Politixia
Kshama Sawant lost a congressional primary two weeks ago. Now, she’s turning her anger on the two biggest names in domestic democratic socialism for walking away from the defund the police movement she still champions.
The former Seattle City Council member went after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a post on X, accusing both of selling out the activist left. The attack follows Ocasio-Cortez telling ABC’s “This Week” that she agreed with a line from New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé about the 2020 era, “Woke 1 was crazy.” A reporter then asked Mamdani whether he felt the same way.
Sawant, who finished third in Washington’s 9th Congressional District primary behind a Republican who spent a fraction of what she raised, is not interested in anyone’s political evolution.
Sawant accuses AOC and Mamdani of betrayal
Sawant wrote on X, “The two most prominent DSA electeds, AOC and Zohran Mamdani, are betraying in broad daylight the movement against racism and police brutality.”
She continued in the same post, “There is zero prospect for movements to succeed in slashing the $120-billion budget of U.S. police departments, shutting down ICE, and ending the genocide in Gaza unless we fight against both the Democratic and Republican parties. This also means exposing the progressive and DSA Democratic Party politicians when they act as gatekeepers and betray our movements.”
There is no genocide in Gaza. Israel is fighting a war against Hamas, the terrorist group that started it on October 7, 2023, and Israeli officials have rejected the accusation repeatedly. Sawant states it as settled fact anyway, which is the same habit she brought to her congressional campaign against Rep. Adam Smith.
Mamdani says beliefs can change
Mamdani gave a careful answer when a reporter pressed him on the “Woke 1” question at a Bronx groundbreaking event, according to The Hill.
“Look, I think that each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers, to tell Americans when they’re running for office what they believe, and sometimes what you believe can change, it can develop, it can grow, and I know that there are some for whom they still believe in that,” Mamdani said.
“I’ve made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police; that I will not be defunding the police, and that to me, delivering critical public safety also looks like working with our police department alongside many other partners,” the mayor added.
Mamdani spent 2020 calling the NYPD racist and demanding it be defunded and dismantled. He now runs the department he wanted gone.
Voters already answered Sawant
Sawant has no office, no party with any electoral record, and no constituency left to speak for. She lost her congressional race to Smith and Republican Doug Basler, who raised about $99,000. She blamed rival Melissa Chaudhry for splitting the left vote.
The politicians she calls gatekeepers, however, won. Ocasio-Cortez holds a safe seat and floats a 2028 presidential bid. Mamdani runs the largest city in the country. Sawant, whose husband was arrested last year over an alleged assault at an Adam Smith town hall, gets to post about it. Washington Democrats have spent the last two years absorbing DSA activists into the state party platform, and even that crowd found her expendable.
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