Become Self-Governable!

Years ago, in the run-up to the 2004 election of George W. Bush, my then-Free Society Collective helped initiate the anarchist “Don’t Just (Not) Vote” effort (alas, Crimethinc, while part of, stole credit for something that should have belonged to no one). The idea was: whether you spend a few pointless minutes in a ballot booth or not, what do you do to fight hierarchy and transform the world the other 364 days, 23 hours, and fifty-five minutes a year? It was meant to encourage and highlight self-organization, and to a limited degree, did just that, including as we headed into an era that saw the anarchic “movement of the squares” and large-scale solidarity infrastructures, among other prefigurations of possibility.

Fast-forward to the run-up to Trump’s presidential election in 2016, when the anarchistic cry was, “Become ungovernable!” The successes of authoritarianism around the globe and here began to close off promise, and instead demanded anarchic disobedience, resistance, and riots. Alas, the fascists took up our slogan, even as the state clamped down on us.

Now we find ourselves at a clear crossroads: “Vote for fascism, or face fascism,” as @vickysurge aptly titled a recent piece. We’re arguably already living under the 2024 election “choice”: fascism or fascism. Even liberals understand that just enough to write “uncommitted” on primary ballots—an opening, however small.

So what should our anarchist response(s) and role(s) be heading into November and beyond? Sure, it’s still true, that urge we have to “become ungovernable,” but fascism itself is far more ungovernable than us, and dangerously so, as glimpsed in the changing face of a repression that increasingly follows no rules or the lawless Supreme Court, to name just two.

Maybe this is our window—the only one that looks toward freedom for all—to foster and fight hard for a “become self-governable” ethos and practice, a “no state” rebellion that’s liberatory, in which our dreams can’t fit in ballot boxes or fascist alternatives because both aren’t choices anymore.

We have little other option really.

It’s either: #AnarchismOrFascism, or fascism.

I want life to win.

#BecomeSelfGovernable

(photo: “Death to Fascism” sticker, spotted in the wild, made by Municipal Adhesives)