while uniting the left around independent campaigns like Chamas.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Yeah, yeah. And I'll just add, uh, and also something really critical has been missing from the socialist movement or what should hopefully become a much stronger movement. And I'll feel more happier using that word, but like there is a significant, I mean not significant, like a really serious lack of debate among socialists, at least in our experience. And that includes inside these organizations where democratic centralism is kind of distorted. We saw this a little bit with Shama's organization. We won't go too far into that. But yeah, really to start to build a united front around points of agreement with other socialists and debate out those political disagreements so that we can effectively come to a clear strategy to present to the working class. And I think that's part of the reason that lack of debate and connection to other socialists is part of the reason that we find ourselves in such an underorganized uh position right now.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Yeah, I totally agree. I think there's this concept that you can't, unless you agree 100% with the candidate, then you can't support them. But obviously you can critically support candidates and be open about your criticism while uniting the broadest forces to campaign for them because they're a step forward for the working class. So we'll get more to that later. But I guess first let's just make the case to why we should all support SAWAN now. What are the key issues facing working people in Seattle and in Washington State? And also she has new opponents that have entered the race. They seem, from what I've read from your material, actually, United Front for Workers' Party's bulletin on this, pretty bizarre candidates that seem to have been clearly injected into the race to lower her chances of success. So maybe you guys can speak to what her campaign represents in Seattle and in Washington State in particular, and why the bosses are so against Solant winning this race.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yeah, I I can talk about some of the bizarre candidates that have entered this race, uh, including Melissa Chaudhry, who's this Democrat who's running, this guy, Doug Bassler, who's this very strange Republican candidate. There's also a small sectarian group that has entered the race. I think the main story here is there is a clear class line in this election. And this is really a race between Shama Sawant and Adam Smith. If you're a worker, if you're a socialist, there should be no question about which side of that divide you're standing on. And people might not know who Adam Smith is, but this guy is one of the most powerful Democrats in the House. He's the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. When the Democrats had power in the House, he was the chair of that committee. And this is the committee that's responsible for the defense budget, for all of the tens of billions of dollars that have gone to the Israeli military, that have gone to fund the genocide in Gaza. So Adam Smith really is one of the people most responsible for the genocide in Gaza. He's been in office for now almost 30 years. He voted to create ICE. One of his first acts when he was elected in 1997 was his first term. One of his first acts in Congress was to vote for Bill Clinton's Balanced Budget Act, which cut $150 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. He most recently proposed a bill that would merge significant parts of the US and the Israeli military. He was forced to back down from huge anger over the genocide. But this guy is just a rotten politician. He's taken over $500,000 from AIPAC and the Zionist lobby.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

A million total, I believe. Actually, from if you include the Zionist lobby and APAC altogether, it's over a million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Right. And nearly 20% of all of his donations come from the defense industry, Palantir and Locksmith Martin, and all of uh these weapons manufacturers. And people talk about him like he's one of the worst Democrats. And we we don't really agree with that because the thing that makes Adam Smith bad, he's terrible. But the thing that makes him bad is not that he's just a particularly bad Democrat, it's that he represents everything that's wrong with the Democratic Party and everything that the Democratic Party really is at its core. It's like a mask-off moment for the Democratic Party. And one of the funny things about Adam Smith is that he's a member of both the so-called progressive caucus in the Democratic Party, and also a member of the new Democrat caucus, which is this right-wing centrist Democrat caucus. And so he straddles this line, but he's really putting forward what is the policy of the Democratic Party, which is pro-ICE, pro-capitalism, pro-defense contractors, pro-Israel, anti-worker. And Shama is on the other side. And she has a clear class program. She calls for free health care, free public child care, an unapologetically pro-union, pro-worker platform, anti-genocide. She has always run independently of the Democratic Party in all of her elections on city council as an open socialist. She's taken the average wage of a worker. The city council members in Seattle get like $160,000 a year. It's like the second highest paid city council members in the country. She took only $50 or $60,000 of that and donated the rest to strike funds, to social movements, to workers' struggles. And she has a track record of not only winning victories like the $15 minimum wage. It was the first major city to win the $15 minimum wage, renters' rights, et cetera, but also a track record of standing up to the Democratic Party, of openly criticizing people, not just Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jefferies, but also AOC and Bernie and these DSA Democrats. And that's exactly why you see groups like the DSA not supporting her, is because she's been critical of the Democratic Party as a whole, including this left wing of the Democratic Party. And she's had that independence. But from a working class standpoint, it is absolutely clear what side of this divide the workers should be on. And it's to support Shama's campaign.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Yeah, I think that's a pretty clear juxtaposition of the two sides in this race. Do you want to speak about those other candidates?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, there's an article that we wrote called The Bizarre Campaign of Melissa Chaudhry. And it really gets at the crisis of the ruling class in this race, that they're trying their best to stop Chama from winning. But there's this kind of like clown car of candidates that have entered the race to try to do that. One of them is this Democrat, Melissa Chaudhry, who ran against Adam Smith in 2024, kind of posing herself as the progressive in the race. But uh the way that we describe it in the article is that her platform in 2024 was really like, it was like the equivalent of mashed potatoes for a political program. There was nothing there. She she called for something like practical policies for all, was one of the things that she said she stood for. Just very vague, very middle of the road, nothingness. And she won 30-something percent of the vote, but it was really on the basis of the hatred for Adam Smith rather than anything that she offered. She's admitted openly she hasn't put anything about trans rights or LGBTQ rights on her program, on her platform, on her website, which now she's been forced to correct. But she said she didn't put it on there because it would alienate conservative sections of the Muslim community. She told a local newspaper, The Stranger, that if she was elected, she was planning to switch her party affiliation from the Democrats to the Green Party, but it's hush-hush, so please don't tell anyone. And to their credit, they exposed it and talked about it publicly. But she really represents this incoherent coalition. She's also, by the way, funded by some notorious landlords in Seattle, this guy Carl Hagland, who is a slumlord in Seattle, who has become known for jacking up rents on apartments with just horrible living conditions. And she's also funded by this kind of weird coalition of middle-class progressives that will do anything to avoid supporting Shama, but at the same time, who can't stomach supporting Adam Smith. And so she's cobbling together this kind of coalition of middle-class radicals who want to support someone, anyone other than the socialist. Then just briefly on the other two, Doug Bastler, who's the Republican, who is actually, in a way, the biggest threat, who's most likely, we think, to get through the primary if it's not Shama. Really? Yeah, yeah. Because the Republicans, it's an overwhelmingly Democratic district.

