On Emergent Strategy, the 2024 Election, and the Work Moving Forward

Our January 2025 Selection

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“As we confront questions of safety, violence, and systems of oppression on a large scale, emergent strategies teach us that change happens at the smallest levels. This means that we can start practicing abolition here, now, and freshly each day, at a scale that is accessible to every one of us.”
– Andrea Ritchie

I first read this quote in an article Andrea Ritchie wrote for Inquest in October 2023 titled “Fractal Abolition,” which was adapted from her newest book, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies. The article was subtitled, “To build the world we want, and tear down the old one, we can and must start small.”

This idea really resonated with me – the idea of starting small – particularly since I often find myself feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work of abolition – from ending the family policing system to dismantling the structures of racial capitalism that maintain it and every other carceral system. Yet the idea of abolition beginning with our interpersonal relationships was something I hadn’t really thought about prior to this. In the same piece, she writes, “I think the heart of abolition is the belief that if we have relationships of integrity and substance, much of the harm we do each other will not happen.”

This piece was also my first introduction to the concept of “fractals,” which adrienne marie brown defines in Emergent Strategy as “infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop.” As an element of Emergent Strategy, “fractals” conveys the idea that “what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.”

Like many people who organize for abolition, I’ve spent much of the last month thinking about what the next few years will look like and how the new presidential administration will impact this work. I’ve also thought a lot about the reactions to the presidential election among others who are engaged in this work and what their thoughts and feelings about this mean for the work ahead. At times, I’ve been surprised by some of these responses, but this has led me to think even deeper about what it all means for our collective work over the next several years and beyond.

Since early in the last election cycle, I knew that I would never vote for Joe Biden. I wasn’t even sure if I would vote at all. Since 2020 (when I did vote for Joe Biden), my understanding of the harms of the state has grown considerably, and particularly, my recognition that the Democratic Party shares very few of my values has grown exponentially. The Democrats’ unwavering support of the police and condescending dismissal of the “Defund” movement, despite all that has happened in the last four years, confirmed for me that this was not a party I would ever support again. This was cemented entirely with Joe Biden’s (and nearly all of the Democratic Party’s) full-fledged support of the genocide in Palestine — support that remains today despite the continued violence, murder, and destruction inflicted almost daily by the settler-state of Israel — much of which is recorded on video and broadcast for the entire world to see. This forever erased any thread of hope I may have retained in Democrats and solidified my commitment to never vote for them again.

Nothing about this changed for me when Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. The person running for president was still a person who fully supported the ongoing genocide, pledging unwavering support to Israel and condemning any critique of this position. As part of her campaign, Kamala Harris pledged to ensure the U.S. had “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” and then in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, blatantly repeated lies about sexual violence against Israelis as justification for continued violence. It was also clear that Harris’s long-standing support of policing and prisons were not only similar to other Democrats, but also backed up with substantial evidence from her time as Attorney General of California.

Throughout this election cycle, I thought a lot about the “lesser of two evils” argument. I completely understand this argument, which is why I voted for Democrats in 2016 and 2020, but this changed for me in 2024. To me, there is nothing more evil than genocide. When both of the major party political candidates fully support genocide, there is no longer a “lesser evil” – there is only equivalent evil. This is not to say in any way that I wanted Donald Trump to be president. I did not. But I also did not want Kamala Harris to be president. I think this latter point is where my surprise in the reactions of some others has come, but I also understand the depth of emotions associated with this, and the fears that are very real and present. Because of this, I understand many of the reasons why people chose to vote for Kamala Harris, and this is not meant in any way to express disapproval of that. But this has made me think, probably more than ever before — what will our work look like moving forward, particularly for those of us in this space, who want to see a future without policing and prisons, a future without the violence of genocide, apartheid, and settler colonialism?

I’m sharing all this to get back to the idea of Emergent Strategy. Over the last four to five years, my thoughts about electoral politics and the role they play in an abolitionist future have evolved considerably. As I’ve shared, I don’t believe the future we wish to see will ever come from Democrats – but more importantly, I don’t believe the future we wish to see will ever come from the state. My biggest concerns about the next four years are not only about the harm that a Donald Trump presidency will cause, but also, what are those of us who consider ourselves “the left” going to do about this? Will we place all our hopes once again in the Democratic Party to save us, or will we start to organize for something different?

I’m not entirely sure what “different” means in this context, but I know what it no longer means. It means a future where we no longer look to the state — a state that is built on capitalism, exploitation, and genocide — or elected officials who represent that state — to be the solution for any of our problems. It means that we look to each other. And if we are to look to each other, that means we have to begin with our existing relationships.

What if we are the change we wish to see? What if we decide what our future holds and we stop looking to laws, policies, and elected officials to decide this for us? The answers to these questions will never come from the state, because the state is designed to prevent us from considering these ideas. Yet the answers to these questions can come from us — and we can begin by building and expanding our relationships, caring for and nurturing each other, increasing our political education, and building a base that understands the power we hold within ourselves. When we do this, we begin to practice the world we wish to see in our own realities, and like fractals, this practice will grow and expand beyond our realities into something much larger.

Andrea Ritchie closes her Inquest piece on Emergent Strategy by saying,

“We can examine the ways we engage with ourselves and each other. We can ask ourselves if our behavior is rooted in punishment, exile, and abandonment, or if it offers invitations and creates possibilities to transform individual and collective conditions. We can reach toward the world we long for by using every day as a practice ground in which we generate new possibilities that can proliferate and ultimately reshape our world.”

This is what I’ve come to understand as the promise of Emergent Strategy and this is why we’ll be kicking off the new year with a deep exploration of these ideas. Earlier this year, when I first read adrienne marie brown’s introductory text, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, I found it a little challenging to fully apply, but I think I’m in a different place of understanding now and am looking forward to reading this again and looking for new ways to apply these ideas. I’m also looking forward to reading this collectively with all of you and learning and growing together.

Over the next several months, we plan to plan to read several different selections in the Emergent Strategies Series, but we’ll start in January with the core ideas in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. For those of you who’d like to get a head start, we hope you’ll join us and begin reading. Over the next few weeks, you’ll also be hearing more from connease and Maya on their thoughts about Emergent Strategy, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts as well.

Stay tuned for more!

In solidarity, Alan