Kshama Sawant
@cmkshama • 106,833 subscribers
Socialist who won nation's highest minimum wage • Running for Congress to end all military aid to Israel • Help us defeat AIPAC-bankrolled Democrat Adam Smith
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![.Briahna Joy Gray asks left podcasters and influencers who promoted Graham Platner's campaign: "You created Graham Platner, why are you ignoring Kshama Sawant?" "I just would really like folks to ask themselves: Why did I immediately glom onto this campaign and boost it? But I have been completely silent about the first elected Socialist City Council person in like a hundred years in American history, who fought for and secured the ... $15 an hour [minimum wage] and made that issue a national one because of her success, and is fighting against Jeff Bezos in Washington state?" I'm Kshama Sawant and I'm running for Congress as an independent antiwar socialist. I'm fighting to end all military aid to Israel, for a permanent arms embargo on Israel, to win free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, and to win national rent control and a national $25.hour minimum wage. I was an independent socialist on the Seattle City Council for a decade, and I used my office to win the nation's highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax, and unprecedented renters' rights. My main opponent is 29-year incumbent Adam Smith, a general among the warmongers. Adam Smith is the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee and has joined the Republicans in cosponsoring nearly two trillion dollars in war funding just since December. Smith has voted to create and repeatedly fund ICE. He is bankrolled by AIPAC and the billionaire class. My campaign is the strongest-ever challenge, by far, to Adam Smith and we have a real shot at defeating him. But we are facing a huge media blackout, including from many independent left-wing shows. I call on all left-wing podcasters and independent media outlets to have me on their shows and feature our campaign. Instead of continuing to ignore this chance to throw out a genocidal warmonger from Congress, let’s unite on the basis of our anti-imperialist principles and bring this campaign past the primary on August 4th. I also call on the audience of these outlets to urge the hosts to bring us on. We have less than three weeks before the August 4th primary election and we need to get out every vote that we can. Having an independent revolutionary socialist in Congress would be a game changer for the working class. My track record proves my commitment to fighting uncompromisingly for working people, and to build mass movements capable of threatening the political establishment and accomplishing real victories. We have a real opportunity to challenge both parties of the billionaire class, but in order to achieve that, we will need the support of people with big platforms that are capable of countering our invisibilization from mainstream media. Help us send the first independent revolutionary socialist to Congress!](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2076859879600582672/amplify_video_thumb/2076857835330424832/img/xwtHCSAOnROZl9EW.jpg)
.Briahna Joy Gray asks left podcasters and influencers who promoted Graham Platner's campaign: "You created Graham Platner, why are you ignoring Kshama Sawant?" "I just would really like folks to ask themselves: Why did I immediately glom onto this campaign and boost it? But I have been completely silent about the first elected Socialist City Council person in like a hundred years in American history, who fought for and secured the ... $15 an hour [minimum wage] and made that issue a national one because of her success, and is fighting against Jeff Bezos in Washington state?" I'm Kshama Sawant and I'm running for Congress as an independent antiwar socialist. I'm fighting to end all military aid to Israel, for a permanent arms embargo on Israel, to win free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, and to win national rent control and a national $25.hour minimum wage. I was an independent socialist on the Seattle City Council for a decade, and I used my office to win the nation's highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax, and unprecedented renters' rights. My main opponent is 29-year incumbent Adam Smith, a general among the warmongers. Adam Smith is the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee and has joined the Republicans in cosponsoring nearly two trillion dollars in war funding just since December. Smith has voted to create and repeatedly fund ICE. He is bankrolled by AIPAC and the billionaire class. My campaign is the strongest-ever challenge, by far, to Adam Smith and we have a real shot at defeating him. But we are facing a huge media blackout, including from many independent left-wing shows. I call on all left-wing podcasters and independent media outlets to have me on their shows and feature our campaign. Instead of continuing to ignore this chance to throw out a genocidal warmonger from Congress, let’s unite on the basis of our anti-imperialist principles and bring this campaign past the primary on August 4th. I also call on the audience of these outlets to urge the hosts to bring us on. We have less than three weeks before the August 4th primary election and we need to get out every vote that we can. Having an independent revolutionary socialist in Congress would be a game changer for the working class. My track record proves my commitment to fighting uncompromisingly for working people, and to build mass movements capable of threatening the political establishment and accomplishing real victories. We have a real opportunity to challenge both parties of the billionaire class, but in order to achieve that, we will need the support of people with big platforms that are capable of countering our invisibilization from mainstream media. Help us send the first independent revolutionary socialist to Congress!