SPEAKER_05 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Something like 75% of people in this district voted Democrat in the last election. But there's always a consistent 20 to 25% of support for the Republican, whoever it is. And so the effect of Melissa Chaudry being in the race and the real purpose of it is to try to pull enough support from Shama that she splits the left vote and the Republican gets through. But the Republican who's running is just not a serious person at all. Like it's an it's an AI generated campaign. Yeah, that's what I think.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

People should check out, it's actually hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

It's really crazy.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah. It's it's totally strange.

unknown 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

No, Durange. It is strange. And yeah, I mean, for people who haven't seen it, which is probably most people, it's this Wizard of Oz themed AI-generated advertisement that has Shama as the wicked witch of the West. Doug Bassler, the Republican, for some reason, is all three the scarecrow, the lion, and the tin man. And it's Adam Smith is the Wizard of Oz. It's very strange and worth watching. But like this is the guy that the Republicans are putting up against. But he's really a straw man candidate just to be there to help Adam Smith win, ultimately. His explicit statement when he entered the race that he was getting into the race in order to stop Shama from winning. That's the kind of character of these other people who are in the race.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

You guys have been out canvassing for Shama over the last quite a bit. Period. So what's that been like? What is the reception to her campaign? And what's the consciousness you intersect in Seattle from working class people and immigrants and others on her campus?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

We work for the campaign. So canvas, especially for me, and was obviously the former campaign manager. So she had other priorities at the time. But especially for me, I was out door knocking and tabling in the district, which includes parts of like South Seattle. It includes areas like Kent and Renton. If you guys, if anyone listening is familiar with the Seattle area, an area that that wasn't familiar or incredibly familiar with Shama and the victories she won in the city council office. She and workers won. And really the section of her former city council district is extremely polarized. Mainly it's around class lines, just like all of her other campaigns in the past. They've always been one along class lines. Workers and renters have supported her. And it's wealthier people, anyone in areas that that are along the water lines, higher income areas like Bellevue in Seattle, which is in her congressional district. We aren't expecting high numbers. There's a lot of Adam Smith support. These things really do follow class lines quite clearly. So those people hate her. And areas where she had widespread support in Seattle at the central district, we think she has a lot less support that we're gonna see, maybe not a lot less in numbers. We don't know ultimately, but she had tons of support for her city council office when she was in office. And now when we're date tabling and door knocking and talking to people, it's been four years since she was in office. So there's been a massive turnover of renters and working class people because of the cost of living. Rent has gotten so high. And a lot of the people who used to live here have moved out of the district, out of this area of the district. And people with higher income have moved in. So we think it's gonna be less support, most likely in areas like that. That gives more weight to the wealthier elements that are already polarized against her. Even those we've tried to win over and say, it's like funny, there's almost a lesser evilist logic when you talk to these people in the district. We live in that same area and we've done quite a bit of door knocking. I talked to this guy who claimed he was a democratic socialist. Nice house. We've got steps up to your house. That was that's kind of how you know when the district was like, okay, you gotta climb some stairs. This person's gonna be tough to talk to. He was saying, Oh, Shaman's sectarian and all of this. I said, sure, you can have your political disagreements, but is Shamma, are you really arguing that Shaman is worse than Adam Smith? And he said, Yeah, I'm not gonna vote for that. So there's there is like a real staunch opposition among certain certain sections, but that's one side of it, right? And outside of that area, further out in Seattle, where you have people who've moved out there because the cost of living is lower, and where you have tons of renters and workers, they are excited when people explain who SHAMA is. A lot of them hadn't heard about SHAMA before, some of them had, but to hear about things like a $10 late fee cap on late rent, that specific victory I talked about a lot because in Seattle, I think we are a little bit separated from having these renters' rights that that most people don't have. These people we're talking to out in federal way are shocked. They're paying upwards of like $75 on late rent. One guy said every week I think it was an additional $100.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

We've talked to people who have to pay $50 a day if they're late on rent. This is something that was a really significant victory. I mean, Summer and I have benefited from this victory that if you're late on rent, they can't charge you any more than $10 for the month. Renters are saving, in some cases, hundreds of dollars late on rent. And so you tell this to somebody who has to pay $50 a day or they get a one-time fee of $75 or $100. And they're like, wow, that would actually be a significant improvement in my life if we could win that. But one of the biggest barriers is just people knowing about it. This is also the case in these areas where people have been pushed out. When we talk to new people who have moved in recently, when you tell them about uh Shama's platform, when you tell them about her history as an independent, we can win them over. But it's one of the things that we have to overcome is people who just haven't heard of her and aren't familiar with these victories.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

And there's obviously the element of voter turnout. So right now we're focusing on a get out the vote effort. I know Shama's campaign is. We can talk more about that later. I also just want to add that that people who don't know about Shama are excited about the idea of an independent socialist. Not being a Democrat helps break through people's disenchantment with politics. We encounter people all the time who say, Oh, I don't do politics. Totally understandable, right? There are these two capitalist parties that do nothing in the interest of the working class. It's a completely understandable result to just disengage. But to say, like, this is working class politics, this is just one example of what we're capable of when we organize independently of the Democratic Party. And, you know, pointing out things like the average income that Shama took while she was on the city council. I mean, it's those, those, in those situations, it's incredibly easy to win her over. And that's what we saw in Federal Way and Kent and all these areas that that didn't know who she was. Obviously, there's another element out there, stronger, sort of conservative demographic, but it'll be interesting to see how much weight Shamma's campaign was able to put forward in the district because it's a big district. That's the other thing. It's like Shamma's organization is small, and it's really going to be down to like how much they could punch up with their numbers. There's still an opportunity for socialists to get involved and help Shama get elected. I think everyone should fight within their organizations for endorsements if they haven't. I think that it's a shame that more socialists, and especially DSA with the numbers that they have, haven't. If DSA had mobilized its membership to support this campaign, I mean, I can never predict these things, but I think under the current conditions, like where we have honestly a pretty, a pretty Weak offensive approach from the Democratic Party because they had very few options that they could run in opposition to Shaman. I think there's an element like of Democrats don't want to run one against Shamma because of her track record. They don't want to run against the incumbent, Adam Smith. It's kind of a throwaway campaign because these candidates know that they're there simply to prevent Shama from being elected, to land on Melissa Chaudhry as wacky as she is. You know, it's a feeble attempt in a lot of ways. I'm not saying it won't be effective. It's just that was the best they had. I think there's a really big opportunity right now for Shaman to be elected. If we can get her through the primary, I think that's really most important. There's also an element of to Shamma's uh discredit, she's alienated, alienated a number of people who would have otherwise supported her. That includes some members of DSA who have been out campaigning for her in the past. But I think something we've also realized is that there's a section of people who feel both workers and socialists who feel really betrayed by her stepping down from her city council position or have seen her sectarianism, which I would argue everyone in Seattle has participated in. Yeah. It's like, okay, look in a mirror. But but I really think that even in areas of the district where yes, there's been this turnover of renters and workers, like there are people who are a little bit disenchanted by her history and how she abruptly left the city council office. So we have to overcome that. And if we can mobilize as many people as possible to get out the vote right now, I think there is a really good chance. Or I won't say really good, I'll say good chance. That we could get Shawma through the primary. That's the bigger fight, really. To get her through the primary vastly increases the chances that we can get Shahma elected.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Yeah. I assume that most of the unions in the district are supporting her opponent, or has she gotten any or much union support?

