Socialist Progressives

as much as the article wants to make it about ideology.

They're targeting her because she is a member of a non-major party meaning she doesn't have the more-extensive financial or logistical resources behind her as the council-members from major parties. A seat on the council is a valuable asset and she is, metaphorically, the most-vulnerable antelope for the lions to pick off.

If we want to keep Sawant on the council...a whole lot of us are going to have to commit to support her campaign beyond what we usually do. Sure we all donate money and free time, but it might require more...those of us who can take a work-sabbatical and have the experience or skills needed might need to make arrangements to sleep on a floor so we can volunteer F/T for the campaign, to provide Sawant with the fiscal and logistical resources that she lacks that made her vulnerable and which she will need to win.

Tl;dr: It's money/time/life where our mouths are time...if we want viable socialist progressive candidates, whether running as Socialists or as Democrats, we're going to have to make the sacrifices to make that viable because no institution, no party-committee, no corporate backer, no organization, think-tank, PAC, SuperPAC is going to do it for us.