Kshama Sawant56,566 views • 1 day ago
There’s only one antiwar, pro-worker campaign in this race. I am running for Congress as an independent antiwar socialist in WA state’s 9th district. There are two Democrats running against me. One is 29-year pro-war incumbent Adam Smith, and another is a candidate named Melissa Chaudhry. I recently attended a candidate interview. Adam Smith refused to attend. Clearly he prefers not to face my campaign which has relentlessly exposed his genocidal, anti-worker record. The other candidate, Chaudhry, would have working people believe that she is running a progressive antiwar campaign. But what are her actual positions? Nowhere has Chaudhry called for an end to military aid for Israel. The words genocide, Palestine, Israel, Gaza, or occupation don’t even appear on her website. I brought this up in the interview, and Chaudhry declined to respond. Nowhere does Chaudhry say anything about the need for universal public healthcare. Chaudhry also fails to say anything in support of trans and queer rights. When pressed, she admitted that she wanted to avoid offending a particular community. This is in the context of the horrific attacks against trans people by Trump and the right wing. Chaudhry is also silent about shutting down ICE and the detention centers. Her silence on all these crucial issues — the genocide, military aid to Israel, universal public healthcare, trans and queer rights, and ICE terror — is anything BUT progressive. Chaudhry recently assured a Democratic Party audience that she is a “team player.” It's clear what she means. She is happy to toe the line of the genocidal, anti-worker, anti-trans Democratic Party leadership to try to make a career for herself. The last thing working people need is another status quo careerist politician. Congress is full of them. What we need is a fighter for working people. If elected, I will use my Congressional office to build mass movements, like I did for a decade with my socialist Seattle City Council office, winning the nation’s highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax and landmark renters’ rights. Join us to build for the strongest antiwar working-class vote in this primary election that ends August 4th! #socialist #palestine #gaza
Kshama Sawant32,104 views • 29 days ago
I’m running for Congress as an independent, revolutionary socialist against genocidal, billionaire-backed Democrat Adam Smith. Smith has voted to send tens of billions of dollars for Israel's genocide in Gaza, and voted repeatedly to ban U.S. funds for United Nations' food aid to Gaza. He voted for the Iraq War and voted to create ICE. Smith is backed by weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, blood-sucking health insurance companies like Humana, and billionaire Trump donors like Palantir CEO Alexander Karp. His #1 donor is the pro-genocide Zionist organization AIPAC. I’m running as an independent socialist, fighting to end all U.S. military funding to Israel, for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, to stop the deportations, and for national rent control. I'm calling for a $25/hour federal minimum wage — and $30/hour in major cities. I’m also calling to cancel all student and medical debt. During my decade as the socialist on the Seattle City Council, I built working-class movements to win the first $15/hour minimum wage in any major city, the Amazon Tax for affordable housing, free abortion by taxing the rich, and landmark renters’ rights. Our campaign is up against billionaires, the Zionist lobby, big business, and the Democratic Party. We need a movement to win. My campaign's median donation is $25. Can you DONATE $25 TODAY? Help us defeat Adam Smith and send the first-ever revolutionary socialist to Congress! #gaza #protest #aipac #ice #election #kshamasawant #healthcare
Kshama Sawant147,031 views • 7 months ago
Our campaign is proud to be endorsed by Chris Hedges! Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, author, and host of the online broadcast The Chris Hedges Report. In his endorsement, Hedges says: "I’ve admired and supported the revolutionary socialist Kshama Sawant since she was first elected in 2013 to the Seattle City Council. Her fierce commitment to the working class, her steadfast defiance of the billionaires who destroyed our democracy, and her anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist credentials have long made her a special target. "The billionaire class has pumped millions of dollars into campaigns to defeat her and orchestrated a recall vote in 2021, which she fought and won. "Her current campaign for Congress is part of our grassroots struggle to wrest power from the hands of the global ruling class. It is a campaign for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich. It is a campaign to raise the minimum wage to at least $25 an hour. It is a campaign to block landlords from extorting massive rents and evicting families. It is a campaign to drive politicians like Adam Smith, a tool of big business who is funded by and subservient to the Israel lobby, from Congress. "In an age when we stand on the cusp of fascism, we cannot rely on the Democratic Party, whose betrayal of the working class and subservience to the rich gave us Trump. "We need a political earthquake. We need a revolution. But it won’t happen until we stand with revolutionaries like Kshama."