SPEAKER_02 23:46

No, I mean it's an absolute abdication of any sort of leadership. Obviously, the union bureaucracy, there's a very low bar for them already with the kinds of people that they support. It is not surprising, but it's pretty stark the complete lack of support for Shama that these union leaders have either fallen in with Adam Smith or they've just stayed totally silent. We actually recently heard of the president of UFCW locally with the grocery store workers' union. UFCW is notorious for being completely out of touch with workers, with the union leaders like this. There's this UFCW leader out in New Jersey, John Nikolai, I think is his name. He made $800,000 last year while grocery workers are getting $20 or $25 an hour. And the union leader of UFCW in Seattle has positioned herself as a reformer. Her name is Faye Gunther, and she actually leads the so-called reform caucus inside of UFCW, which has called for capping UFCW leader salaries, but her proposed cap is $250,000. Wow. It's just testament to how awful that union is.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

So the union leaders are willing to make a big sacrifice.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Right. She poses herself as this progressive reformer, but we just found out that she donated personally to Adam Smith. Of course. Yeah. The Machinist Union has donated to him. AFSME has donated to him, the the public sector union, and there's there's several others that have as well. And then you have to.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

And then and then you have these unions that have a supposedly progressive leadership like the UAW that they don't feel like they can get away with throwing their weight behind Adam Smith, but instead they've just decided to sit it out instead of supporting Sean.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

They're not gonna support Sylvan.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Right, because you know, Shama, it's a kind of parallel thing with DSA that Shama has been critical correctly of AOC and Bernie Sanders and Mom Donnie, and the leadership of DSA hates that. But uh similarly on the union side, she's been correctly critical of the union leadership of people like Sean Fain, of holding back the autocraft strike in 2023 and the role that these union leaders have played in selling out the working class. And she's exposed to that, and she's at critical times stood with the rank and file, like in the UPS strike or the strike that wasn't in 2018, and then again in 2023, she stood with UPS rank and file in favor of rejecting the contract that was being pushed by the union leadership and supporting workers calling for a strike. The union leadership here hates her guts. There's not a single union leader that I know of who is supporting SHAMA, even though a lot of the rank and file does support her.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

So have you guys or the campaign gone to the grocery store workers, gone and tried to encounter some of what's coming from the leadership to try to win over some of these workers to vote Swant?

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah, we have. Um, there's actually a strike happening right now in Seattle. Embassy Suites Workers, which is a hotel owned by Hilton. They've been on strike now for five weeks. And we've been down on the picket line talking to them about the campaign, but also just talking to them about how to win their strike and how do we build support for the picket line, how do we bring the labor movement into this in a fuller way, talking about some of the the limitations of the strategy of the union leadership, which has restricted picketing at the site. They've done all sorts of things that are really holding back the struggle. So we've been talking to them about all of that. Unfortunately, the campaign has not really done that. JAMA's campaign, they were on the picket lines for about the first week of the strike and they had a big presence, but increasingly they they just kind of abandoned the picket line.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Hyperfixation on the campaign, which is understandable to an extent, but what really strengthened the campaign and would have been at the time would be uniting the workers and being out, especially right now at the end of this congressional campaign, like being out on those picket lines, like mobilizing in full force, calling on other on union leadership, calling on other workers and mobilizing her own members down to the picket line to help workers fight against the union bureaucrats who have played a disgusting role in this strike. Even her criticism of the labor bureaucracy and the shameful lack of any response to the attacks on working people, to the university protests that were happening against the genocide, there were union members. Mahmoud Khalil was a union member who was arrested and detained by ICE, right? Yeah. And there's just no response. Shammo is very critical of these things. And I think something we're noticing is that she's starting to withhold that criticism, which is just coming out of opportunism and wanting those endorsements. But the irony of that is that the best way to win over the support of workers is to put forward those criticisms and to demonstrate for workers what is needed within these unions and to win their demands. Yeah. What are their demands?

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Is housing a big part of it? Being able to live where you work. Do you hotel workers? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

I would say, I mean, the question of housing runs through everything in Seattle politics and in the Seattle labor movement. This was true of the carpenter strike that happened a few years ago in 2021, where there was a section of the rank and file that was willing to challenge their leadership. Just really briefly going back to the previous question, I think this is part of the problem that we have to overcome is when when we talk to rank and file union members, they agree with a lot of the stuff that we're talking about, about the criticisms of the union leadership, about the need to escalate these strikes, about the need to support candidates like Shama. But one of the things that we still need to develop is the capacity of union members and the willingness to stand up to their own union leadership in an active way and build militant organization within the union that has the capacity to do that. And that's where we run into the problem is that it's one thing to say, yeah, I don't agree that my union supported Adam Smith. I think that we should be supporting SHAMA. But it's another thing to go to a union meeting to organize with rank and file members and to fight back against that endorsement and to expose your union leadership and deal with that open conflict with the union leadership.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Especially at a time when workers don't have any tools to do this, right? We talk to people all the time about their workplace and there is widespread agreement. You say, yeah, the union leadership is holding back the strike, and workers go, Oh, yeah, of course they are. And that's not just in Seattle. A lot of people think there's a bubble here, and I would argue there's a huge liberal element. And you can encounter some real pushback to some of these things because there's so much money in Seattle. But workers understand the problem. I think they don't understand how to fix the problem. And I think that's where socialists have huge, a huge responsibility right now to be in unions, to connect with union workers. And we have to concretize how to do that most effectively and how to restore the strategy that's missing and the real militancy of labor unions that we had in the 30s, the 40s.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

On the question of housing, I was mentioning the carpenter strike because one of the issues that ran through that is that you have a lot of carpenters and a lot of other trades workers who do most of their work in the city of Seattle, but they have to live outside of Seattle if they want to be able to afford a house or what they consider kind of like, you know, a middle class living, which a lot of workers are striving towards. And so they can't afford a house in Seattle because the the median house price in Seattle at its peak was almost $900,000, the median house price in the state limits. I mean, it's gone down maybe a little bit since the post-pandemic.

SPEAKER_05 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

But it's even worse for some of these like lower paid hotel workers and uh grocery workers. A lot of people commute in. The hotel workers, they don't have like an explicit demand around housing. But one of the big issues in their strike is that the Hilton, which is the company, is proposing a $1 or less per year wage increase.

