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katie wilson
We Have to Create a New Form of Society
Our job is to recognize the problems are real and to put the finger on the real cause of the problem, which is the greed of the oligarchs in this country.
Dec 13, 2025
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered these remarks at the How We Win conference over the weekend of December 5 in New Orleans. They were originally transcribed and published by Jacobin. The conference was organized by the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, Jacobin, the Nation, and others for democratic socialist elected officials and their staff.
Thank you for inviting me to say a few words. Let me begin by thanking all of you for having the guts to run for public office. It’s a lot harder to go out and knock on doors to represent constituents with the problems they face seven days a week, so I want to thank you very much for that. Despite the horror in the White House right now, they’re out there all across this country. We’re seeing strong progressive growth. It is not just Zohran Mamdani in New York or Katie Wilson in Seattle. From coast to coast, you are seeing progressive democratic socialists standing up, taking on the establishment, and winning elections.
And one of the great secrets of the corporate media is that right now in the House of Representatives, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has about 100 members, including dozens and dozens of very strong progressives. That is the result of the hard work all of us have done over the last number of years.
I’ve been asked to give you some advice. What I’m gonna tell you is probably what you already know. No. 1, here is a radical idea: Do your job that you were elected to do. Now, I’ll tell you a story. I was elected to be mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and won it by 10 votes way back in 1981. We had a strong foreign policy. We had exchange programs. We dealt with national issues. But I’ll never forget, there was an article in the local newspaper, and the report asked some guy, “But what does it mean? What do you think about having a socialist as your mayor?” And the guy said, “Well, I don’t know much about socialism, but I do know they’re getting the snow off of the streets a lot faster than they used to.”
The struggle is going to be between the Trumpists of the world—right-wing extremism—and a democratic socialist alternative, which recognizes the problems that we face and provides concrete and real and bold solutions for working families.
You gotta do your job. If you’re on the city council, the school board, the state legislature, you gotta do it. And if you do your job well, people will give you the latitude to talk about many, many other issues. But don’t lose focus regarding the job that you are elected to do.
Second of all, establishment Democrats have the brilliant idea that the only people they can talk to are establishment Democrats. They literally have lists of people: “Don’t knock on this door; don’t knock on that door. Only on these.” I strongly disagree with that suggestion. Knock on every door in your district. And what you’ll find when you do that is you’ll have the right-wing people slam the door in your face. You’ll have some unpleasantness. But by and large, what you’ll find is that there is a lot more commonality of interest than you might have appreciated. In my view, the reason Donald Trump is president of the United States today is not because people voted for a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% or massive cuts in healthcare. He is the president of the United States because of Democratic establishment candidates’ failure to provide a real analysis and agenda that meets the crises that we face today.
Establishment Democrats believe that you can tinker around the edges, you can tell the world how terrible Donald Trump is, and that’s fine. But right now, what the American people understand is that übercapitalism—an oligarchic form of society, which is what we have today—is a disaster for the working class of this country. We don’t have to tinker around the edges. We have to create a very new form of society.
So for just your average person out there, you are in many cases going nowhere in a hurry. You understand that with real inflation accounted for, wages are basically the same as they were 50 years ago, despite a huge increase in worker productivity as a result of all of the expansion of technology. And almost all of the gains of that new technology have gone to the 1%. And ordinary workers know that there’s something wrong with 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck while Elon Musk owns more wealth himself than about the bottom 52% of American society. They know that.
They know that there’s something wrong when we have a campaign finance system that is totally corrupt and allows billionaires in both political parties to buy elections. That’s a broken system. I say these things because you’re gonna have Republicans who understand this as well. They understand if you look at the basic necessities of life—just think for a moment: You’re living in the richest country in the history of the world, and it cannot even provide the basic necessities of life for working people.
Just take a look at the healthcare in your community. Talk about healthcare. Everybody will tell you that despite spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other nation, the healthcare system is totally broken. Everybody knows that. The educational system is largely broken, and the childcare system is a disaster. Kids can’t afford to go to college, or they’re leaving school deeply in debt. Public schools are under enormous pressure. Teachers are underpaid. They’re dealing with all kinds of disciplinary issues, kids who come from troubled families or are acting out in school. We are dealing with a situation where our food system, just nutrition... we are the most obese and unhealthy nation on Earth because you have a food industry that makes huge profit by selling our kids crap, and the price of groceries is soaring.
People understand that. I flew in from the National Airport in Washington; there was a four-hour delay because they couldn’t figure out how to deice the plane. All over the country, you are looking at basic problems people are struggling with. The system is failing. Our job is not to run away from that reality but to offer a real alternative. Because in my view, what the future is gonna be about isn’t establishment Democrats. All over Europe, for example, the establishment parties are fading away. The struggle is going to be between the Trumpists of the world—right-wing extremism—and a democratic socialist alternative, which recognizes the problems that we face and provides concrete and real and bold solutions for working families.
