On Tuesday, March 18th, Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and The Stranger’s Charles Mudede engaged in the Town Hall discussion, Why Socialism, Why Now?, moderated by Deepa Bhandaru. The Monarch sent co-founding editor Caleb Thompson to write about the talk, the video of which you can see in its entirety here. 

I rounded the corner on Seneca and Eighth. Town Hall loomed into view. My initial thrill in the notion of public life was immediately confounded by an acute terror of public life. A smattering of activists zombied the sidewalk below the white pillars of the white building. A couple of young women hovered around a table of socialist literature, a few others gathered signatures, others still pushed pamphlets and flyers. I braced myself and descended into the swarm, my terror easing toward a more manageable dread.

Would I stop and look at the table? Would I talk to these people, let them shove flyers for workshops into my hands? Would I take the time and effort to express—or at least attempt to express—my own murky complex of deep concern and skeptical misgivings? The difference between a private moment and a public moment is a tricky one, and I had a choice, if I’d wanted to, I could’ve walked right on by and into the building, but I didn’t.

I strolled up to the table and just stood there. The books looked boring, boring in that way that textbooks always look boring, as if any possible erotic appeal in learning had been stripped away in the process of intellectual legitimization. The two young women at the table made furtive, timid attempts to discover my intentions. I also made tentative attempts to discover my intentions. I waited, awkwardly, pretending to peruse the selection of titles, until one of the women, Lila, struck up the first dim notes of a conversation. A series of balking exchanges meandered in the vicinity of witty banter and real ideas, but that was all it did. Before long, Lila held in her hands the Socialist Worker, one of two socialist papers I would end up paying for on the night. Lila talked semi-articulately about the general idea until I finally said, “I can tell you want me to take it from you, to look at it,” and I did. I took the paper, shoved it in my bag, and gave the women a dollar. I introduced myself, we made a few more unremarkable remarks and I went inside to get a cup of coffee.

One of the things I thought about most throughout the night, and in the following days, was the radical uncoolness of socialism, and the profound difficulty in the marketing of these ideas. I kept thinking, can socialism be sexy? What would a cool socialist bar look like? In some ways, the questions seemed to be at the heart of what is an almost impossible and yet necessary task, and in other ways, these questions seemed utterly inane and completely missing of the point. The two women working the table understood, implicitly, the very real difficulty in offering these ideas. It was this understanding that informed their stuttered engagement. Their reticence was inversely proportional to their serious concern, and they maintained a keen awareness that any wrong, or even slightly pedantic move might send me quickly scurrying.

I purchased a coffee at the concessions stand inside. The transaction happened in such torturously unhurried fashion that I had time to formulate in great detail my own private right-wing tirades about the gross inefficiency of government. (Only later would I find out that Town Hall is not a government operation at all, but a non-profit.) And still I wondered, with a deranged foaming at the brain, would this be the way a socialist café operated?

With twenty minutes until the main event, I ventured outside to find a quiet spot to smoke and scribble a few notes in preparation. I bumped into a friend who asked if the event was upstairs. I said I wasn’t sure. I told him I’d be the jackass wandering around trying to figure out where everyone else was going, while also simultaneously pretending to know exactly where I was I going. He made his way in, and I settled on the side steps to the south of the building to go about taking my notes. At some point, I spotted Charles Mudede making an approach. He was dressed in formal slacks and a black jacket over an African-style shirt in regal purple. He looked perfectly distracted. I hopped to my feet and shook his hand. He bummed a “fag” and we took to chatting. After a few minutes, he mildly and amusedly chastised himself for the use of “fag.” I shrugged. I asked him if he was educated in England. He wasn’t, but he was educated in English schools in Zimbabwe, took all the same tests English schoolboys took, tests that were actually sent back to England to be marked. His accent was vaguely and wonderfully UK.

A well-dressed, middle-aged couple stopped to talk. I deferred, didn’t introduce myself, stepped slightly away, but continued to listen intently. Their style and manner reminded me of the crowds at the symphony, at the theatre: educated, moneyed, civilized, white, older. After a few mildly awkward attempts to exit the conversation—each impeded by Mudede’s erudite volubility—the couple managed to politely expunge their niceties and be on the way. When Charles and I eventually made our own way in, I asked him if he was excited. “No,” he replied, “nervous.”

Back inside, I headed to the concessions area, where I thought I might find my friend, who, for reasons of discretion will be known simply as Hellcat. Sure enough, he was sitting alone at a table with a small glass of red wine. We nibbled at conversation, bantered about twitter, exchanged accounts of a night on the town we’d shared a few weeks previous, and then it was time to find the auditorium. We ascended the stairs to the large, stately room, and after a brief discussion of our options, chose a spot near the front, off to the side, stage right.