Kshama Sawant13,467 views • 15 days ago
JOIN US FRIDAY, 2/20 AT 6PM IN NYC, at Starr Bar in Bushwick! Fundraiser to to win our election as the first-ever revolutionary socialist to Congress! The AOC-ification of Mamdani has taken place at lightning speed, from promising to reappoint brutal arch-Zionist police commissioner Jessica Tisch months before his election and endorsing millionaire streak-breaker Kathy Hochul for governor, to turning his back on key campaign promises like taxing the rich and expanding rental assistence. There is only one way to break with this endless cycle of disappointment and betrayals from so-called "progressive" and "socialist" Democrats: breaking with both bloodstained parties of war and genocide. Working people need our own party, and we need independent candidates of our own who are willing to go to war against both the Democrats and Republicans to win things working people need. During my decade as the lone socialist on the Seattle City Council, my fellow revolutionary socialists and I did exactly this, leading movements of working people to win the highest minimum in the nation, the Amazon Tax on big business to fund affordable housing, and landmark renters' rights victories. We need to take this fighting approach to a national scale, shut down ICE, end the genocide in Gaza, and tax the rich for free healthcare for all. My campaign is a fight to elect the first ever revolutionary socialist to U.S. Congress, but it will take an army of working people around the country to make this possible. The Kshama for Congress campaign and Workers Strike Back members in New York City are hosting a fundraiser THIS FRIDAY, 2/20, at 6PM at Starr Bar in Bushwick to help build this movement. RSVP today and join us in fighting to make history
Kshama Sawant75,248 views • 4 months ago
Yesterday, I spoke out against data centers and AI layoffs at the Seattle City Council. Under mass pressure, the City Council passed a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers. This is a victory for working people, but one year is far from enough. My independent socialist campaign for Congress is the only one in this election fighting for an end to hyperscale data centers, for democratic public ownership of all existing data centers, and for a public-sector living wage jobs guarantee, funded by taxing the rich, to counter the AI-related mass layoffs. #datacenter #socialist #independent #ai #freepalestine
Kshama Sawant18,981 views • 1 month ago
Mamdani and his fellow DSA leaders are trying to sell us the snake oil that Donald Trump will work with him to deliver affordability. This is the same Trump who has devastated the living standards of working and poor people, and who has gutted Medicaid and food assistance to the tune of a trillion dollars and Medicare by $500 billion. The same Trump who has laid off 300,000 federal public-sector workers and stripped union rights from a million of the remaining workers. The same Trump who destroyed ACA enhanced tax credits, which will mean healthcare costs more than doubling. The same Trump whose tariffs have exacerbated the costs of basic necessities like food, clothing, coffee, and shoes. As the authors of a survey of prices of holiday staples have said, “this Thanksgiving, the main course is inflation as Trump’s policies force families to carve up their shrinking budgets.” Perhaps the most criminal thing about Mamdani’s meeting with Trump, and the cheerleading by the DSA and other “progressive” leadership, is that these so-called socialists are sending the message that working people don’t have to organize and fight back, we just have to “charm” powerful people. This is exactly wrong. Working people need to get far better organized and we need to go to war against the billionaires and their political servants, not make friends with them. And no socialist should be helping to rehabilitate Trump, whose approval ratings have been cratering to the lowest levels ever.
