Kshama Sawant’s Full Speech at the Jill Stein Rally in Seattle, WA
Published 10/16/2024
by Workers Strike Back
The following speech was delivered by socialist, founder of Workers Strike Back, and former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant at the No Votes for Genocide Rally with Jill Stein and Abandon Harris in Seattle, WA on October 15, 2024.
WATCH THE FULL SPEECH HERE
Democrats have completely LOST IT over my recent speech in Dearborn, Michigan. I spoke there at a similar joint rally by Workers Strike Back, Abandon Harris, and the Jill Stein campaign.
I said that our slogan must be No Votes for Genocide. That we need to turn out every possible vote for Jill Stein, and especially where they matter the most — in swing states like Michigan.
I made the same point that Abandon Harris co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam and many other Muslim and Arab American leaders have made. I said that it would be historic, if the Muslim Community, the antiwar movement, and working people defeated a sitting Vice President over her role in a genocide. That it would send a powerful message and deal a serious blow to this bankrupt two-party system.
I have to thank the Democrats on behalf of our movement. Because they – unintentionally – helped spread our message to over four million people after a Democratic Party hack shared a clip of my speech.
Why did they do this? They’re certainly not trying to help us and the Jill Stein campaign, we can be clear about that. And why did the Harris campaign just release an unprecedented ad directly attacking Jill Stein? Why is AOC doing a backflip on X, essentially admitting she lied, of course while still running interference for Harris and US capitalism. Why do the Democrats seem to be totally losing their shit?
The Democrats, and the forces of U.S. capitalism are afraid. And in fact they are becoming MORE afraid as we speak.
Recent polls now show Harris doing worse. The slim lead she had is shrinking.
This race is still too close to call. We should not get complacent. But one thing is clear: the Harris Honeymoon is over.
Why? Because reality is setting in. The very obvious reality that Kamala Harris shares full responsibility for her part in the horrors in Gaza. That she is backing Israel to the hilt. That she shares full responsibility for the breaking of the railroad workers’ strike, for the breaking of promises on the 15-dollar minimum wage and on public healthcare. That she is the preferred choice of Wall Street.
Over 350,000 Palestinians are now dead, directly or indirectly because of this genocide. It is one of the fastest moving genocides in history. Entire bloodlines are being wiped out. The Gaza Civil Registry has reported that 902 entire families have been killed.
Kamala Harris deserves to lose a thousand times over. She is no bystander. She is the sitting Vice President and a leader in the Democratic Party. There is growing evidence that this is a full partnership in genocide — that the Democratic Party and, of course, US capitalism as a whole, approve of it, that they share the goals of the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing project. The recent letter from Blinken and Austin just today with their supposed “30 days notice” is only their latest attempt to fool us. Remember Blinken’s statement murmuring something about a ceasefire during the DNC? It’s like that. It’s just an attempt to fool us. They have no intention of changing their policy on Israel, as they have made abundantly clear — they are merely scared about losing the election to Trump.
Does our clear opposition to Harris mean we want Trump? We have all heard this a thousand times now, and this is a thousand times untrue.
As I said in Michigan, our slogan must be: no votes for genocide. No votes for Harris, No votes for Trump. We need every possible vote for Jill Stein. Because every vote for Jill Stein is a vote AGAINST the genocide.
But there is in fact a danger of working people, including a section of the Muslim American community, and including in Michigan, moving to support Trump because of Biden and Harris's unapologetic genocidal position and betrayals of working people.
This is exactly why it’s so crucial we use the less than three weeks before Election Night to campaign and get out the vote for Jill Stein.
But we should be crystal clear: if Harris and the Democratic Party lose this election, they will have no one to blame but themselves.
Even now, if Harris was to come out squarely against genocide, and call for an end to all military aid to Israel, if she were to come out again in support of Medicare for All instead of saying she opposes it or the $15 minimum wage – she could do any of these things and likely win the election.
But she is not going to do that. Why?
Wall Street billionaires and the ruling class certainly strongly prefer Harris to Trump, because she is much more pliable and controllable by them. They were euphoric when she was crowned the nominee. But just as in 2016 and 2020, when the Democrats carried out coups against Bernie Sanders, it is MORE IMPORTANT to the leadership of the Democratic Party and the powerful people in U.S. capitalism to ruthlessly represent the interests of the U.S. capitalist class than it is to stop Trump.
In other words, YES the capitalist class would prefer Harris and they would prefer to defeat Trump. However, if defeating Trump means they have to shake one hair from their position in favor of this genocide, in favor of irthe exploitation of US working people, then they would much rather lose the election to Trump.
That is the only way we can explain their steadfast commitment to this grotesque slaughter taking place in Gaza, and the expansion of the hostilities to Lebanon and beyond.
In reality, the Democrats are the best builders of Trumpism.
It was the betrayals by Bill Clinton, his attacks on the welfare system and the poor, his attacks on workers with NAFTA, his building of the mass incarceration system — this is what led to the election of George W. Bush.