SPEAKER_05 31:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

That's less than the rate of inflation. That's a wage cut for workers who are already struggling to afford rent, which is the average two bedrooms, $2,500 a month in Seattle, who are already struggling to afford groceries, and you want to cut my wages, fuck you. We're going on strike. We're going to fight for that. That issue of housing, even though it's not expressly in the demands of the union, underlies everything because the cost of living is just so monumental.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Yeah. They're also fighting for protections from ice, being able to leave if ice is on the property. Oh, year-round health care, because currently in the off season, workers don't have health care, which is absolutely ridiculous, obviously. And so they're fighting for year-round health care if you work over, I can't remember, a certain number of hours. Basic things that people need to survive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

I think that this question intersects the conditions of the working class around the country and in pretty much every major city in New York, it's the same in LA where people cannot afford to live in those cities anymore. Working class people where they work, they cannot live. So once campaign really has national significance, it's not just for Seattle or Washington. I think that's also another reason it's just so criminal that the left has not, including the DSA, gotten behind this campaign. Because it really would be like a blow to the Democratic Party, who has really been in a lot of these cities the main party that has created these conditions for the working class. Lower wages, higher housing costs, prioritizing money making.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

And if we just had a some people hoped was a real socialist over in the Democratic Party, Katie Wilson elected. Immediately upon taking office, she campaigned on hermit supportive housing and uh expanding uh public transit. And now she has continued sweeps.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Right. Her main promise now is that she's publicly saying she's gonna cut public services in the upcoming budget.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

And they've canceled the expansion of public transit that the working people have been paying tax money into and voted on 10 years ago. Yeah. So yeah, it's a it's I mean, this this is a So she's a Democrat.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

Yeah, she's a Democrat. Yeah, so I think it that kind of shows how you have these candidates, there's so many illusions in them that they're gonna fight for you. And then they get in and they do what Democrats do. They start cutting things. And it has a very demoralizing effect on people too.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

And I think these independent socialist campaigns like shamas, yeah, after all, workers are starting to really understand. I mean, we think that working people consciousness around the Democratic Party, around both parties is actually, I know there's some disagreement here, but in our experience, has gone up, is high around the need for a new party. There's agreement on the need for a new party. Not agreement as in like 100%, but I think like 60 something percent of people who've been polled have said that they think we should have a new party. And so, yeah, that there, there's real potential around Shama's campaign. Like you said, it's really a national campaign, and she has raised over $600,000 and has national support. She's taken donations from all 50 states, Puerto Rico. So there's so much potential right now for workers and socialists to back Shawma's campaign and also Brittany Cubisex in Rhode Island and all these other socialist campaigns, independent socialist campaigns, that are imperfect. You know, as Marxists, these aren't politically perfect campaigns, and we don't have perfect agreement with these campaigns or the organizations that are leading them, like PSL in California, who had this left unity slate. But the purpose right now, one of our primary tasks, if not the most urgent task of socialists, is to push forward breaking away from the Democratic Party, the building of independent working class organizations and political independence, and to see that people are excited about these campaigns, but there's not enough socialists who are out here actively supporting them and helping them win every single last vote that they can is a problem, you know?

SPEAKER_04 35:09

Yeah. So far, it should be pretty straightforward based on the what we've talked about so far that socialist should support the socialist candidate against the genocidal Democrat, but the DSA is not endorsing Shaman, not nationally and not in Seattle. I actually see the national DSA endorsing people all the time. So there's not a question that national, which like tries to present itself as more left than some like the New York branch. They could, but they're not going to. And there was a struggle inside the Seattle DSA to get a resolution passed to just have a discussion to endorse her. It's not surprising that the DSA right would not support her. Also, the DSA left caucuses not only did not support her, but have argued and mobilized their members against the resolution. So maybe you guys can explain this, what happened at the at the DSA meeting and why this really does damage to the socialist movement, why they're doing this and why it's so damaging.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah, so we fought both Summer and I and all the members of Labor Militant are also members of DSA. We are organizing in DSA for a clean break from the Democratic Party and building connections with other DSA members, including, uh including JBA, the ISAR, Rhode Island DSA, which is running Britney Kubusek as an independent, and they passed a resolution actually in Rhode Island DSA to break from the Democratic Party, to ban endorsements of Democratic Party candidates, and to require any DSA candidate to run openly as an independent socialist. We're fighting for that within DSA. Yeah, we uh were supporting at the Seattle convention in March a resolution not even to endorse Shama's campaign, but to have a debate on endorsing Shaman's campaign. Right. And so we went in there along with some of the people from Shamma's campaign who are members of DSA, with a couple of other groups within DSA and were arguing for this. And the leadership came in hard against it. There were multiple members of the leadership who spoke against it. There's a member of the NPC with the supposed Marxist Unity Group, which is one of the caucuses within DSA, who has been very vocally against SHAMA. We ultimately lost that vote. It was a 91 to 67 vote against even having a debate on endorsing SHAMA's campaign. And that happened at the same convention where DSA voted to endorse a Democrat who was running for State House, this person, Jalen Scott, who actually just joined DSA like a couple of weeks before gas for their endorsement. And she she joined DSA and she admits it with the express purpose of getting an endorsement from DSA, running as a Democrat, using a consultancy firm that that works with one of the most terrible Democrats on the Seattle City Council. She's using the same consultant consultancy firm as these establishment Democrats.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

I made all of these arguments in at that convention. The crazy thing too is that one of the arguments, which they honestly, the arguments against SHAMA, they didn't have for the people who agree with them, right, in DSA, they didn't have to present any clear political arguments because they already had consolidation with that section of DSA. But yeah, really weak political arguments. One of them, though, was that SHAMA practice is like uh, you know, entryism essentially into DSA. I would argue that you are an umbrella organization, you call yourself Big Tent and you allow dual card holding. So I'm not really sure why. But anyway, talking about Jalen Scott, who said explicitly that she joined DSA just before seeking endorsement to get the endorsement, then DSA decides entryism is absolutely fine if it's a member of a capitalist party and they're quote unquote oppressive.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Now, has DSA endorsed Shamma in the past in Seattle?

SPEAKER_02 38:56

DSA has endorsed SHAMA in all of her elections since DSA became a relevant force in Seattle politics, which wasn't the case in SHAMA's first elections. SHAMA first ran for office before Bernie Sanders even ran for president the first time and you know had any real name recognition nationally. She ran in 2013, but that was her first election that she won. Her next re-election was in 2015 when DSA wasn't really a force. But in both the 2019 election and against the recall, DSA voted to endorse her. And actually during the the recall campaign, there was a real campaign by DSA to support her against the recall. But since then, it's been a situation of DSA moving further and further into the Democratic Party.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

But on the other side, it's also the failure of Shama and her organizations to engage seriously in DSA when she was in Socialist Alternative. Socialist Alternative in Seattle had, I think at its peak, 155 members in Seattle that could have gone and fought for these ideas inside of DSA and moved Seattle DSA more in the direction of something like Rhode Island, of breaking from the Democratic Party, of being a left poll within DSA. A few of them were formerly members of DSA. They would occasionally put forward a resolution for an endorsement or something related to the campaign, but they didn't engage really seriously in DSA. And what that allowed is for the right wing of DSA to really take hold of the Seattle organization. And they'll object to that because they say, oh no, we're part of the left caucuses. But in reality, they represent this kind of pull towards the Democratic Party, and they've really been able to take over Seattle DSA and also smother a lot of the energy within Seattle DSA. I mentioned those numbers at the convention, the vote for Shama, it was 91 to 67 against having this debate on endorsing her. That's only 150 people in an organization that supposedly is over 2,000 members in Seattle. So you have less than 10% of the organization even attending the annual convention of DSA in Seattle, which reflects just a real demoralization among the ranks of DSA because they see this organization that's not really doing anything and that continues to endorse Democrats and not provide any real path or fight back against the Democratic Party.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

And then claiming victory after victory after victory while more and more progressive Democrats like Mountani are set up to continue to demoralize the working class.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

