A Seattle city council member is openly using government resources to organize anti-Trump protests in collaboration with a radical socialist organization.
Councilmember Kshama Sawant posted an open letter to her “fellow activists” on the City of Seattle’s taxpayer-funded website, urging participation in anti-Trump “Occupy Inauguration” protests organized by the Socialist Alternative Seattle. More than 3,500 people have already committed to joining the protests, according to the event’s Facebook page.
“A right-wing anti-worker bigot has been elected President. Donald Trump’s cabinet is a who’s who of multi-billionaires with long records of hostility towards workers, the labor movement, women’s rights, and the planet,” Sawant charges in her letter, which was posted on New Years Eve. She goes on to urge visitors to the government website to engage in “resistance” to the president-elect.
“We cannot, as Hillary Clinton suggested, ‘give Trump a chance,’ or as Obama said, believe that ‘Trump’s success is our success.’ It is true that Trump does not have the mandate of the majority of Americans. But his election has emboldened the right wing, and we cannot be complacent,” the letter reads. “History demands that we immediately begin building mass peaceful resistance to Trump’s anti-worker, misogynist, anti-immigrant, and racist agenda.”
Sawant asks citizens to “join me in building massive peaceful protests in Seattle on Inauguration Day weekend in January as a first step in building the resistance against Trump.” She closes the letter by writing: “Happy holidays, and see you again in January for a re-energized struggle for social justice!” and includes a link to the “Occupy Inauguration” page.
The Socialist Alternative, which is organizing the protests, seeks the end of the “global capitalist system” and its members believe that “a new generation of workers and youth must join together to take the top 500 corporations into public ownership under democratic control to end the ruling elites’ global competition for profits and power.”
The group, which claims to have “spearheaded” Sawant’s political campaign, stands in “political solidarity” with the Committee for a Workers’ International, a far-left organization that calls for a “Marxist programme” to end capitalism.
In short, Sawant is using taxpayer resources to organize anti-Trump protests sponsored by a radical socialist organization that brags about its ties to global Marxists.
The Facebook page for the “Occupy Inauguration” protests states, “The Democratic Party has proven they are incapable of stopping Trump. It is time to build a new party for the 99% based on the united power of all exploited and oppressed people, on movements for social and economic justice, on the belief that we CAN do better than this corrupt and rotten system!”
Sawant is the vice-chair of the city council’s committee on civil rights. She did not return a request for comment by press time.