It was the betrayals by Obama that led to the rise of the right-wing Tea Party movement. It was in particular because of Obama bailing out of Wall Street instead of working people in the Great Recession, but also his abandonment of both single-payer healthcare and the so-called public option, along with his escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
It was Obama’s election, in reality, that was the final blow to the antiwar movement at the time. Our antiwar movement that was supported by sections of Democratic Party when Bush was in power was told to “shut the hell up” when Obama was elected — so as not to embarrass him. This supposedly antiwar Democrat carried out a troop surge in Afghanistan and the war went on for another decade.
The Democrats are the graveyard of social movements.
And now it is the Biden/Harris administration’s betrayals and support for this genocide that have made it possible for Trump, the most unpopular president in modern U.S. history, to even have a chance of returning to the White House.
It is beyond ironic and shameful that the same Democratic Party, which once ruthlessly attacked independent Left candidate Ralph Nader for allegedly helping to bring George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to power, is now celebrating Dick Cheney’s recent endorsement of Kamala Harris as though it were the second coming. George W. Bush, whom they called a fascist and threat to the continuation of U.S. democracy at the time, these same Democrats now lionize him. But it shouldn’t be surprising really to us. This is also the same Democratic Party that at that time embraced George W. Bush’s carpet bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq, just as they now embrace genocide in Gaza. It is now the Democratic Party whose candidate has proudly declared that the only thing – the only thing – she would do differently as President than Biden is to include a Republican in her cabinet.
There has never been a lesser evil, in reality. Because both of these parties have always been warmongering, anti-worker parties.
The Democrats were the party of the slave owners. They were fully onboard with the genocide of the indigenous people in the United States. Andrew Jackson was a Democrat. The Democrats were the party of Jim Crow. They were the party that launched the Vietnam War.
Their party is covered in blood from head to toe. And not just historically, they are bathing in it right now.
And the party will not change, for the simple reason that this is not in any way the party of working people or the oppressed. It is a party of the capitalists. The party of US imperialism. The party that puts maximizing profits ahead of human life and even human civilization itself as they escalate the climate catastrophe, and as Harris now comes out in support of fracking.
The public expressions of concern and the hand wringing by the Democratic Party are just theater — they have always been.
We do not accept that the Democratic Party is Left in any sense, or that it represents working people.
Who will actually fight against Trump if he is elected?
I’m going to make a prediction, and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb — we will.
In 2016, after Trump was elected the first time, working people, my City Council office, and my fellow socialists organized protests here in Seattle when the Democrats were sitting shellshocked. And we organized protests around the country the following day. Tens of thousands of people came out to those protests.
We, socialists, were the ones who, under the threat of Trump’s Muslim ban, shut down an international airport, SeaTac Airport, with mass civil disobedience. This was the only airport fully shut down in the US at that time. Also at SeaTac, the Democrats played no role, other than Pramila Jayapal doing a photo op there and leaving. In fact, the Democrats were so unhappy about our movement’s civil disobedience on that night, that they told me so in repeated phone calls as we were protesting at the airport.
When the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade and the Democrats had rolled over on their backs, we, socialists and working people and union members, built protests, and our movement won the first abortion rights sanctuary in the country, in Seattle. And later that year, through the People’s Budget campaign, we also won full funding for all abortion needs for anyone who happens to be in the city of Seattle.
What were the Democrats doing after Trump’s election in 2016? Barack Obama said: “Give Trump a chance.” The Democrats prioritized the stability of their capitalist system over any building of working-class resistance to Trump. Their challenge was entirely through the courts. Why? Because they are in fact more afraid of working-class movements, more afraid of working people as a whole, than they are of Trump.
The far greater evil than Trump is this two party system. These two capitalist parties that are on a fast track toward genocidal and global war, increasingly brutal attacks on working people, and a climate apocalypse.
We have to end it. To do that, we have to end our support for the two party system. And we have to fight actively in each election against the two party system.
It was a positive thing that a number of labor unions passed ceasefire resolutions since the onslaught against Gaza began.
But then the leaders of these same unions, including Shawn Fain of the UAW, shamefully endorsed Biden, the US president actively arming a genocide. And then they rapidly endorsed Kamala Harris after her overnight coronation.
Even now, I call on Shawn Fain to reverse his historic mistake. Because history will judge Shawn Fain. It will also judge Randi Weingarten – a longtime leader in the American Federation of Teachers, my union – the AFL-CIO national president Liz Schuler, and history will judge all other leaders of the labor movement who have given their full-throated support to this administration and the horrors being carried out.
We are told we can’t vote for Jill Stein because she can’t win.
I really disagree with the idea that someone should only run for office if they think they can win the actual office.
When I first ran for office, in 2012 for the State House, I had no expectation of winning. And we didn’t. What we did do was set a clear example of socialist politics in action. And in winning 29 percent of the vote in the general election, against Frank Chopp no less, we made a major political impact. We scared the Democrats, and we set the stage for our successful campaign the following year for City Council, which we DID win, and the victory on the first major-city $15 minimum wage.