You mentioned MUG, Marxist Unity Group. And I feel like they're kind of particularly playing a bad role here because No, their first their first point of unity is for political independence, you know, for class independence.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

I just like to grab them, grab these people by the neck and just like what the fuck are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 41:39

So they're like, uh, the democratic ballot line doesn't mean anything. It's just a ballot line, it doesn't represent anything. It's just a ballot line. But then they actively oppose supporting independence, actual independent candidates. And that's not really what it's about for them, you know, like because they did their Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Sorry, I don't want to cut you off. But their response to the AOC endorsement, which we can talk more about AOC, but the recent AOC endorsement leading up to this horrifying idea that she might be running for president in 2028, was from the mug and R uh reform revolution response, who are supposedly Marxists, was not to fight against that endorsement with the only political arguments in the room that are that are actually real, right? In defense of her or against her. Yeah. Was to say that, okay, fine, sure, we can endorse her, but we should we should try to put these expectations on her, right? Yeah. While we endorse someone who's funded the genocide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Right. They would rather critically endorse someone who funded a genocide and broke a railroad stream.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

And who was a member of the very party that we need independence. DSA itself, in its constitution, nationally says, actually, I think it explicitly says the national constitution, something about that the Democratic Party and the strategy to fight within the Democratic Party isn't effective. And we need political independence. Right. And where is that in anything? Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

And so they would rather critically endorse someone like AOC than critically endorse someone like Shama, who has fought for working class people and that you might have some disagreements with, but does represent a real working class alternative in contrast to someone like AOC.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

The Akron Ohio DSA endorsed Greg Levy, the PSL candidate. Yeah. Because it's considered a wasted vote. I you know, yeah, but the more honest people in the DSA, they were apoplectic about this because they don't want to have any real kind of challenge to Sherad Brown, who's a quote pro labor Democrat.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Yeah. Like I was just saying this to Em earlier. There's a working class consciousness. Again, I think there's some disagreement between uh the Sparks and us, but we think that I won't go into detail, but that working class consciousness has not. Moved right. That's not what the re-election of Trump actually represents. What I see is actually lower consciousness among purported socialists or self-declared socialists than I see among working people. And it's reflected in the direction that these sections are moving, these socialists who are refusing to endorse or engage with independent socialist campaigns like Shamas. Meanwhile, we have people like Ben Davis running in Indiana for the first time as an independent socialist who actually consulted the Democratic Party and considered running as a Democrat. They denied that request based on the things he was going to fight for, but who is moving in the right direction and actually has said that he's glad that that happened because it led him to the Indiana Socialist Party and running independently. So you see working people moving in the right independent direction and then socialists fletching their pearls in a way and arguing that we shouldn't endorse these campaigns. We shouldn't do anything like the Greg Levy campaign because they're not viable. You know what would increase their viability if you actually went out and supported them and fucking canvassed for them and did more even than just endorse these campaigns, even for the organizations that have.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Just to say some one more thing about the supposed left inside of the DSA, that was just apoplectic, as you said, over this endorsement of Greg Levy. There's all sorts of other dynamics that are happening nationally that it's not just about the DSA didn't endorse SHAMA, the DSA is endorsing Greg Levy, but it's about the dynamics that are happening in the organization that you have not only that DSA didn't endorse SHAMA, but at the same time they're endorsing this Democrat, Jalen Scott. Not only is DSA endorsing AOC, but they're not endorsing someone like Andre Easton, who's running as an independent socialist in New York. In Indiana, you have the Central Indiana DSA that has not only refused to support the Socialist Party of Indiana, but they endorsed a Democrat running for Congress. And now there's a section that's trying to expel Jesse Brown.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

And unendors.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Trying to expel an unendorsed Jesse Brown, who was elected as a DSA city council member and he ran as a Democrat. We uh disagree with that, of course. They're trying to expel him not for being a Democrat, but for helping to launch the Socialist Party of Indiana. This organization is being stretched in opposite directions. You have these these so-called left caucuses like MUG and Reform and Revolution, that you have a member of the National Political Committee who's a member of Reform and Revolution, who's supposedly one of the left-wing caucuses of DSA, who's now openly advocating for this idea of critically supporting AOC and trying to blame it on the left, saying the left hasn't put up any sort of alternative. But the only alternative that they can imagine is an alternative within the Democratic Party. And so the obvious alternative is for the DSA left and the labor left and all of these socialist organizations outside of the Democratic Party to come together around a strategy that runs an independent socialist for president in 2028. But because that option is unacceptable to them, they say, I guess we have no option but to endorse AOC.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

The dynamics within the organization, I think there's going to be some kind of rupture. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

No, it's inevitable. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Right. It's certainly inevitable. I think it's going to be fairly soon and coming in the next year or two. And it's going to be around this AOC presidential campaign because last weekend, where there was the NPC meeting trying to relitigate the one member, one vote thing that was defeated at the convention last year and have a membership poll, all of that. The right wants to have a big membership poll so then they can say, look, we have the votes. They say endorse AOC because they have a bunch of paper members who will cast a ballot for AOC as soon as they get the email. But this is really driving the split dynamic. A few days after that, you had groundwork and socialist majority saying that people were disenfranchised, and then you have the groundwork people pushing that email. We don't need you, you need us with the New York City branch. New York City has all this money, the rest of the organization doesn't have anything. Without us, you're nothing. The right knows what it wants and it will split to get it, right? It wants an AOC presidential campaign, it wants to elect more Democrats, it wants to apologize for support, cover up any criticism of any of these Democrats, and it's going to keep driving at that. And what was the left's response? A day or two later, they put out this petition. We have to oppose all talks of a split, and we have to come to it's absolutely pathetic that the left crawled on its belly back toward the right, which is beating it over the head, and it won't make a fight, it won't break unity with these people and fight against them to defend socialist principles. Every single time, this is the dynamic that we see within DS. Part of the strategy of supporting independent socialist campaigns is to actually provide a real counter to the right within DSA. They say we have to elect Democrats. Well, no, here we have a bunch of independent socialist campaigns that the left can unite behind and push forward and provide a real alternate strategy on the electoral and at every other arena within DS.

