Written by by David Gutman at seattletimes.com
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant rallied Tuesday in Seattle, amid Democratic fears that even a small vote for Stein could be enough to tip the election to Donald Trump.
Sawant gave a blistering speech, assailing the two-party system, but focusing her ire on the Democratic Party and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Kamala Harris deserves to lose 1,000 times over,” Sawant said, blaming her for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.
Stein focused her remarks largely on the war in Gaza, calling for an end to U.S. arms support to Israel.
“If you vote for either of the genocide candidates you are endorsing genocide, you are affirming it, you are enabling it,” she said. “Every vote for our campaign is a shot across the bow of the empire.”
Speaking to about 150 people at Washington Hall in the Central District, Sawant accused Harris of being “more pliable and controllable” by Wall Street interests.
She urged the audience to support Stein’s efforts in Michigan, one of seven razor-close swing states that likely will determine the election. Michigan, which has a large Arab American population often critical of the Biden administration’s support of Israel, “has to be the focus of our leverage,” Sawant said.
Sawant, a leftist force on the City Council for a decade, admitted the obvious — that Stein has no chance to win.
Harris, Sawant said, was slipping in the polls, but “This race is still too close to call. We should not get complacent.”
At a rally in Michigan last week, Sawant called the state “ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her.”
Signs on the Seattle stage Tuesday touted the importance of the vote not in Washington, but in Michigan.
“We need to turn out every possible vote for Jill Stein and especially where it matters most, in swing states like Michigan,” Sawant said.