WE’RE COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR ROTTEN SYSTEM | Busboys and Poets Books

From inside Kshama Sawant’s historic tenure in Seattle City Hall comes a blueprint for twenty-first-century socialists, a counterpoint to the strategies favored by The Squad and other progressive activists.

Seattle was the first major city to mandate a $15 minimum wage; the first to implement a payroll tax on Amazon to build affordable housing; the first to secure a bevy of renters’ rights laws, making good on the slogan, “Housing is a human right.”

Behind these remarkable breakthroughs in the 2010s stood a small but feisty Marxist movement, Socialist Alternative, and the City Council member they helped to elect, Kshama Sawant. In a municipal government dominated by pro-business Democrats, Sawant and the popular street movements she led against major corporations headquartered in the region—including Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, and Starbucks—won battles that would transform the city’s trajectory for years to come.

We’re Coming for You and Your Rotten System tells this extraordinary story from the inside. Rosenblum, who worked in Sawant’s office and alongside community activists throughout this dynamic decade, weaves together intimate story-telling and political analysis to show how and why the movement succeeded where other progressive outsiders—such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—have failed. For political activists searching desperately to make sense of the world after the reelection of Donald Trump, the Seattle experience offers a vital framework for fighting our way out of the despairing miasma of twenty-first-century capitalism.

Jonathan Rosenblum is joining us on the Busboys stage to share more about his “illuminating account of Kshama Sawant’s decade as Seattle’s first and only socialist city councilmember” and discuss ways “build working-class power through class struggle” (Robin D.G. Kelley). Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Rosenblum will be signing following the program.

This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of WE’RE COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR ROTTEN SYSTEM will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed. 

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Jonathan Rosenblum has caused trouble for the rich and powerful for over forty years. He’s helped workers throughout North America organize, bargain, and strike in a wide range of industries—warehousing and logistics, higher education, healthcare, and public service. A member of the National Writers Union and veteran newspaper reporter, he has published dozens of articles about organizing, and is the author of Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement, on his experience leading the first Fight for $15 campaign in SeaTac, Washington. During Kshama Sawant’s decade on the Seattle City Council, he worked on her council staff and as an election campaigner.

BOOK DETAILS

We’re Coming for You and Your Rotten System

How Socialists Beat Amazon and Upended Big-City Politics

By Jonathan Rosenblum

October 7, 2025 | Paperback, 384 pages, $24.95

Host or Publisher Busboys and Poets