SPEAKER_03 49:04

And also provide an alternative to the working class who has seen the Democrats fund the genocide, have seen Trump be re-elected, even people who voted for Trump and been disappointed by whatever those expectations may have been. The working class needs an alternative, and a huge section of the working class is ready for an alternative and agrees that we need one. And where are the socialists within organizations like DSA or these Marxists who are essentially providing cover for, you know, Democratic Party loyalists and DSA and making excuses and then being completely complicit in the same dead-end, miserable strategy? I think the turnout at these meetings, like in Seattle, where you have only what, 90 people in the room, they're struggling to meet quorum every single meeting we go to. It's torture. We're just sitting there hoping we can have a meeting because there's such low turnout. That is absolutely a reflection of the lack of energy and excitement and the demoralization around what DSA's strategy is, just to bring it back to Shama. Her campaign and having that debate and hopefully endorsing her could have brought out people who felt like that and energized them to get mobilized into supporting her campaign. And if she gets through the primary, obviously we need to fight within DSA again to force through an endorsement and to connect with those workers and help draw out all these contradictions.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

This is also the dynamics that Edward and everyone else have been laying out inside of DSA, inside of the labor movement. This is exactly why it's so shameful for the rest of the left to not support Shama's campaign because all of these so-called Marxist organizations outside of DSA have also, for the most part, not said a word about Shama's campaign. That's also true, by the way, of Andre Easton and Greg Levy and these campaigns that are being run by the PSL. Virtually every leftist organization has been silent about this. There has been a small number of organizations, including Labor Militant and the Spartacus League. There's a group in Seattle called Seattle Revolutionary Socialists, which has been supporting Shamma's campaign, the ISAR. But you could really count on one hand the number of organizations that have lifted a finger or said a word about Shamma's campaign. Just recently, there's been a couple of organizations that have been so far dragging their feet on this, but the Revolutionary Communists of America, the RCA, and Socialist Alternative, which have issued basically paper endorsements that, in the case of Socialist Alternative, they didn't even publish it on their website. You won't find their endorsement of SHAMA anywhere on their website. They published it in an Instagram post. And it's just a way for them to avoid being called sectarian, but they don't intend to do a single shift of campusing for SHAMA. They're not putting it on their website, they're not talking about it in any sort of way in social media, inside of the unions, inside of the broader left. They're not fighting for this. But we should see this campaign as an opportunity to draw a line in the socialist movement between an independent socialist strategy and the strategy of the DSA Democrats. We should see this as Marxists, not as a way to reform DSA or something. It's not a favor that we're doing to Shamma. We're not doing this because we like Shamma, because we're friends with Shamma, because we agree with her on everything. We're doing this because of what of what it represents for the working class, and that this can be used as a weapon against the opportunists in DSA, against the union bureaucrats, to beat them over the head with this campaign and say, why the hell are you supporting Adam Smith instead of supporting Shamma? Why the hell are you staying silent instead of supporting Shamma when we have an opportunity to elect someone who is actually standing on a working class platform who could be a step towards a workers' party, towards inspiring other independent socialist candidates to run for office and challenge the strategy of running inside the Democratic Party? That's what this campaign represents. And so for the left to sit on the sidelines, we were just out at a campaign rally for Shama. It's the last campaign rally that she's having before the election on August 4th. And there was not a single left organization out there except for Labor Belgium and the Seattle Revolutionary Socialists. No other left organization. The RCA has 70 members in Seattle. Not a single one of them came out to that rally. Socialist Alternative has dropped dramatically in numbers, but I think they have something like 35 members in Seattle. Not a single socialist alternative member was out at that at that rally. What the hell are we doing if we're just going to build our little small business and say, oh, we're not going to engage with that organization because we disagree with them on this or that thing. That is not how we're going to build the left. And so it is, it is just a complete abdication of leadership from these left organizations who call themselves Marxists, but aren't following any sort of principles of a Marxist approach to elections, to a united front, to anything that could really challenge the Democrat Party.

SPEAKER_04 53:56

Yeah. Yeah. I think Summer has mentioned a couple of times now our differences over consciousness. I just wanted to speak to it a little bit because I think that we agree that the Democratic Party is very hated. And we also agree that there's this big gulf between the left and the working class. What's a big part of that is how much over the last few decades the left has like totally like liquidated into liberalism and Democratic Party liberalism in particular. From our experience in doing work in the unions and honestly, like our families, everything, what we've really seen is there's been a real rightward shift in consciousness that we also need to have answers for workers that have gone right out of repulsion of Democratic Party hypocrisy that's ruined their lives with the veneer of, you know, wonderful liberal ideals. So for us, the importance of this, these campaigns is not just like there's polls at X Mount want socialism or whatever, but also to provide a real alternative to both the Democrats and MAGA populists that suck in a lot of working class people who think that they're some kind of alternative. That really is the potential of these campaigns is to actually polarize things on actual class lines and not on partisan MAGA Democrat, whatever lines. Of course, our support for Sawant is not uncritical. You can support candidates because their campaign really does represent a step forward for the working class. And I think maybe you guys have made this point in one of your articles too.

SPEAKER_03 55:31

Even if she doesn't win, the process of trying to raise consciousness of the need for the working class to have its own candidates that can demonstrate that an independent socialist can actually, even if she won a significant number of votes, that helps demonstrate to workers and other socialists that hey, we can actually win in these elections and use them as a platform towards a workers' party.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

One of our biggest differences with Sawant is on the question of support to the Green Party as an alternative to the Democrats. And if you listen to our episode on the California elections, we explained why we were voting socialist and for the PSL candidates, but not for the Greens. PSL was part of a unity slate for some races that they weren't running in with the Greens. Historically, Sawant and Workers Strike Back has really boosted the Green Party for a while now. Sawant also backed Butch Ware against Ramsey Robinson for governor in California. So maybe M can speak more to how Sawant is now going even further down the Green Brick Road. And what's wrong with that?

SPEAKER_02 56:37

This is a really serious problem, I think. That it's a criticism that we share of Shama with JBA, is that she has increasingly been moving in the direction of the Green Party. It's a long process that's been playing out from her first election to now that, you know, her base of support has really dwindled for a number of reasons. But one of them is that over 10 years in office, she took a similar kind of sectarian approach to what a lot of the left practices. She used the campaigns that she ran, the victories that she won, only to recruit to what was then socialist alternative on a very narrow basis. Instead of trying to bring socialists and working class people together around a revolutionary approach and revolutionary organization that could really have honest, open debate about where we disagree and connect up with these other groups. And she's shown much more willingness to organize alongside groups like the Green Party than, for example, PSL, which was running this candidate for governor in California, Ramsey Robinson, who was running as an independent socialist with working class demands, and was on the ballot against this long list of Democrats and Republicans, Steyer, and all these various people who were running for the California governor. And yeah, Shama chose to endorse Butch Ware, who has has spoken publicly about how he disagrees with Marxism and how he doesn't see Marxism as the basis for his politics, who has attacked other socialists, who really represents a kind of middle-class radical version of capitalism. She chose to endorse him over Ramsey Robinson, who is the independent socialist. And Butch Ware wasn't even on the ballot. He was running a write-in campaign for California governor. When you talk to working class people, you're telling them to write in this Green Party candidate instead of voting for the independent socialist who's actually on the ballot. It really exposes some of the direction that she's going. And we just recently found out that Shama actually formally joined the Green Party as a member, as a dues-paying member, in order to get the Green Party's endorsement in her election. And so the Green Party just recently formally endorsed her campaign. It's a requirement of the Green Party that you have to be a member of the Green Party to endorse. She's going further in this coalition with the Green Party in order to get their endorsement. There's some indication from the Green Party's statement that Shama has made some sort of agreement with them to support a slate of Green Party candidates that they're planning to run in the upcoming city council elections. And in Seattle? In Seattle, yeah. When are those elections? That's that's going to be next year. So yeah, it's this kind of popular front approach that the PSL also uses.

