Nothing says “workers of the world, unite” quite like gathering at a Chicago Hyatt to discuss revolution while actual hotel workers picket outside.
Socialism 2026 attracted thousands of activists over Labor Day weekend for four days of panels on Marxism, abolition, anti-ICE organizing, “collective liberation,” and other subjects unlikely to appear on the agenda at your local Rotary Club.
Then Butch Ware took the rhetoric somewhere darker.
Ware, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara and former Green Party write-in candidate for California governor, told attendees Democrats “cannot be reasoned with” and “must be destroyed.”
He warned that America was approaching “gunfights” and “war in the streets.”
Those aren’t phrases requiring a decoder ring.
From Jonathan Turley:
“You better get ready for … war.” Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans. Despite the talk of a “Big Tent Party,” socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution.
In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America is now larger and more powerful than at any time in our history. Socialist candidates are winning elections across the country as Democratic establishment figures from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to Gov. Gavin Newsom pander to the movement.
Speakers in Chicago used the conference to push supporters to the next stage in the movement, including some openly calling for violence and the end to capitalism.
University of California Santa Barbara History Professor Butch Ware said Democrats “must be destroyed” and urged attendees to be ready for “war in the streets.” Notably, in postings on X, Ware has said that candidates such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are too restrained and are being pushed by the establishment “to contain radicalism.”
The professor “of Africa and Islam” whose faculty page is appropriately found under “bware” is the latest radical to dismiss the “Big Tent Party” rhetoric of establishment figures like Schumer. He declared, “The Democrats cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed.” There is little subtlety in the message, Ware has explained: “You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons.”
It is another example of the delusion that establishment Democrats have that they will be able to use these radicals to destroy their political enemies but not themselves.
Ware doesn’t speak for the Democratic Socialists of America. California DSA has criticized him, and its Los Angeles chapter explicitly urged voters not to support his gubernatorial write-in campaign.
Good. Accuracy requires saying so.
It also makes what Ware said more interesting.
Hellbound and Down 