Kshama Sawant69,222 views • 7 months ago
The ongoing attacks in the Middle East are deadly serious. The Israeli state has abandoned even the pretence of the so-called ceasefire with the Iranian state. We need mass movements to end ALL military aid to Israel, and we need leaders who will unambiguously fight for this demand. I am an independent revolutionary socialist running for Congress. I have two Democratic Party opponents in this race. One is 29-year incumbent Democrat Adam Smith, who has sent tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza. Smith is currently pushing for over a TRILLION NEW dollars for Trump’s wars. His new bill would ALSO merge the U.S. and Israeli militaries. The second Democrat in this race, Melissa Chaudhry, does not call for an end to military aid to Israel. The words Israel, Gaza, Palestine, and occupation DO NOT EVEN APPEAR on her website. She recently said to a Democratic Party audience that she will be a “team player.” This is how the Democratic Party operates: they give a choice between an openly-pro imperialist candidate, and a candidate who is running an establishment-friendly campaign and telling us she will be a “team player” with the rest of the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party wants to stop Trump’s war on Iran, all they need to do is announce that they are fighting for a bill to cut off military aid to Israel and rally hundreds of thousands of ordinary people to support it. This would be HUGELY popular right now. But not only are Democrats not willing to do that, a majority of them, including Adam Smith, voted in December to give over $906 billion dollars for Trump’s wars. The Democratic and Republican parties both represent the war profiteering billionaire class. And individual politicians build their careers by trying not to rock the boat. I am not running to build my career. I am running because we need an antiwar fighter in Congress. We don’t need any more status quo politicians. We need someone who will DISRUPT business as usual. I am fighting for an end to all military aid to Israel, to end all weapons and tech for genocide and imperialist war, and slash the trillion-dollar war budget to fund housing and social services instead. #socialist #israel #iran
Kshama Sawant11,265 views • 1 month ago
Join my campaign on Saturday, May 9th, to build the fight to tax the rich to fund free healthcare for all, not endless wars! Join in person at Casa Latina or join over livestream. RSVP right now! Our campaign has launched a fundraising drive for the month of May with a goal of $75,000 to build our momentum to defeat warmongering Democrat Adam Smith. It will take thousands of working people getting involved and getting organized to send the first-ever revolutionary socialist to Congress. My opponent, Democrat Adam Smith, voted to give Trump $900 billion last December to carry out his brutal assault on Iran and for Imperialist war around the world. We must reject both parties of the billionaires and their representatives and build independent and fighting campaigns to win free healthcare for all, to shut down ICE and the detention centers, to win national rent control, and to end all imperialist wars. Our town hall on Saturday will discuss upcoming priorities for the next phase of our campaign and how working people can join us in the fight to defeat Adam Smith. See everyone on Saturday!
Kshama Sawant11,750 views • 2 months ago
The reason that the Democratic Party politicians have completely failed to fight against Trump is that they also represent the same agenda of Wall Street and war. Local politicians are no different, because they represent the same party and the same agenda. There are no Republicans on the Seattle City Council. During my decade as the lone independent socialist in City Hall, this meant that it was the Democratic Party politicians who opposed our movements every step of the way to protect the interests of big business and the corporate landlords. By using my office to build working-class movements, my fellow revolutionary socialists and I were able to defeat big business and their political servants in the Democratic Party time and time again. We overcame their opposition and won historic victories like the nation’s highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax, landmark renters’ rights, and important protections for immigrants and peaceful protestors. Many of our victories began with one lone vote in favor — mine — and eight opposed. Yet with a fighting strategy, including class struggle tactics like our public comment actions, our socialist leadership decisively shifted the balance of power in City Hall and delivered huge gains for the working class. We need that same fighting strategy nationally to defeat Trump’s and the Democrats’ attacks on immigrants and peaceful protestors, to end the genocide in Gaza, and to go on the offensive for national rent control and free healthcare for all paid for by taxing the rich. That is why I am running to become the first revolutionary socialist elected to U.S. Congress. If elected, I have pledged to turn my inauguration into a rally of 10,000 people in Washington, D.C., to launch mass movements to end US military aid to Israel, win free healthcare, and shut down ICE. We have a fighting chance at defeating 29-year warmongering Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, who voted to create ICE and is a faithful servant of U.S. imperialism. We have a chance to turn politics upside down in Washington D.C. and launch national mass movements. But we need you to get involved to help build a powerful national movement. Sign up today to donate and volunteer at