***

A film was showing, an excerpt from Adam Sekuler’s Work In Progress. It consisted entirely of extended shots of ordinary people working: a woman professionally washing a dog, police monitoring a protest march, an EMT crew loading someone into an ambulance. I was bored, but I was interested in how my boredom transformed almost immediately into a complex of guilt about being uncompassionate, disinterested, and snobby. I understood the film, I think, and its presentation of the plain reality of so many people working and working and working, but it felt passive-aggressively didactic, and it was boring. When it finished, Hellcat and I clapped feebly, briefly, and our contribution to the applause seemed grudging and symbolic. I leaned over and asked if he’d enjoyed it. I was relieved when he answered in the negative.

I tried to do a rough count of the audience. There were a hundred-and-fifty, maybe a hundred-and-seventy-five people. They seemed perfectly distributed throughout the room, and perfectly spaced within that distribution, as if some specific but unspoken socio-spatial law were being observed exactly.

The youngish fellow charged with the general introductions was nicely dressed, but oddly, in that way that suggested he was practicing for a part he might not yet obtain for a decade or two. Maybe proto-professorial is the term, like that ubiquitous creature from our undergraduate days, who insisted, despite the aesthetic dissonance, upon smoking a tobacco pipe. His remarks were made in clipped but sonorous tones, almost like the sound of NPR on in the background: “this upcoming event, that author, donations can be made…” I barely caught the specifics—I was too busy scratching furiously at my notebook, trying to learn, in real time, a shorthand for my thoughts, a shorthand that might later bear some resemblance to intelligibility.

They took the stage, the moderator Deepa Bhandaru, followed by Mudede and councilwoman Kshama Sawant. Bhandaru briefly expressed her role for the evening as a guide and framer, and then began with the questions. She asked Sawant why she chose the fifteen-dollar minimum wage as her central issue.

This was the first time I’d seen Sawant speak publicly, and it quickly became apparent why she’d been elected to office. She’s sharp, and like any good politician, she’s capable of conveying authentic social concern by speaking at length, articulately and passionately, about very real problems.

“It just so happens that the fifteen dollar demand has captivated the imagination of a large number of low-wage workers all around the country, starting with the fast food workers in New York City, who very courageously walked out in the fall of 2012, with the demand of fifteen and a union. And I want everybody to understand how much courage it takes, as a low-wage worker, where you have nothing, no financial or social cushion, all you have is your job, your crappy job, but that’s all you have, and you walk out, and when you walk out and you take on the possible retaliation and firing, you take your own life into your own hands. That’s a powerful statement.”

The irony is that the socialist movement that elected Sawant was not composed primarily of low-wage workers, but by many strata of an economy that locally is doing quite well. Mudede addressed this oddity in his response to Bhandaru’s follow-up question about the possibility of small businesses failing as a result of the fifteen-dollar minimum wage.

“We live in a city with roughly a 200 billion dollar gross domestic product. We generate about 200 billion dollars a year in this region, which is comparable, I mean it squashes anything that’s even heard of…it’s half of South Africa, with 40 million people. It’s hard for me, when we talk about the little shops, to separate the wealth that is so apparent in this city. And so to me, we’re not addressing this other thing, as to how is this even an issue, when you consider the amount of money that is around us, every day, and we act like it isn’t there, and we talk about coffee shops.”

The rest of the talk more or less followed the formula of these first few remarks: Sawant campaigning fervently, Mudede occasionally offering a broader socio-economic and historical vantage. Essentially, the evening was a cheerleading session, the audience applauding when Sawant brought her rhetorical momentum to particularly rousing conclusions. Bhandaru didn’t throw any curveballs, though she did address the perennial questions haunting socialism, namely the specter of totalitarianism and the issue of violent revolution. In their responses, both Sawant and Mudede chose to focus on the violence already inherent in capitalism.

I would have liked to hear them address these questions more directly. I understand the need to redouble the efforts of the cause, the need to keep the momentum going, but a certain amount of self-evaluation is necessary to the health of a movement. These questions are the questions that have long made it extremely difficult for socialists in the United States to gain ground. Clear, non-evasive answers ought to be articulated.

