“Settle your quarrels, come together, and understand the reality of our situation. Understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying that could be saved, that generations more will live poor, butchered lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

George Jackson wrote these prophetic words more than 50 years ago. At that time, he and his comrades were enduring unimaginable violence inside California’s prisons – a microcosm of the fascism already alive in the United States.

Yet even under those conditions, Jackson refused despair. He called for love, unity and the courage to do what must be done – not for ourselves, not for the preservation of our organizations, but for our people and communities. His message was simple: we can keep fighting each other, or we can fight for one another. We must settle our quarrels – many of them born from the very systems that oppress us – and choose between poverty and premature death, or love and revolution.

Now, in 2026, that call echoes louder than ever. The fascism that Jackson warned about is no longer creeping behind prison walls or appearing only in moments of crisis – it stands before us, undisguised.

The Republican party has openly embraced authoritarianism. And the Democratic party? At best, it has offered a politics of respectability disguised as resistance – timid gestures and symbolic outrage that fall far short of confronting fascism. And we must also confront the truth that many Democrats helped build the very surveillance and militarized infrastructure that Trump is now weaponizing.

But this message isn’t for them. It’s for us – for the movement.

To move forward as a unified resistance, we have to let certain things go.

We cannot survive what’s coming if we don’t confront the fractures within our own house. For too long, white supremacist and capitalist culture have shaped how we move – who gets credit, who owns the work, who gets to speak. So-called leaders’ egos have taken priority over our communities and over our professed purpose. And we don’t say this as outsiders looking in. We are part of these movements too – and we’ve seen how love and good intentions can turn to distrust when the system keeps us fighting for scraps.

These........

© The Guardian