A Seattle Socialist’s Victory Gives Elite Media the Jitters 

Ari Paul

The Seattle Times (11/17/25) cast a jaundiced eye on "the civic adventure of having a new socialist mayor."

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'

Wall Street Journal (11/13/25): "Lawbreakers may get a pass, but Ms. Wilson wants to get tougher on the productive parts of Seattle’s economy." 

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'

The only potential "silver lining" the Washington Post (11/16/25) sees in Katie Wilson being elected along with progressive allies is that "the country may be able to more quickly see the failures of their policies—which could prevent voters in other cities from falling for socialism."

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 two-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, one 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 U.S. 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 percent 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'

"A new era of class warfare has begun in New York," the Washington Post (11/8/25) opined, "and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani."

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.

Featured Image: The Wall Street Journal's depiction (11/13/25) of Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson--with correction of the underexposure traditionally applied by corporate media to official enemies to make them look sinister.