The Q&A that followed seemed typical, including the man, who in his eagerness, approached the microphone even as the final remarks were being made, and then sat on the edge of the stage, ensuring he’d be the first to query. Though Bhandaru expressly directed the audience to keep their questions “targeted and focused,” this poor fellow was entirely incapable of such precision. He ended his sprawling question, which was actually more a protracted remark, by saying, “and I’d like you to comment on the fact that…oh…just comment on what I just said.” He chuckled abashedly and the crowd laughed roundly. He was that guy.

***

And then it was over. There was a charge in the air as the audience filed out of the auditorium. I was giddy. I felt inspired and hopeful. Important ideas for real social change were readily available, active, living.

Hellcat and I discussed the possibility of getting a drink at Vito’s. I told him that I wanted to catch up with Deepa and find out what she was doing. He took off for Vito’s, an open invitation floating behind in his departure. I found Deepa and Charles in the lobby, and we haltingly navigated the post-event routine of hellos, goodbyes, handshakes, hugs, and generally excited chatter. After a fairly confused attempt to determine a collective plan of action, I left Charles and Deepa at Primo’s across the street, and walked to Vito’s to find Hellcat.

At Vito’s, over whiskey, I asked Hellcat how he’d like to be named, should he end up in the article. After feigning disgust and indignation at the mere suggestion of his inclusion, he offered the aggrandizing and esoteric moniker. And that’s one creation story of Hellcat. We hashed the evening’s event. Hellcat expressed his great admiration for Charles Mudede, citing a moment at another public talk where Mudede made the admission that he had no ideas of his own, that they were all other peoples’ ideas. Hellcat even used the word hero. I asked for his thoughts on the ideas we’d heard over the course of the night, and Hellcat gnawed at his deep-seated skepticism of all things political, including the socialist agenda. I found that I shared most of his opinions, but was now inclined to argue for the consideration of Sawant’s ideas as legitimate, vital, and inspiring. He was not exactly swayed. We finished our drinks and left Vito’s. I decided to go back to Primo’s, hoping to find Charles and Deepa still there. I invited Hellcat, but he politely declined, and we parted ways.

***

When I arrived at Primo’s, I was happy to see a group, including Charles and Deepa, tucked into the corner of the bar by the window. I pushed open the door and made my way for the bar, walking by their table without a greeting. I felt a bit like an intruder. I wanted to be noticed first, I wanted to be invited. I made it halfway to the bar before Deepa, almost yelling, called out my name. She made introductions. Sawant was there, along with two other men, Philip and Calvin. Everyone was warm and aglow. I could sense that the night had been deemed a success. I grabbed a drink at the bar and returned to the table, squeezing my way around a post and into the last seat. The conversation was moving at a good clip, and I had to focus intently to track it, and even then I sometimes lost the thread. Deepa, sitting directly across from me, with Sawant to her right and Mudede to her left, was doing a lot of the talking. Sawant, who in the public forum was almost humorless in driving home her points, now seemed quite personable, smiling, occasionally laughing, listening acutely, her eyes flashing in the flurry of words. Mudede spoke occasionally, though his presence seemed composed mostly by a kind of laconic robustness. Philip, to my left, asked about The Monarch Review, my function, etc. It felt like an amiable interview meant to determine my standing in the group. I answered a number questions succinctly, very aware of every moment I was missing at the other end of the table.

I said very little, though at one point I did pose a question about what a socialist alternative might be to the excessive deployment of police forces in situations where other services might be better suited. I invoked the corner, by the Jack In The Box, in the University District, an area known for decades as a conspicuous hangout for dealers. The question, though, got lost after a re-contextualization by Mudede involving a discussion of suburban driving deaths. As the conversation continued on, Calvin, to my right, turned to me, and began an explanation, a kind of answer to my question. He explained that the problem was systemic, and that we needed to fix the system. I told him that I agreed, but that my question still stood: what would a socialist alternative be to the deployment of police force. We then proceeded to have the same discussion about six more times. I grew more and more amused as he grew more and more frustrated, until, accusing me of condescension, he declared that he was done with the conversation, and excused himself to the bathroom. It wasn’t really a conversation though, because a conversation goes somewhere. It was more like a lecture—one that he thought I turned into an argument—that was really just two points being made alternately, over and over again, neither seeming to have any effect on the other. We’d offended each other, and I could feel the slight pulse of adrenaline. Later, I would feel a bit silly, and admit to myself that perhaps I had been somewhat condescending. The fissure in the goodwill of the evening, though, seemed an important one. It served as a reminder that neither staunch rhetoric alone, nor smug opposition to it, would make for useful discourse.

The bar was empty now, chairs were being put up, it was time to go. It had probably been time to go. We said our farewells on the steps outside, and went our ways.