Be careful about joining book clubs in the United States

We must fight the Prairieland Sentences with every strategy we have.

In arguably the clearest sign yet of America’s fascist turn, eight young people arrested for an anti-ICE protest in Prairieland, Texas that turned violent have been sentenced to terms of 30 to 100 years in prison. In the first prosecutions of the Trump regime’s targeting of alleged members of “antifa”, the court decided that these young people were terrorists who deserved to spend essentially the rest of their natural lives in an American prison. Though one of them did shoot a police officer, the rest were guilty at most of graffiti and setting off firecrackers.

Among them was Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison despite not even being present at the protest. His “crime”? Carrying “numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents” away from the house he shared with his wife, Maricela Rueda, and their daughter.

Another protestor, Elizabeth Soto, was sentenced to fifty years in prison for “providing material support for terrorists.” Her “crime”? Owning a printing press that published leftist zines and pamphlets and being part of a leftist book club. Her husband, Ines Soto, faces sentencing July 1. Both have been incarcerated and separated from their three children for a year. Now, their children face the fate of living the rest of their lives with their parents in prison cells.

The United States is a global outlier in the length of its prison sentences. For example, the United States is the global leader in the average sentence length for homicide, 40.6 years - compared to 6.1 years for France, 5.3 years for Scotland, and 9 years for Switzerland. It is similar for other crimes. Among developed nations the United States is an especially extreme outlier in the length of its prison sentences. Though a subjective measure, I also think it’s plausible that prisoners in the United States face the most brutal conditions of any developed nation (e.g. 75% of Florida’s prisons lack air conditioning, according to a 2023 report).

Now, the United States is sentencing its political prisoners to prison terms that dwarf the length of homicide sentences in other countries, and even well exceed the length of homicide sentences in the United States. The lesson is clear for those whose behavior risks accusations of “antifa” affiliation.

Of course, there is no such thing as antifa. It is not an organization. The legal framework that is being used to target members of this non-existent organization rests on a complete fabrication. This allows the government to target anyone they want. If the organization that is targeted is fictional, its membership is fictional too. The government can arrest and imprison American citizens for decades on the basis of a fiction. Since the organization is fictional, the government can invent whatever it wants about what supports it, and who is on its (fictional) membership lists.

There is nothing stopping the government for arresting you and imprisoning you for the rest of your natural life for participating in an “anti-fascist” book club. Since my work is anti-fascist, it follows that you could be sentenced to an American prison for the rest of your life for participating in a book club that is reading my work.

Well before Trump, America was already a brutal nation. For example, more than half a century, the United States has had one of the top four highest incarceration rates in the world. Now, under Trump and the machine behind him, there are hints it may join a short list of the worst totalitarian regimes.

All of this can be stopped. But we must snap our neighbors out of complacency. Even better: we should all form anti-fascist book clubs now.

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