SPEAKER_05 59:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

Where they're much more willing to work with the Green Party than with an organization like the Spartacus League or Labor Militant or Shamma's organization. And it's this approach of ignoring other left groups because it's easier to organize with these left liberals because they have weaker politics and you can counterpose socialist program to them. And because you don't want to have real debate with people who are also socialists and might have opinions that you disagree with.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

I think playing footsie with the Greens really undermines the message of the campaign, right? Like against the capitalist parties, for an independent socialist alternative to both of them, right? It's like, I want to join the Greens, I want to make agreements with the Greens. The Greens aren't one of the two big capitalist parties, but they are a capitalist party. So this actually actively undermines the message of the campaign and weakens it. I was in Seattle two years ago during the Boeing strike. My example from this is Shama, the worker strike back, everybody went to uh Dearborn to campaign for Jill Stein for president while you had this massive strike of these machinists at Boeing that went on for, I don't remember how you were there too. I don't remember how many months that strike was. It was like two or three months, right? This major strike that was happening right in her backyard, and she's out campaigning for Jill Stein. It's if you want to build a workers' party, it seems like the thing to do would be to like use your name, your notoriety, your record to go to the picket lines and try to talk to workers who were on strike at battle with this huge capitalist conglomerate, which builds these airplanes that are falling out of the sky and it was a popular strike. The workers had a lot of support just because like everyone was everyone was and I think still is terrified of flying in these machines because this company just runs these workers into the ground and cuts all corners on safety. Stuff like this really kind of undermines like the potential power these independent socialist campaigns have to unite a section of the working class behind them and actually build up working class consciousness. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

Since we've left Shamma's organization, you know, we've had a lot of discussion and a lot of debate about where that organization has gone and some of the mistakes that it made. One of them, I think, was exactly what you were talking about of leaving leaving the Boeing picket lines to go campaign for Jill Stein when there was, again, in 2024, there was an independent socialist campaign in Claudia de la Cruz, which I think JBA and the Spartacus League were supporting.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:42

Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Yeah. Shama brought Jill Stein to the Boeing picket line, but as far as I know, never made any attempt to link up with Claudia de la Cruz and bring her to the picket line and put forward and put forward an independent socialist approach. And it's funny because one of the things that that Shama and the leadership of Revolutionary Workers, which I was on at the time, was saying about this is that Jill Stein is on the ballot in Michigan, where we ended up going to campaign for Jill Stein. Jill Stein's on the ballot in Michigan and in more states, and Claudia de la Cruz isn't, and Jill Stein has a sufficiently socialist platform. She has public ownership, et cetera. But one of the one of the key arguments was that Jill Stein was on the ballot and Claudia de la Cruz wasn't. But we see the reality of that in California, where they endorsed Butch Ware, who wasn't on the ballot against Ramsey Robinson, who was. And so it turns out this isn't really about who's on the ballot and who's not. It's about are you more interested in collaborating with this petty bourgeois, middle class, small capitalist party, or are you more interested in building a united with actual socialists who are going to put up a challenge to all of these capitalist parties?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Yeah. So it's also like called workers strike back. There's a workers' strike happening in Seattle.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:03

So here's some of the names that were put forward instead of that. They're really funny. By the way, we were both, I was very new at the time. I think I'd been a member for, not to make excuses, but I think I'd been a member for eight months or something. And I were both in Michigan in Dearborn campaigning for Joel Stein. And I mean, I think there's there are things that we drew from that that are the correct lessons, but also since leaving RW, obviously, with huge criticisms, there's a reason we left and are still supporting the campaign. One of the very clear conclusions that we came to pretty quickly was that that was a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

And we have to do this. The left, frankly, has failed over an entire historical period. Every left organization out there has completely failed to take up the task in front of us. We have to have some really serious self-criticism and self-reflection across the left. We all have to engage these processes of where have where have we gone wrong and what's needed to correct it. And that's exactly what we're trying to do in Labor Militant and with United Front is correct some of those mistakes and engage in some real debate and discussion about what those failures have been.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

And just to add to that point, a real part of that failure is coming from organizations too. This isn't to brag about our organization, but some really key critical lessons came out of leaving Shama's office and her organization that we are trying to draw the correct lessons from. And we're five people in Labor Militant who are now trying to build United Front. You guys have been involved with that. And it's exciting and I think a really good development. But we have organizations that have existed for 12, 20, 30 years, socialists who have been involved in the socialist movement for an entire generation. And during that time, the attacks on the labor movement, on the, on the unions, the development of liberalism and like the weaponization of it and the response to that, I don't want to call it a crisis, but because I don't know, crisis to me implies that it's not in a changing state towards something that is the better direction. But this is where we're at. This is where the labor movement's at. This is where we're now having to pick up the pace because of all of the failures of socialists for the last generation to actually respond to the things that were happening with the correct strategy. And so in reflection, it should be like very simple. I've been organizing with this organization. This has been our approach. What have we actively done? Where have we been successful? Where have we not? Is my approach effective? And it should always come down to is this actually having an impact? Or are we just our own little organization, small business?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

Can I just say one additional thing on Boeing Strike is that we talked about the dynamics between Jill Stein and Claudia de la Cruz and the failure to support the independent socialists? But another dynamic I think that happened on the picket line was the Spartacus League was out at the picket line as well with us. Before we never spoke before we uh got on a plane over to Dearborn, Michigan. But the Spartacus League was out there on the picket line with at the time workers strike back. And there was a real failure to to connect up with the Spartacist League and an unwillingness because uh Shama and her organization saw the Spartacists as a threat to their authority on the picket line. And so they didn't want to have to uh debate out any questions with the Spartacists they might lose. And and with workers to talk about strategy. They wanted to build like their own little sphere of influence. And we have to stop with that. We have to break through it. And it would have been much stronger if Workers Strike Back had connected up with the Spartacists, with the rank and file workers that all of us were talking to and started to build an opposition to the union leadership among the rank and file and a united front on the left to support that opposition. That would have been a far stronger basis to organize and engage with that strike than this kind of approach of, oh, we're just going to find some of the workers who agree with us and we'll let those other groups find workers who agree with them and everything's going to be splintered. Nothing's going to be coordinated. That's the kind of thing that we have to correct as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:03

Yeah, I appreciate that. I think that we did at there was actually an event in the Bay Area, maybe it was like a month ago, where it was a panel and the Spartacus league was on it with SOAT. So that was a step forward. That was probably the first time that has happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:21

Yeah I was funny that they said oh they're the most sectarian they'll never work with us. We we were to be fairly but what's also a big lesson for us too was coming out of RW and going, wait, we were really fucking sectarian too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:37

