2025-03-06, Radical is as radical imagines

Radicalism is not polite. It doesn't come from a curated aesthetic, the perfect brand partnership. It isn't found in the conversation of people eating a tax write-off for dinner. It cannot be embedded in a Twitter bio. If the only way I can tell you’re a radical is by checking your social media (which you might have on private, anyway), then how are you a radical?

I certainly don't mean the folk keeping their praxis hush-hush: keep normie and carry on.

I mean the ones whose contribution to social change amounts to trying to shift the Overton window with telepathy.

And if you point to it, they wrap themselves in the cozy, pre-fab slogan:

there’s no wrong way to be a radical

Except... there is.

If your radicalism fits neatly into the reformist pipeline. If it gets you clout, a nonprofit job, or a spot on a conference panel... then it’s not radical. If your idea of revolutionary work is branding yourself as a radical rather than risking something for radical change, then congrats: you’ve been counterinsurged.

This whole idea that radicalism is an identity rather than an active, dangerous struggle? That wasn’t an accident. That was by design. COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counterintelligence program that ran from the 1950s through at least the 70s, didn’t just surveil and sabotage radical movements.

It also worked to redirect them.

The goal was never to stop the resistance, it was to end cultures of resistance entirely.

One way they did this?

Encouraging performative radicalism over action-based radicalism. They infiltrated groups to push endless internal debates over ideology rather than strategy.

They promoted figures who sounded revolutionary but posed no real threat. They made “radical” seem like a personal identity rather than a commitment to high-risk struggle. And now? That legacy lives on.

They’ve figured out how to counteract rebellion without firing a shot. They just rebrand it. Sell it back to you as a lifestyle, a talking point, an identity. Anything but an actual threat.

But the work didn’t stop there.

The Web today is the perfect playground for these tactics, and most people engaging in political discourse online don’t even realize the hand they’re playing into. Political conversation on the web is dominated by those who can afford to be part of it—the ones with the time, the resources, and, crucially, the safety to treat politics as discourse rather than struggle.

And what happens when the people most visible in political conversations are the ones who have the most to gain from maintaining the system?

They set the terms. They normalize the framework. They dictate what is considered “reasonable” political thought and what is dismissed as extremism. And they do it, often, without even realizing they’re reproducing the very narratives COINTELPRO ingrained into public consciousness decades ago.

Because if you live within the system, if your comfort and security are maintained by its stability, then you will, unless you're critically self-aware, steer political conversations toward preserving its function rather than disrupting it. You will defend reform over abolition. You will call for incremental change rather than direct action. You will prioritize appearances over results. And when someone points out the problem, you will say, there's no wrong way to be a radical.

And at the most cynical end? Some of these people are literally being paid to do this.

Political influencers, think tank analysts, NGO consultants—they flood social spaces with narratives that reinforce the idea that radicalism is about saying the right things, not doing the dangerous things. Folk with white-collar jobs gain clout among their professional peers for bringing "difficult and innovative" perspectives to the conversation. They push the belief that debate is action, that visibility is impact, that the only viable way to challenge power is through its own approved channels.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) provides a solid example of how COINTELPRO didn’t just dismantle radical movements: it redirected them.

Throughout the 1970s, FBI memos show deliberate efforts to replace AIM’s focus on strategy and direct action with ideological infighting. Agents spread rumors that AIM leaders like Vernon Bellecourt were informants, fueling internal distrust (Church Committee Report, 1976).

They infiltrated the movement to push debates over ideological purity rather than tactics, ensuring that energy was spent on proving who was “authentic” rather than planning effective resistance (Churchill, Agents of Repression, 1988).

Over time, AIM’s more militant organizing gave way to a model of advocacy that fit within state-approved activism—shifting from occupations and direct confrontations to legal battles and nonprofit work. That transformation wasn’t organic; it was engineered.

The FBI knew that radicalism rooted in action was dangerous, but radicalism trapped in theory could burn itself out without ever threatening power.

Today, the consequences of that redirection are everywhere. Many former AIM members now work within tribal governments or NGOs, navigating bureaucracy rather than disrupting it.

While some use those positions to advance Indigenous critique or provide cover and aid to radicals, the structural limits of these organizations ensure that their direct work is, at best, reformist and, at worst, a pacified echo of the movement’s original aims.

Meanwhile, a new generation of young Native activists has inherited a political landscape where NGO work is considered radical, where applying for grants replaces seizing land, and where resistance is funneled into negotiations rather than occupations.

Radicals used to be dangerous. Now they’re curated, invited onto panels, celebrated in op-eds... as long as they behave. Wouldn't you like to be published in Teen Vogue?

This isn’t to dismiss their work - only to recognize how the state’s long game played out.

If you’ve inherited a version of radicalism that functions mostly as an aesthetic, as a way to be correct instead of effective, as a way to critique rather than build: congrats, you’ve been handed a pacified, curated version of what once terrified governments.

I’ve seen this disconnect firsthand.

Having been part of land reclamations, I’ve watched the divide play out over and over again: between those who see radicalism as something you apply for funding to talk about, and those who see it as something you risk everything to do.

The first group will tell you what’s possible, what’s pragmatic, what’s realistic. The second group stops asking permission. And what I’ve learned is this: radical isn’t something you are or discuss: it’s something you do.

How much you do it, how far you push, isn’t just about resources or circumstances. It’s about what you believe is possible.

And what you believe is possible?

That comes down to imagination.