Repression Breeds Resistance: Honoring Community Organizing

by WRAP members

We must celebrate and honor that people remain steadfast in their commitment to organize as the US government has continued its mission of fascist dictatorial rule.
The tactics implemented by today’s American fascist dictatorship have long mirrored similar tyrannical tactics throughout history: “repression breeds resistance” is a relevant phrase now more than ever.

Organizers across the country have demonstrated that this resistance can take many forms and that’s our strength and our beauty as we build community locally and across the country.

Immigrants, queer & trans people, unhoused people, disabled people, people of color are the primary targets for oppression; however, under a fascist dictatorship, everyone becomes a target so long as you are advocating for basic human rights and not advancing the interests of the ruling class. Militarized police and immigration enforcement systems are created to protect fascists and their cronies from the pain and suffering they’re responsible for as they exploit the people’s wealth and resources. To protect the wealthy and politically elite, advancements must be made technologically and financially. Surveillance of pro-people movements have become widespread across the nation. Private security and local law enforcement agencies expanded, and the budget for the immigration and customs enforcement agency (ICE) spiked thanks to Trump’s Big Fascist Bill which rose from roughly $10 billion to a whopping $80 billion. When a country operates as a private enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class, a core function of governance becomes violence, fear and oppression. These different hostilities have been met time and time again with people rising to the occasion to organize their communities. Tactics like the whistle alert system of ICE agents, which was developed by people on the ground, is a community-based communication system. Consistent know-your-rights trainings, outreach to impacted communities and the alliance of pro-immigrant lawyers have provided resources for people. Accompaniment to court hearings and the distribution of food to impacted people demonstrated they are not alone and these anti immigrant attacks will be fought by the whole community. Digital and physical security trainings and education are a way for people to resist the surveillance state we are now battling. In the face of growing repression, communities have instead taken it upon themselves to protect their own people!

Basic needs and human rights such as public welfare, education, health care, housing, and environmental protections are being and/or have already been eliminated: 880 billion in cuts to Medicaid mean 17 million people will lose access to vital health care, 411,000 people are projected to lose their housing voucher subsidy (500,000 Public Housing Units have already been lost), and 230 billion in cuts to Food Stamps coupled with draconian work requirements in several programs mean more people will be living unhealthy, unhoused and hungry in the richest country in the world.

The 43-day government shutdown that happened from October 1 to November 13, 2025 resulted in catastrophic economic impacts. For example, food insecurity grew at alarming rates due to people’s access to food stamps being cut. This meant families who were already in precarious financial situations to sustain themselves faced new uncertainties. Restaurants across the country, however, would go on to develop programs for families where they could access a free meal. Mutual aid groups saw it as an opportunity to ramp up their already community-led initiatives and expand the scope of their operations to include more people and more basic needs. Though vital, mutual aid alone will not quench the thirst and hunger of millions of poor Americans, with poverty as a leading cause of death in this country. As a part of the organizing, linking mutual aid to its revolutionary underpinnings alongside political education, organizing trainings, and community/street watch is more crucial than ever.

Criminalizing unhoused people instead of implementing long-term housing solutions has shown its failures again and again. Across the U.S., the number of homeless people dying every day has risen as steadily as any town’s police budget. While neoliberal politicians in the pocket of real estate profiteers continue to press for the same broken and expensive “solutions” to visible poverty, working class people become more vulnerable both to houselessness as well as fascist propaganda, which scapegoats individuals for what is clearly a result of decades of anti-poor, pro-capitalist policy. According to the centrists and capitalists, housing is a human right, until that housing is for a poor person. But as the middle class shrinks, our potential base grows. The solutions promised through campaign runs and speeches remain hollow as its failures are shown again and again. As soon as Trump’s Supreme Court granted city governments the ability to criminalize people for being poor in public when there is no available housing or shelter options, we have continued to see a massive escalation against our civil right to be in public spaces. The tremendous growth of on-the-ground organizing and encampment resistance is a sure sign that poor and working people won’t allow themselves to be scapegoated then punished for living in a failed system.

Building-site tenant associations, citywide tenant unions, and nationwide tenant federations continue to pop up and connect to each other, building collective power across divides by uniting around their common interest. The rent is too damn high! Rent strikes, direct action, getting local media to cover negligent slumlord operations, and building networks of support have been successful in highlighting the housing struggle in the public consciousness. While housing markets continue to provide a playground for investors, tenants are fighting back, recentering themselves rather than profit motives in the struggle to decommodify housing.

The people of this country have proven themselves time and time again that they are a force to reckon with. From Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis and across the country, more people are waking up, stepping outside, and joining their neighbors in struggle. This fight; however, has not been easy. Those in power desperately try to justify their aggression by any means. In a similar way that houseless people are punished for living outside after being displaced from housing, immigrants fleeing US-created terror and destabilization in Latin America are targeted by ICE gestapo, as we see with Haitians and Venezuelans receiving temporary protected status (TPS) and then getting it revoked.

Destabilizing foreign countries, in the form of implementing embargos like with Cuba, providing arms for counterinsurgency programs against human rights defenders in the Philippines or financing the genocide in Palestine while talking about its ruins as a potential “Riviera of the Middle East,” create disastrous economic situations with violent results often forcing people to migrate to other countries where they are demonized and violently attacked again. Domestically, we see displacement in the way of echoing business associations in American cities that “revitalize” and “develop” neglected neighborhoods that are often the only place left for poor people to stay, homelessness and displacement is then weaponized by the US fascists to drum up fear, resentment and scapegoat the economic failings of capitalism onto the most marginalized.

Fascism always strives to divide and conquer, but we know that our movement against fascism knows no borders and no walls. The only way through is together so we must continue to organize across ALL strategies, ALL issues and ALL people!