During August, at a town hall organised by Democratic Party Congressman Adam Smith, a group of anti-genocide protesters attempted to approach the venue shouting “Adam Smith, you can’t hide, you are funding genocide”.
Following this, Calvin Priest, a Workers Strike Back leading member, and husband of Kshama Sawant, was accused of violence against A. Smith’s staffers.
C. Priest denies any wrongdoing and accuses A. Smith of a smear campaign against him because of his political beliefs.
We reproduce below the statement by Kshama Sawant’s campaign on the issue.
Congressman Adam Smith slanders anti-genocide protesters
In an interview on Tuesday with conservative Seattle TV station KOMO News, Congressman Adam Smith doubled down on his smears against anti-genocide protesters as dangerous and uncivil.
Smith has been frequently protested by the antiwar movement for his warmongering record and repeated votes to fund the genocide in Gaza and block United Nations food aid, despite the catastrophic mass starvation in Gaza. Smith has previously called anti-genocide protesters “left-wing fascists,” saying they should be arrested.
This time, Adam Smith is attacking Kshama Sawant’s husband, Calvin Priest, for participating in a peaceful protest, alongside others, against Adam Smith’s support for the genocide in Gaza. Calvin is a longtime socialist activist. He was the political director of the successful Tax Amazon campaign in Seattle in 2020 and a key leader in Seattle’s history-making $15 minimum wage victory in 2014, a wage that will go up to $21.30/hour in 2026—the highest minimum wage in the nation. Calvin is currently an elected leader of Workers Strike Back and the political director of Kshama’s independent campaign for Congress, which is demanding an end to the genocide by ending all U.S. military aid to Israel.
In Tuesday’s interview, Smith compared the anti-genocide protest movement to the right-wing coup attempt in Washington D.C. in 2021, saying “it’s not really that different than what the MAGA people did on January 6.” He went on to say antiwar protest actions represent “an effort to use threats and intimidation to silence any opposition” and represented himself as the guardian of “civility.”
This kind of “civility” politics is stunning coming from a politician who has not only relentlessly backed the modern-day holocaust in Gaza, but has supported every U.S. war since he took office over 28 years ago. There is nothing civil about what is happening to the Palestinian people, with now over half a million people estimated dead and mass starvation taking place with the full support of Smith and both parties of U.S. capitalism.
There was also nothing remotely “civil” about the Iraq War, which Adam Smith voted to launch and repeatedly fund, and in which over a million people died. There is nothing civil about the attacks on immigrants and working people by ICE, an agency Smith voted to create and voted repeatedly to fund.
Smith was also deeply dishonest about what took place at the protest, making repeated false claims, as well as misrepresenting the outcome of the charges against Calvin.
Smith repeatedly characterizes Calvin’s behavior as violent, saying about one of his staffers that “she was physically pushed.”
Calvin neither pushed nor even laid a hand on either of Smith’s staffers. Nor did he or any of the other protesters “physically scream in the face” of either of Smith’s staffers as Smith also charged. Instead they were chanting “Adam Smith you can’t hide, you are funding genocide” as they were opening the doors to protest Smith’s event.
The reality is the opposite of what Smith contends. As one protester, Sam, who observed the whole interaction, noted afterwards, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone make so much effort to avoid physical contact with someone [as Calvin did with Smith’s staff]. It was almost comical, watching Calvin weave around those two staffers with his sole focus on avoiding them and helping open the doors so we could peacefully protest.”
In fact, the court ALSO doesn’t allege that Calvin (or any other protester) at any time pushed either of Adam Smith’s staffers.
Smith’s interview implies that Calvin’s case is ongoing and headed for trial. This is also deeply misleading. In reality, like many antiwar protesters who have been targeted by the police and falsely charged, Calvin opted to settle the case out of court with a “continuance,” meaning that there will be no trial, there is no guilty plea, and Calvin will instead do community service and pay a $50 fine.
We should be clear: the capitalist courts are not on the side of working people or the antiwar movement. If Calvin had done what Smith alleges — physically assaulted and physically pushed someone — the outcome would NOT have been four hours of community service. It’s clear that the prosecutors realized they had little chance of winning this case, and decided not to pursue a trial.
Actual assaults are taking place all over the country right now against antiwar protesters, immigrants, and journalists. Meanwhile, self-appointed civility champion Adam Smith continues his support for the holocaust in Gaza and the bipartisan assault on immigrants, while siding with the police and right wing against our movements.
By smearing antiwar protesters as dangerous and violent, Adam Smith is fueling the same right-wing narrative that Donald Trump is using nationally to send the National Guard to occupy cities including Washington, D.C. and Portland, OR. This is yet another example of how the Democratic Party and its politicians like Adam Smith pave the way for right-wing attacks.
Our protest of Adam Smith’s event was part of the many protests that have taken place across the country at both Democratic and Republican town halls where corporate politicians have faced a reckoning for backing the genocide and carrying out attacks on working people. More and more politicians like Smith are organizing these events in increasingly undemocratic ways, like the lottery system that Smith used to try to limit access to his event.
It’s not surprising that Adam Smith and others like him feel they should go unchallenged, or that they expect their staff to shield them from protest. It’s notable how determined Adam Smith’s two staffers were to prevent the protest from taking place, rather than simply allowing the group of protesters to enter a public college building to peacefully protest a public political event as they ultimately did.
We can’t let slander and intimidation tactics like this stop our movements.
Stopping the genocide in Gaza will require mass peaceful protests, mass strike action, and yes, peaceful civil disobedience. We need more, not fewer, people to take action like protesters did at Adam Smith’s event in Renton. In fact, we need such actions on a far larger scale, as we’ve recently seen in Italy, where a general strike has been called for Friday in solidarity with more than 90 activists, including Greta Thunberg, who were arrested by the Israeli military for trying to deliver crucial food and medical supplies to Gaza.
We can’t stand aside while this holocaust of the 21st century is carried out. No protest movement that has given in to “civility politics” has ever achieved anything. We are not going to end the genocide in Gaza or any of the other horrors being carried out by the billionaire class and their servants on that basis. That is precisely why capitalist politicians like Smith demand so-called “civility” by working and oppressed people while they themselves are the ones who should be on trial, for war crimes.
Instead of backing down, we need to make it so that genocidal politicians like Adam Smith, Chuck Schumer, and Donald Trump can’t hold an event without being protested.
We owe that to the people of Gaza and to the international working class.
Join hundreds of supporters of Kshama’s independent, anti-genocide, pro-worker campaign for a rally on Sunday October 12 at 2pm PT at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute in Seattle. If you can’t make it to Seattle, watch the livestream or join a watch party in your area. Whichever way you plan to attend, RSVP for the rally today!
