KS

We in Socialist Alternative decided to run in the wake of the Occupy movement because we recognized that there was an opening for genuine left politics and even socialist ideas. We ran as openly socialist at that time, and this was before Bernie Sanders running for president in 2016 as a socialist. We saw the incredible impact his campaign had on consciousness, on the willingness of ordinary people, especially young people, to come out to the forefront of US politics.

The first thing I would say is that winning a campaign as a socialist will be hard, but the real challenges come when you take office. Just the act of taking office as a socialist doesn’t mean that the balance of power has shifted yet in any meaningful way. The whole point is to be unapologetic fighters for the people who are left out, and the fight will begin immediately.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it well when she said, “The halls of Congress are no joke. It is no joke. Standing up to corporate power and established interests is no joke. It’s not just about standing up and saying these things, but behind closed doors, your arm is twisted, the vise pressure of political pressure gets put on you, every trick in the book, psychological, and otherwise is to get us to abandon the working class.” I think that really eloquently captures the intense pressures you will come under as somebody who is genuinely fighting for working people. And that should not be underestimated.

A few weeks after I took office two of the leading Democratic Party establishment council members, who were thoroughly corporate politicians, came to my office, sat me down, and said, to paraphrase, “It’s all well and good that you roused the rabble and got yourself elected, but we’re here to tell you that City Hall runs on our terms, and you’re not going to pass any minimum wage increase.”

It’s not like when you get elected and start to fight for things like a $15 minimum wage the politicians will say, “Oh yeah, you’re actually right. Why didn’t we think of this? Let’s do it. Let’s make sure that the poorest workers are lifted up.” We immediately came up against this wall of opposition from big business and also from the party establishment. This is Seattle. We don’t have a Republican establishment to speak of. In reality, the political elite are represented in the Democratic Party, and those elite are tied to big business interests. The only reason we were able to win — and again, this is why socialist analysis is so important — is that we created a movement of ordinary people to fight with us against that Democratic Party establishment.

If you win, you will be told, “Okay, you ran a radical campaign. It’s not our preference, but it’s fine. Now you’re elected, and you need to stop being an activist.” Every socialist who gets elected is going to hear some version of that, presented as a truism. But if you believe it, it’s fatal. If you take that advice and think it’s time to stop being an activist and start being a respectable politician, you will limit yourself and your power. Being an elected official means lots of private meetings. You don’t have the working people who supported you and got you elected there. They don’t have a seat at the table. If you allow the powers that be in those meetings to exert pressure on you without building your own power outside the halls of power, you will be completely at a loss.

The whole strategy has to be building a base to change the balance of power, so we are not marginalized. As Bernie Sanders says, if it’s class warfare, which it is under capitalism, then we better start pushing back because it’s like aerial bombardment from the top. The only way to push back is to recognize where your power comes from, and to never stop organizing and mobilizing ordinary people, on the basis of building unity in the grassroots, around concrete demands.

And at the same time we must provide a critique of capitalism, so the fight isn’t just about winning reforms, but moving toward a new kind of system. For this, I think we’ll need a crystallization of another idea, which is the necessity of a new party for working people. Because I’ll tell you one thing: had I run as a Democrat, I would have been under intense pressure from the Democratic establishment to tone down my politics, to not be divisive as they say. Having Socialist Alternative as an actual organization with me is a big reason why I have been accountable and successful, and that offers a sort of template for the idea of a new party.

I should also say that if you win, you should be mentally prepared for hard work. One major component of holding local office is what’s called constituent work. Many ordinary people who live in your district or city will need things to be responded to, which you may not immediately see as political or politicized. But it is important to respond to people’s concerns if they’re genuine, because it’s the right thing to do no matter what, and on top of that it builds confidence in the minds of working people that socialists are actually trying to fix their problems. This kind of work requires a lot of time and effort, and is necessary to help transform political consciousness.

And finally, the battles you will be taking on will require courage. Physically, you are often by yourself, and you have to remind yourself that you’re representing the interests of working people. In that sense, they’re always there with you. You have to speak for them, and resist the pressures of the people who are around you. You’re not there for friendship with your colleagues. You’re not there for fun. You’re there to fight for working people.