So what Donald Trump does is go, “Yeah, we got a lot of problems. And the problem is undocumented people, the problem is the trans community, the problem is that we have Somalians who are ‘garbage.’” That’s what demagogues do. They take the problems that we face—often that they cause—and then they blame a powerless minority. Our job is to recognize the problems are real and to put the finger on the real cause of the problem, which is the greed of the oligarchs in this country. So that’s where we’re at now. And it ain’t gonna be easy. Especially with Trump in the White House.
To summarize, the American people know the system is broken. They are hurting. They can’t afford groceries. They can’t afford health care. They can’t afford education. They can’t afford a lot of things. And at the same time, the billionaire class has never had it so good. The establishment Democrats cannot talk about these things because, very often, they’re getting funded by the billionaire class. So what we have gotta do right now is get out into the streets. We gotta talk to our people—all people, not just people within our zone of comfort. And we’re gonna be providing real solutions to the crises that we face. So once again, what you have done is extraordinary. I thank you so much and congratulate you for getting out on the streets, for winning elections, and for standing up for working people.
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Who's Afraid of a Socialist Mayor? The Corporate Media
These editorial boards are not afraid that Katie Wilson and Zohran Mamdani’s policies will fail—they fear that they will work, thus making a “tax the rich” agenda more popular nationwide.
Nov 23, 2025
New York City isn’t the only city to have elected a democratic socialist as mayor. Seattle voters ousted incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell for community organizer Katie Wilson, who had the endorsements of unions, Democratic clubs, and the Stranger (7/2/25), the city’s alt-weekly.
She credited her win to a “volunteer-driven campaign among voters concerned about affordability and public safety in a city where the cost of living has soared as Amazon and other tech companies proliferated,” AP (11/13/25) reported. The wire service noted that “universal childcare, better mass transit, better public safety, and stable, affordable housing are among her priorities”—similar to those of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Corporate media are not happy about her victory, priorities or rhetoric. The Seattle Times editorial board (11/17/25) said upon her victory that she “painted her opposition as big businesses content with keeping people down,” and countered that residents will “fear that no one will come when they call 911, that parks will be unusable, that small businesses will shutter because of crime and revenues that don’t keep up with expenses.”
‘Woke Republic of Seattle’
The reliably right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/13/25) called Wilson “Mamdani West,” and described her as “soft on crime but tough on businesses.” The paper scoffed, “Maybe Ms. Wilson will moderate her views once she is confronted with the responsibilities of office, but the campaign had little evidence of that.” The board ended, sarcastically, “Good luck.”
In a smaller editorial, the Journal (11/17/25) mocked the “Woke Republic of Seattle,” quoting Wilson saying:
I will appoint a cabinet of exceptional leaders whose lived experiences reflect the diversity of Seattle’s Black, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latinx/Hispanic, and people of color communities, as well as that of women, immigrants and refugees, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, people with disabilities, people of all faith traditions, and residents from every socioeconomic background.
The editorial board continued:
Now, that is some coalition. But what’s a 2SLGBTQIA+ community? We looked it up. It’s apparently an acronym for Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, with the + covering anybody who feels left out.
With all of these groups to satisfy, we’re not sure there are enough jobs to go around. But may the Two-Spirit be with the mayor.
The New York Times (11/13/25) gave Wilson’s win tepid coverage, offering an unexciting news piece that failed to put her victory into context or contemplate the gravity of ousting a powerful incumbent. It also, bizarrely, quoted that defeated incumbent—and never quoted the actual winner of the race.
Childcare and other ‘goodies’
But it was the Washington Post editorial (11/16/25) about Wilson’s win that takes the cake here. And that makes sense: Socialist and left-wing activists in the Puget Sound point fingers at Amazon and other corporate giants as the main drivers of inequality.
The Post is owned by Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people on the planet. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration this year as president, the Post has vowed to become more right wing on the editorial page (NPR, 2/26/25). This fall the opinion page took a “massive stride in its turn to the right by hiring three new conservative writers after losing high-profile liberal columnists,” as the Daily Beast (10/2/25) noted.
First, the Post belittled Wilson’s proletarian life and went on to degrade her political priorities for being tied to her economic position. It said:
Who is Wilson? She does not own a car. She lives in a rented 600-square-foot apartment with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. By her own account, she depends on checks from her parents back East to cover expenses. To let them off the hook, she seeks to force residents of Seattle to pay for “free” childcare and other goodies.