Kshama Sawant12,542 views • 5 months ago
My opponent, pro-genocide Democrat Rep. Adam Smith, has spent 29 years as a general for the billionaires and warmongers. His billionaire and health insurance industry donors have full confidence that he won't allow Medicare for All to go forward. So it is beyond shameful that Pramila Jayapal, a leading so-called progressive Democrat, has allowed Smith to sign onto her Medicare for All bill. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is actively helping him whitewash his bloodsoaked, corporate record, in the face of the serious challenge posed by my record of relentlessly fighting and winning for working people. As Calvin said at my campaign’s recent Free Healthcare For All Town Hall, this whitewashing is no easy feat, but it is exactly how the Democratic Party tries to close ranks to block our working-class challenge. This is the real role of the gatekeepers like Jayapal, AOC, and the other Democratic Party politicians: to put the brakes on the kind of working-class movements it would take to win any of the progressive demands these Democrats claim to support. We need a fighting strategy. This means building a powerful movement independent of the Democratic Party and independent of the labor, left, and NGO leaders who are also tied to the Democratic Party. We need leadership that understands that we need to defeat the gatekeepers in order to defeat the billionaires. This is what we did time and time again during my decade as the lone socialist on the Seattle City Council. Our clarity on the role of the gatekeepers was crucial for achieving our unmatched working-class victories, like the historic Amazon Tax and the nation’s highest minimum wage. If we defeat Adam Smith and send the first revolutionary socialist to Congress, this would be a political earthquake. This would give us a national platform to build mass movements and shatter the impasse in the fight for what working people need, like free healthcare for all, paid for by taxing the rich. Our experience in Seattle shows that when we fight, we can win — but we will need thousands of donors and volunteers to join our working-class campaign. Sign up today at
Kshama Sawant12,648 views • 5 months ago
My independent, socialist campaign for Congress is organizing to stop all ICE raids, stop deportations, and shut down ICE and the detention centers. We need mass protests and civil disobedience, combined with mass strike action by public and private sector unions. The Democratic Party, which has participated in creating and repeatedly funding ICE, is quickly trying to wash their hands of the killing. Rather than use their elected positions to call for and lead mass protests and civil disobedience, top Minnesota Democrats like Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have urged working people to “remain calm.” Worse, Governor Walz is getting ready to deploy the National Guard. The labor leadership has failed to call for mass protests and strike actions. Instead of organizing an actual fightback, the Democratic Party’s endless list of NGOs are limiting people to candlelight vigils, to tamp down on working-class anger at ICE. My congressional opponent, warmongering Democrat Adam Smith, was among the 88 House Democrats who voted to create ICE in the Homeland Security Act. This should come as no surprise, considering Smith’s anti-worker, pro-war record. Alexander Karp, the CEO of Palantir, a tech company known for their surveillance technology and huge contracts with ICE, has maxed out his donations to Adam Smith. During my time on the Seattle City Council, my office fought for and won a ban on the use of crowd control weapons by the Seattle Police Department in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter uprisings. This ban was NOT won by my playing nice with the Democrats on City Council. It was only won because I fought to overcome the opposition of the Democratic Party. I did this by using my office to build fighting movements and lead protesters to peacefully occupy City Hall. That is the type of leadership we need in Congress, and it's the type of leadership we will never find in the Democratic or Republican parties. No matter where you are in the US, if you are angry about this murder by ICE in Minneapolis, if you are angry that billionaires get richer and our lives get harder, we need you to get involved in our campaign to send the first revolutionary socialist to U.S. Congress. You can donate and sign up to volunteer at
Kshama Sawant11,056 views • 6 months ago
Thanks so much to Dr. Cornel West for supporting our independent revolutionary socialist campaign for the U.S. Congress! Our campaign is fighting for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, national rent control, and a national $25/hour minimum wage (it should be at least $30/hour in big cities). We're also calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, all U.S. military funding to Israel, and the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands. We're fighting to stop all deportations and to shut down ICE and the detention centers. Back in 2014, Dr. West also supported our struggle for Seattle's $15/hour minimum wage, which we won through my office and the 15 NOW mass campaign we launched. Dr. West also supported Seattle's ban on caste-based discrimination in 2023, the first of its kind outside South Asia. My office won these historic victories by building fighting mass movements of the working class. Join Dr. West in supporting our campaign for the U.S. Congress against genocidal billionaire-backed Democrat Adam Smith!
Kshama Sawant11,958 views • 8 months ago
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