But it can change we can change we can all change we can reorient and stop being in these million little sex and action and admit mistakes and take ownership of them and be accountable to to righters and let's just let's just debate it out in the right fucking direction now. You know yeah I mean not only can we change but we have to fix any of this going back to the greens is part of the problem of because Sawant does have a very solid campaign and the support to the greens really undermines the arguments that are being made for class independence. A lot of workers really hate the Democrats and the eco-liberalism of the Green Party is a real turnoff for a lot of workers. It does not offer them anything for how they can advance their conditions. And so that's also another aspect of that which I think with the Boeing strike was very clearly juxtaposed to wrap up on what we were just talking about. The left is very weak right now. So if there's all these groups there for socialism they should really unite behind this campaign and the other campaigns that are working class alternatives in the midterms not that long ago the RCA did finally did endorse Solant. Salt just endorsed her a few days ago left voice I don't know why they refuse. They've run her articles on their website but they just can't bring themselves to support her. It's very strange. But I think maybe a lot of the support is still kind of just paper support. So maybe you guys can speak to that I guess end on a unity note about how we can try to turn that into something more real. There is still it's not over the vote it's not till August 4th the national DSA can still endorse Sawant. They should they should be fighting about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

We're coming to them in the general if yeah so yeah how are we going to do what we can do in this next week two weeks to get Sawant over the finish line I just wanted to speak to the the fact that like paper endorsements are a good step but they're not enough and that there is still time as you were just saying socialist organizations can do more than endorse and and these organizations that have endorsed in the last couple days begrudgingly seemingly these half-hearted endorsements, these should be straightforward. This should be mobilizing your membership this should be helping to canvas and get out the vote. We need to be doing a huge get out the vote push right now in Seattle across the district you don't have to agree with with everything about SHAMA. You can actually actively hate SHAMA and still agree on a principled basis as a Marxist that the correct thing to do to move working class independence forward and towards a workers party is to support the campaign. Right now we need to take advantage of the opportunity to break through because these campaigns represent working class interests against both parties. Socialist organizations should be going beyond those endorsements, canvassing phone banking right now Ben Davis is helping to donate and organize donations to these independent socialist campaigns. Ben Davis, we heard uh through the grapevine that he is very close to hitting his first fundraising target. And this is the socialist in Indiana Yeah he's he's running for like House District 13 in in Lafayette and his first goal was $12,000. I think he's just shy of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

And so Labor Militant has pledged to do $400 of matching funds. We're going to be matching donations to his campaign. I just wanted to say on SHAMA Labor Militant and United Front for Workers' Party is going to be out door knocking and tabling to get out the vote for SHAMA's campaign from now until August 4th.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:16

So any of these left organizations or working people by the way if you're just listening and you aren't organized in a in a socialist organization. Absolutely yeah come out and door knock with us table with us go to our website UFWp.org sign up to to get involved we're working on getting some concrete shifts up on the website I think there's not a direct sign up form for Shama get out the vote right now the town hall that we're we're having in August on the on the 8th is linked you can always you can use that link right now if if you do want to do that if you're in Seattle area even if you're international and you want to connect up you can use that link to just reach out to us.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:51

That works too just to make sure is the town hall already like is that public is there Yeah the town hall is public.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:57

That's going to be after the election we're going to be reviewing the election results uh we're going to be talking also about and having some debate about how do we build a workers party that's going to be in person in Seattle and we would definitely welcome and encourage you all anyone please please if you can anyone yeah I mean if you if you consider yourself a socialist or if you want to build a workers' party come out and have some discussion have some debate with us about how we do that. That's going to be on August 8th but up until then to these to these organizations that have issued these these endorsements of SHAMA on paper you know what what I would say is put up or shut up.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:34

Yeah come out your ass out there we won't give you credit for this simply because you you tweeted that people should I guess vote for Sham you know Shamma Salon.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:43

Right because what what is the point of these endorsements if not to go out and talk to working class people about these campaigns.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:51

Right. And you can do that while having criticisms of Shamma and in fact we should have criticisms of Shamma even if and she gets elected we should always also continue to bring those criticisms.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:00

Workers are not idiots they they can understand that you have criticisms of someone and you still think that we should vote for them because any worker who has ever voted in an election has voted for someone that they disagree with. And and we have a much stronger case that this is a working class candidate. And so we actually talk to people all the time when we're out door knocking, when we're out tabling, we talk to people every day about our criticisms of Shawma and why we're still supporting her.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

It's also drawn out an openness from people we're talking to actually I think we're more effective talking to people now than we were even when we were with the campaign, which obviously there was a bit of a uh a line drawn why would we be out with Shawma's campaign criticizing her? But but now that we do that and present both sides, the clear argument stands out almost more so because we are making those criticisms. The working class in this area where there is going to be a lot of a lot more resistance this time around, the people who are clearest are like, yeah, actually I there are things I don't like about her, but I am going to vote for her. And it opens up a discussion about what kind of socialist leadership we need and what why is it important to vote for an independent socialist campaign like Shahma's despite those disagreements and what how do we help hold her accountable if she gets elected to other socialists you can you can help support Shawma's campaign on the ground while also being very open about what you think and working people, I promise you, they can follow.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:23

Yeah and just one one concrete step that I think everybody listening can take wherever you live is that United Front for a Workers Party is hosting a national phone bank on August 1st that's a Saturday August 1st at 2 p.m Pacific, 5 p.m Eastern time where we are going to be calling people in the 9th congressional district where SHAM's running and we're going to be getting out the vote for SHAMA. These are people that we've already talked to that Labor Militant and United Front have signed down on petition sheets. We have hundreds of people that we've talked to in the district and this is separate from the thousands of people that the campaign itself has talked to these are people that have spoken to members of Labor Militant, other members of United Front who we've talked to about the campaign already. We want to call them this is going to be three days before the final day to vote in the election and it's mail and voting and so we're going to be calling all these people and making sure that they cast their ballot for SHAMA in this election. So sign up for that. That's up on our website UFWp.org or United Frontforkersparty dot org you can go to the get involved tab, sign up for that phone bank 2 p.m Pacific on August 1st so that we can get these people to actually get out and cast their vote for a working class candidate.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:40

That's great. Yeah I feel like for anyone who doesn't who's in the DSA especially and doesn't want to phone bank for Democrats you actually have an opportunity to phone bank for an actual working class alternative so you should really take that opportunity. I always get frustrated there's in the New York City DSA it's constant phone baking for Democratic Party candidates it's very annoying.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:04

I also just wanted to really quickly add a add a plug for Ben Davis people should if they can donate to Ben Davis's campaign in Indiana even a small donation I think it's so close to his goal and we should we should do whatever we can and if you're able to help push him past that goal like we said labor militant's gonna donate as well. So please please help him do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:24

You guys have shared your websites you have socials you want to share with people before I close it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:28

Yeah definitely you can find us on all social media platforms or at least the main ones at for a workers party with a number four for a workers party and then you can find labor militant at labor militant on X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:45

All right well thank you guys so much for coming on our show. That was yeah it was a great discussion yeah it was really really exciting to be able to have that kind of a back and forth on these key issues for the working class.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

You can follow the work of the Just Break Already caucus at link tree slash DSA underscore just break already where you'll find all of our statements, resolutions, petitions and everything we've else we've been up to lately, you can follow us on X at Clean Break Now and on Instagram at DSA underscore just break already. We are always looking for guests to come onto the program. If you are a member of a DSA Left Caucus and wanted to want to debate us, we would be happy to have you on. You can get in touch with us through our DMs which are always open