Peter Gelderloos delivers a jarring critique that refuses to treat the current political moment as a simple battle between good and evil, arguing instead that the mainstream Left and Right are two hands of the same oppressive machine. While most commentary focuses on the spectacle of recent protests or the brutality of executive orders, Gelderloos forces readers to confront the uncomfortable role of Democratic-aligned organizations in pacifying genuine resistance before it can threaten the state itself.
The Illusion of Opposition
Gelderloos begins by dissecting the recent wave of "No Kings" protests, suggesting they were less a spontaneous uprising and more a managed safety valve orchestrated by the Democratic Party and its affiliated nonprofits. "The Democrats did a fairly effective job playing catch up and pacifying the revolt by calling for protests... keeping those protests peaceful by collaborating with the pigs, and re-directing the movement towards reformist goals," Gelderloos writes. This framing challenges the reader to see the coordination behind the scenes rather than just the slogans on the signs. The argument is provocative because it strips away the moral high ground often claimed by progressive organizers, suggesting their strategy of non-violence and reform is actually a tool for the state to maintain control.
The author posits that the current political theater is a coordinated dance where the Right provides the brute force and the Left provides the containment. "Trump's military parade and deportations, and the Left's peaceful pickets with witty signs about orange monarchs or protecting democracy constitute the right hand and the left hand of a Leviathan that always has been and always will be exploitive, ecocidal, white supremacist, colonial, and patriarchal." This metaphor of the "Leviathan" suggests that the state's nature is immutable, regardless of which party holds the leash. Critics might argue that this totalizing view dismisses the genuine harm reduction and community building that occurs within these movements, but Gelderloos insists that the ultimate outcome is the same: the preservation of a system built on genocide and slavery.
"Yesterday's reforms are today's oppressions. Abolition today, the abolition of the prison system, is only abolitionist if it also supports the abolition of the State and all other oppressive power structures."
The Trap of Reform
The commentary shifts to the historical context of abolition, drawing a sharp line between the radical vision of figures like Harriet Tubman and the legalistic approach of the state. Gelderloos argues that the modern prison system is not a failure of the state's attempt to end slavery, but rather the successful result of that attempt. "The State was fully in charge of abolition the first time around, and that's what gave us the modern prison system," he notes. This historical re-evaluation is crucial for understanding why current reformist efforts often feel like they are moving in place. The author suggests that relying on the state to fix the problems it created is a fundamental strategic error that has been repeated for over a century.
This section also addresses the co-optation of radical language by academic and non-profit sectors. Gelderloos points out that "academic abolitionists have started saying that not only does abolition not mean the abolition of the State, but that the State is the best-placed vehicle to bring us to abolition, which is just an insult to memory and the struggles of those who went before us." The critique here is that the institutionalization of these movements has dulled their edge, turning a call for liberation into a career path for the privileged. A counterargument worth considering is that engaging with the state is sometimes the only way to achieve immediate relief for suffering populations, but Gelderloos maintains that such engagement inevitably reinforces the very structures causing the harm.
The Failure of Pacifism and the Cost of Silence
Perhaps the most contentious part of the piece is the direct attack on the strategy of nonviolence in the face of genocide, specifically regarding the conflict in Palestine. Gelderloos does not mince words about the efficacy of peaceful protest when facing a military machine. "Nonviolence doesn't work," he states bluntly, citing historical movements from the Civil Rights era to the anti-Vietnam War protests as evidence that a diversity of methods, including sabotage and obstruction, is necessary for success. "Proponents of nonviolence don't engage with these arguments. They falsify history, take money from governments and big non-profits, and keep repeating platitudes, trying to lead yet another movement astray." This is a stark departure from the mainstream liberal consensus, forcing readers to question whether their commitment to nonviolence is a moral stance or a strategic liability that protects the state.
The author extends this critique to the treatment of marginalized groups, noting how the Left often sacrifices the most vulnerable to maintain political viability. "One thing the Left systematically does is to throw marginalized elements of society under the bus if they deem them to not be a strategic cause," Gelderloos writes. He highlights the betrayal of sex workers and trans people by Democratic-aligned feminists and progressives, who have increasingly adopted anti-immigrant and anti-sex work rhetoric to appeal to a broader, more conservative electorate. The interview with Red, a sex worker and organizer, provides a grim timeline of how legislation like SESTA/FOSTA was used to dismantle safe working conditions under the guise of protecting women and children. "The groundwork for SESTA/FOSTA passage... all has its roots in legislation like the Comstock Act (of 1873) and we're just seeing new forms of the old policing stretch and flex their power," Red explains, illustrating the continuity of state repression across different eras.
"The root cause of misogyny and gender-based violence is deeper and messier than any media censorship or election could solve."
Bottom Line
Gelderloos's most powerful contribution is the unflinching assertion that the state cannot be reformed into a vehicle for liberation, a claim that demands readers reconsider their allegiance to mainstream political strategies. While the argument risks alienating those who believe in the necessity of incremental change, its strength lies in exposing the historical patterns where reform has consistently failed to address the root causes of oppression. The reader is left with a difficult question: if the current methods of resistance are designed to fail, what new forms of struggle are required to truly dismantle the Leviathan?