Editor's Notes: This Is Your Brain on Strategy

Today, executive editor Samantha Hancox-Li has a contentious essay on the incident that occurred at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Texas last year. To summarize for those unaware of the case:

On the evening of July 4, 2025, a collection of activists and protesters arrived at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. They performed a "noise protest," among other things setting off fireworks, in an attempt to signal to the detainees that they were not alone. Some individuals also slashed car tires and spray-painted "Ice Pig" and "Fuck you Pigs" on a car and a guard hut. ICE agents inside the facility called the local police, who responded. After an altercation, one protester—Benjamin Hanil Song—fired an AR-15 in the direction of a police officer. A bullet struck the officer in the neck, but did not kill him. Song and fifteen other activists were ultimately arrested, charged, and in June 2026 convicted by a jury of their peers of multiple charges, including material support of terrorism. Song was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Samantha's argument is simple enough: do things that work. Don't do things that don't work.

Easy, right?

OK, perhaps not. But with the stakes we now face, it is actually important to boil things down into such stark terms.

Here is a sampling of other essays in which we offer what I would dub "strategy-brained" lenses for people:

How to make strategic use of the media, inspired by a Neon Liberalism episode
A strategic analysis of the rise of the Bolsheviks and what we can learn from it
A look at what happens if we never punish Republicans for defecting from out tit for tat status quo ante
Why Movements Fail, How Movements Win, How to Win a Rigged Game

In short, we touch on this a lot.

The Prairieland case was important to talk about. It happened during the current Trump term, it was responding to the worst and bloodiest aspect of what they are doing, and it failed for predictable reasons.

People want to litigate their approach through moral lenses given the gravity of the evil deeds the fascists are up to. But we cannot afford that kind of nonsense. The stakes are too high. We need to ask what works, and that is exactly what Samantha asks, what we always try to ask when considering direct action.

I recommend you read her essay in full. I will offer a broader discussion on strategic thinking below.