“Goodies” in this case mean services that make life affordable for a working parent who doesn’t own much, like Wilson. This is in a town with feudal levels of inequality: “While one-third of residents are classified as low-income, 1 out of every 14 is a millionaire” (KCPQ, 6/12/24). Seattle’s housing rental costs are “among the highest in the nation, ranking 16th among the country’s 100 largest cities,” while the city’s “median rent is now also 47.4% higher than the US average of $1,375, placing it on par with prices in Los Angeles and Oakland” (KCPQ, 3/7/25). An op-ed in the Seattle Times (3/18/25) noted that in the state generally “hunger is on the rise” while “Food banks and meal programs are on the front lines of an unprecedented hunger crisis.”
This is truly a “let them eat cake” moment for the Bezos Post. The Post went on:
The mayor-elect’s plans will simultaneously accelerate the exodus of businesses while making the city more of a magnet for vagrants and criminals. For example, Wilson criticized Harrell’s sweeps of homeless encampments. She backed off previous support for defunding the police, but many officers remain nervous.
Like the mayor-elect in New York, Wilson wants to open government-run grocery stores, despite their record of failure. She suggested during a September event that she won’t allow private supermarkets to close locations that aren’t profitable. Instead, she wants to require them to give more notice and pay generous severance packages to their employees. “Access to affordable, healthy food is a basic right,” Wilson said.
It’s bad enough that a paper owned by a Bond villain is mad that the next mayor of an expensive city has too much compassion for the homeless. But the dismissal of the grocery store idea isn’t based in fact, as Civil Eats (8/20/25) noted that “publicly owned grocery stores already exist, serving over a million Americans every day, with prices 25 to 30% lower than conventional retail.” Civil Eats said that “every branch of the military operates its own grocery system, a network known as the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA),” with more than 200 stores around the world generating $5 billion in annual revenue. The outlet added, “If it were a private corporation, it would rank among the top 50 chains in the nation.”
‘Identifying Class Enemies’
The editorial was an echo of the Post’s earlier pearl-clutching (11/8/25) in response to Mamdani’s victory speech:
Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies—from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers—and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.
Bezos, as part of the billionaire class, finds himself as the target of this year’s leftward electoral swing. “Affordability” was Mamdani’s buzzword, an offense to the Bezos board, who wanted to hear “growth,” a catchphrase for the financial elite. Bezos’ position makes sense from his rarefied position, but that is precisely why billionaire-owned media, whether it’s the Ellison family’s consolidation of TikTok and CBS or the Murdoch empire of Fox News and the New York Post, are bad for democracy. These are media that are materially situated to side with landlords and bosses over tenants and workers, but there are no outlets in major media with editorial boards that consistently lean in the other direction.
Once again, these editorial boards are not afraid that Wilson and Mamdani’s policies will fail—they fear that they will work, thus making a “tax the rich” agenda more popular nationwide.
These media don’t grapple with why voters aren’t scared of socialism and want the rich to pay more for services. It is up to them to make a case that voters should choose a political platform of consolidating political power with the billionaire class.
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Wilson in Seattle and Mamdani in New York Back Starbucks Workers Strike
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either."
Nov 15, 2025
The mayors-elect in both Seattle and New York City are backing the nationwide strike by Starbucks baristas launched this week, calling on the people of their respective cities to honor the consumer boycott of the coffee giant running parallel to the strike so that workers can win their fight for better working conditions.
“Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee,” Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will take control of the New York City's mayor office on January 1, declared in a social media post to his more than 1 million followers.
In Seattle, mayor-elect Katie Wilson, who on Thursday was declared the winner of the race in Seattle, where Starbucks was founded and where its corporate headquarters remains, joined the picket line with striking workers in her city on the very same day to show them her support.
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” Wilson told the crowd.
She also delivered a message directly to the corporate leadership of Starbucks. "This is your hometown and mine," she said. "Seattle's making some changes right now, and I urge you to do the right thing. Because in Seattle, when workers' rights are under attack, what do we do?" To which the crowd responded in a chant-style response: "Stand up! Fight back!"
Socialist Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson's first move after winning the election was to boycott Starbucks, a hometown company. pic.twitter.com/zPoNULxfuk
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 14, 2025
In his post, Mamdani said, "Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract," as he called for people everywhere to honor the picket line by not buying from the company.
At a rally with New York City workers outside a Starbucks location on Thursday, Mamdani referenced the massive disparity between profits and executive pay at the company compared to what the average barista makes.
Zohran Mamdani says that New York City stands with Starbucks employees!He points out their CEO made 96 billion last year. That’s 6,666 times the median Starbucks worker salary. Boycott Starbucks. Support the workers. Demand they receive a living wage.
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— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 10:45 PM
The striking workers, said Mamdani, "are asking for a salary they can actually live off of. They are asking for hours they can actually build their life around. They are asking for the violations of labor law to finally be resolved. And they deserve a city that has their back and I am here to say that is what New York City will be."
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