We Are All ….. Now

A fascinating critical excavation of the universalist claims behind the phrase "we are all..."

The title of this small book is inspired by a common rhetorical gesture--"we are all [...]"--intended to implicate people in a given agenda. From the 1887 cry, "We Are All Socialists" to the 2022 rally "We Are All Ukrainians Now," it offers an illustrated history of this rhetorical device, which is dubbed "strategic universalism" by artist, activist and researcher Daniel Tucker (editor of Lastgaspism: Art and Survival in the Age of Pandemic). The book also features an interview with the illustrator Dan S. Wang. Because the original quotations are at times conflicting, the hand-drawn responses to each strategically universalist declaration draws out a wide range of idiosyncratic symbolic approaches to interpretation, laying bare the struggle of different identities involved in the commitment to stand together.