I’ve been writing this newsletter for one year as of this week. I’d never planned to become a newsletter writer, but I’m immensely glad that I did. Thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope that In Struggle has helped you sharpen your analysis of the world and the diverse, beautiful movements fighting to transform it.
In the past year, I’ve covered the problems with relying on voting for social change and the stakes of revolutionary optimism in the face of repression and defeat. I’ve shared resources on staying safe at protests and my new years resolutions, too. I’ve written about the end of protest and the birth of a new internationalism.
Last August, I began In Struggle with these words:
I’m drafting this newsletter on the 300th day of the genocide in Gaza. I’m writing from a city on the East Coast of the imperial heartland, a metropolis ravaged by deindustrialization and political corruption, one whose elites gleefully scrap it for parts to be sold to the highest bidder. Politicians across the electoral spectrum now loudly declare the bipartisan consensus around border militarization and deportations and migrant death. The four years after the largest social uprising in US history have witnessed a pervasive law-and-order, right-wing reaction, though one often dressed in multicultural liberal clothing.
If anything, it’s looking worse today. The Trump regime is conducting unprecedented paramilitary assaults against immigrant communities and political warfare against the existence of transgender people. The genocidal consequences of the Israeli assault on Gaza are now laid bare for the world to see.
I’m not so full of myself that I believe that reading or writing a Substack newsletter will change any of these things. But I know that spaces to openly discuss how to change the systems that are destroying us are more crucial than ever—and increasingly rare.
In the spirit of honest self-criticism, it’s been hard at times to keep up with my self-imposed weekly publishing schedule. I’m creating this newsletter without institutional or familial support. My team at The Anti-Racism Daily were laid off last year after we took a principled stance in favor of centering Palestinian lives and dignity in our coverage of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. I most certainly do not regret our decision, but, to be frank, things have been kinda rough.
So if you find value in this newsletter, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. For a few dollars a month you can support the labor that goes into creating In Struggle. You will also, most importantly, support my dog:
In any case, I hope that you’ll stick around for the next year of In Struggle. I hope that my words will in some way help you push, from wherever you are, against the beast that seeks to devour us. I hope that you can foster dignified rage, justified rebellion, and militant joy.
I believe, as ever, that we will win.
—Andrew
This post has been syndicated from In Struggle, where it was published under this address.