I am appealing to you today to make as large a donation as you can to the World Socialist Web Site New Year Fund.

The first weeks of 2026 are a turning point in history. In Minneapolis, the power of the federal government is being deployed against the people. An ICE agent executed Renée Nicole Good at point-blank range—and the Trump administration has justified it. The city is under para-military occupation. Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and has put the military on alert for deployment. Speaking to the billionaire oligarchs assembled in Davos, Trump declared that “sometimes you need a dictator.” The violent repression in Minneapolis is the implementation of Trump’s plan to overthrow the Bill of Rights.

What is happening in Minneapolis and other American cities is the domestic face of a government waging war on multiple fronts. On January 3, the administration launched an unprovoked invasion of Venezuela, killing civilians and abducting President Nicolás Maduro. Days later came threats to bomb Iran and reassertions of intent to annex Greenland by force. Threats are also being made against Canada.

The violence abroad and repression at home flow from the same source, the crisis of American and world capitalism, and the staggering level of social inequality that prevails in this country and internationally. An Oxfam report this week found that in 2025, the net worth of US billionaires surged 22 percent to a record $8.2 trillion. Elon Musk’s wealth alone now exceeds $700 billion—far more than the GDP of most countries. This concentration of wealth in the hands of an oligarchy produces, inevitably, war abroad and dictatorship at home.

The World Socialist Web Site is unequaled in the depth and breadth of its coverage and analysis of events, which is rooted in Marxist theory and enriched by the vast experience of revolutionary struggles that span more than a century.

From the invasion of Venezuela, the World Socialist Web Site connected imperialist aggression to the logic of capitalism. When Renée Nicole Good was killed, the WSWS placed her murder in context—not as isolated violence, but as fascist policy. The World Socialist Web Site does not merely report the news—it fights to develop the political leadership of the working class on a world scale.

On December 12, 2025, the WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International launched Socialism AI, a groundbreaking initiative arming workers and young people with the knowledge necessary to fight capitalism. The WSWS is utilizing this powerful technology in the interests of the working class—not for profit, but to provide access to Marxist theory, revolutionary history and the program of the Trotskyist movement to millions of workers and young people throughout the world. As events move with extraordinary speed, Socialism AI makes accessible the accumulated knowledge of the revolutionary tradition to anyone seeking to understand and change the world. Moreover, it facilitates the organization of resistance of workers and young people to the attacks on their rights.

The World Socialist Web Site requires resources. Your donation goes directly toward daily coverage of critical events, socialist educational content which is translated into multiple languages, and which plays an indispensable role in training a new generation of fighters for socialism.

But while we need your financial support, we also urge you to become directly involved. Make your daily reading of the World Socialist Web Site the basis of your direct participation in the fight for socialism. Use Socialism AI. Write to us, we will answer your inquiries. Attend meetings. Help build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees in factories, workplaces and neighborhoods to organize and unify the struggles of the working class. The crisis which is now unfolding will not be resolved by passive observation. It demands the conscious intervention of workers and young people prepared to act.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That declaration proclaimed the ideals of equality and the inalienable Rights of Man. The principles proclaimed in that revolutionary struggle now acquire renewed and urgent significance. Today it is the international working class that carries forward the struggle for human emancipation. The fight against imperialist war, against fascism, against the dictatorship of the capitalist oligarchy, is a world struggle of the working class for socialism. Join this fight. Take a stand against war, dictatorship and inequality.