By J. Reynolds, Contributor-at-Large, The Pragmatic Revolution
Let’s be real: authoritarianism doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take weekends off, it doesn’t clock out, and it sure as hell doesn’t care about your self-care Sundays. It marches on with goose-stepping efficiency, powered by propaganda, prejudice, and just enough populist gaslighting to make your uncle start quoting YouTube philosophers with names like “Chad Freedomstein.”
But if we want to actually win—and not just scream into the algorithmic void—we’ve got to retire the toxic myth that internal competition makes movements stronger. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. That mentality? It’s capitalism’s greasy fingerprint smeared all over our resistance playbook.
The Revolution Will Not Be Gatekept
One of the most successful strategies authoritarians deploy is division. Divide the left by gender. Divide the resistance by race. Divide activists by tactics, language, even memes. Turn every rally into a purity test, and every protest into a petty turf war.
Sound familiar?
We’ve all seen it: horizontal hostility dressed up as “ideological consistency.” That one guy on Twitter with 34 followers accusing every mutual aid group of being “neoliberal adjacent.” The tankie vs. anarchist slap-fight happening in your group chat. Meanwhile, the real enemy—the one with actual tanks—is passing voter suppression laws and stacking the courts like a fascist Jenga tower.
If we’re serious about dismantling authoritarianism, we need to stop acting like we’re auditioning for the lead role in Woke Survivor: Movement Island. The prize isn’t individual clout. It’s collective liberation.
History Is On the Side of Unity
Let’s take a stroll through the archives, shall we?
The Spanish Civil War saw anarchists, socialists, communists, and even liberal republicans collaborate (at least for a hot minute) against Franco’s fascist forces. They had their beef, sure, but when bombs are falling, ideological ego-trips get shelved.
The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just MLK’s sermons or Malcolm’s fire. It was also the behind-the-scenes labor of women like Ella Baker, the organizing of SNCC, the alliances with unions, and even Jewish civil rights allies who marched shoulder to shoulder. It was messy. But it worked.
WWII? Literal capitalists and communists allied to punch Nazis so hard they became a universal shorthand for villainy in pop culture. When even Stalin and FDR can share a foxhole, maybe your local activist co-op can make peace over which decolonial reading list to feature.
The Real Flex: Interdependence
Contrary to every bootstrap myth your 10th-grade econ teacher ever spewed, strength doesn’t come from rugged individualism. That’s a Hollywood fantasy where one man (always a man) defeats tyranny using only abs and an AR-15.
In real life, resistance is a team sport. It’s medics. It’s marshals. It’s the person live-streaming the protest and the person quietly funding the bail fund from behind a desk job. It’s people who listen as much as they shout. It’s intersectionality, not intersectional envy.
The fascists want us atomized, paranoid, distrustful. So you know what’s punk as hell? Trust.
Let’s Redefine Winning
Winning isn’t being the most correct voice in the room. Winning is making sure everyone gets to have a voice in the first place.
So let’s build movements that are less about “Who’s leading?” and more about “Who’s lifting?” Let’s reward humility, collaboration, and accountability—not ego, aesthetic, or Twitter clout. Let’s coordinate instead of compete. Let’s remember that we don’t need to agree on everything—just enough to move in the same damn direction when the boots start marching.
Because fascism doesn’t care what flavor of anti-authoritarian you are. It’ll crush you just the same.
So link arms, patch your differences, and stop side-eyeing the comrade next to you. They’re not your competition. They’re your cover fi
re.
Solidarity is a strategy. Let’s use it.