To be clear, I would LOVE for Jill Stein’s campaign to win the White House. I would love if, instead of having the goal of defeating a Vice President arming a genocide, if instead, we could beat both Harris AND Trump. If there was a state where we could carry out a Get Out The Vote campaign and defeat them both, I would proudly spend every hour I have and give every dime I own to do that.
But I just don’t believe that is where things are at. And I think it is very important to have an honest assessment of the balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class and of the objective situation.
But that does not mean we stay at home in despondency. It means exactly the opposite. It means we go out there and FIGHT FOR EVERY SINGLE VOTE FOR JILL STEIN in this election. It means a systematic Get Out The Vote campaign, and not one that’s limited to the so-called “safe states.”
Nor can we simply formally endorse Stein’s antiwar, pro-worker campaign, and do absolutely nothing to build it — as my former organization Socialist Alternative is unfortunately doing. This is, in another name, an act of lesser evilism. And in this context it is a betrayal. As is DSA’s backdoor support for Harris, with most leaders in the organization adopting a so-called “safe states” strategy.
Safe for what? Safe for arming a genocide? Safe for strike breaking? No, we need an UNSAFE states strategy. And we need to build a new party for working people, an antiwar party, that makes this country UNSAFE for the warmongering billionaire class.
In particular that means campaigning first and foremost in Michigan — which Workers Strike Back is doing, for which we urgently need your financial support in a big way.
We are sending some of the most experienced campaigning activists from Seattle, from Kansas City, from Minnesota, from Boston – all who are going to sacrifice their lives for three weeks, set aside their jobs, their families, set aside everything and stay in Michigan and get out the vote. But they cannot do that without your support. Because we need to fund their flights, their accommodation, their sustenance.
Michigan, with its biggest concentration of Arab American voters in the country, is and has to be the focal point of our leverage. And we have to use it for all that we can.
And we can’t afford to get complacent. I was in Dearborn for many days last week, and I met people, and others who were with me met other people, who are excited about the Jill Stein campaign once they hear of it, but they hadn’t heard about it till we talked to them. Which means our task is cut out for us. It is a doable task, but it is a hard task, and we need everyone’s support. And if you can’t go on the ground in Michigan, then you have to support our effort by donating to Workers Strike Back.
While fighting to win every vote against genocide in this election, we also need to prepare ourselves for November 5th.
What should we expect? I don’t think we can expect the White House.
And I want to be clear, I’m not saying this on behalf of the Stein Campaign or Green Party. I am a member of Workers Strike Back. They have a different view on this campaign. There are always debates within a movement — we need frank and respectful debates and discussion inside our movements.
I think it’s important to be straight with the working class. I think if, on November 5th, our campaign gets over a million votes, that is a big victory and should not be the cause for demoralization.
There is far more at stake than just one election. Because if the Democrats win on the basis of vowing to continue the genocide — while knowing that they are risking defeat — what won't they do?
We are told we have to vote for the genocide because of fascism.
Is there a danger of actual fascism coming to the United States? Yes, there is a danger, but not on November 5th. Not because Trump wouldn’t like to be a dictator — because he would like to be a dictator — but because he’s not able to. Because the objective conditions for that don’t yet exist.
The real danger of fascism lies in continuing to support this two party system – in these two parties both relentlessly driving the agenda to the right, in the absence of a serious challenge from the left or the labor movement.
As some have said in response to the latest horror show from Gaza, the entire US system must be dismantled if burning children alive in a hospital and a mother and son in a refugee tent is the lesser evil.
The working class of America needs to rise up against BOTH of these parties, and we need to break these two warmongering capitalist parties once and for all. And we need to break with capitalism itself. That is why I and many in Workers Strike Back are socialists, and I agree with what Margaret said about how war will continue on the basis of capitalism. If it’s not this war, it will be another war. If it’s not this genocide, it will be another genocide.
This break from capitalism is not going to happen overnight. But it needs to start now. It needs to start with systematically fighting for NO VOTE for genocide. For every possible vote for Jill Stein. And clarifying to people that the Democrats have crossed more than one red line – obviously the genocide is the most abominable by far – but it should ALSO be a red line for a president to break a strike, as the Biden/Harris administration did with the railroad workers.
No strikebreaking candidate deserves working-class votes.
We need a new mass party for the working class. A new anti-war party. And the Green Party, Workers Strike Back, Abandon Harris, the Revolutionary Blackout Network – all of us need to be part of this new party.
As a step toward that new party, let’s focus on getting out the vote for Jill Stein through November 5th. Then we can come together and take stock of where we are, and get back to building a stronger movement against the billionaire class. Workers Strike Back is organizing a conference on February 22nd to take forward the momentum from this campaign and build the fight against whichever warmonger is in the White House.
No Harris! No Trump! No votes for genocide!
Solidarity.
