On Political War

Part of the discourse this morning on Bluesky was about General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea through Georgia during the Civil War. I missed most of it, but it provoked a very good thread on political war from Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc). Flowers is an Assistant Professor at California State University Northridge.

I’ll copy their posts into something like a narrative. Carl von Clausewitz wrote about total war in his classic “On War,” and the thread is a riff implicitly  on Clausewitz and explicitly on Sherman. The thread starts here.

Sherman was an advocate of “total war,” which is essentially ensuring that the enemy’s warfighting capacity was broken by whatever means necessary. For example, when confronted with torpedoes (early land mines), Sherman forced Confederate POWs to march in front of his lines to demine the road.

When confronted with sabotage on the march, Sherman burned houses within a specific radius to indicate to the Confederacy what would happen if you provided shelter to the CSA or assisted them in their operations against the Union Army. He was not a man with whom to fuck.

Sherman’s prosecution of total warfare intended to break the CSA’s warfighting capacity, to make the prosecution of war so painful, so repugnant to the CSA and its allies, that they would reject any future attempt at war and the politics that gave rise to it. This is why Sherman was so effective.

Taken in our current political context, total political warfare (there is a reason we call these things CAMPAIGNS) would be to break the Republican’s policy making and “culture warfighting” capacity through whatever means necessary, including calling them weird-ass motherfuckers.

That is, a “total war” philosophy in politics would make the pursuit of political power, the passing of policy, so painful for the republicans that they would repudiate the MAGA party line that brought them to this moment in politics. It would be to repeatedly demonstrate just how weird they are.

Indeed, in many cases, this is a strategy that Trump and his MAGA hordes have already adopted. They are willing to use any strategy, any claim, any policy proposal to ensure that they take and hold power, regardless of the effects on the people they claim to govern. Moreover, they do so maliciously.

The entire republican platform, for the past four years, has been one of othering and dehumanization for the sake of maintaining cultural power and not passing actual policy. A political party like that is an existential and material threat to its citizens and DESERVES to be burned to the ground.

From a perspective of “total war,” [Kamala] Harris’ March to the White House should cut a bloody swath through the Republican party, destroying their political and social works on the way, and making it either impossible or incredibly difficult for them to govern or pass policy in the ways they have.

Once she has power, a philosophy of total political warfare would have her govern not only with an eye to supporting her constituency, but ensuring the continued destruction of the political works, the political materiel of the republican party. It would be a style of politics UNSEEN in the US.

Now, if you think this harsh, recall that Sherman said this of the Confederacy during the Civil War: “There is a class of people (in the South), men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”

And honestly? There’s a class of Republican, not JUST MAGA, who must be politically killed or banished from political life before we can hope for peace and order. Project 2025 and the uncritical Republican support for it makes this clear. Burn that fucking party to the ground.

A later thread continues the theme.

One more thing: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are.”

In the contemporary political context, Trumpism was the remedy that the Republicans chose to advance their agenda. Other methods were available to them, other ideologies, but they went with Trumpism and its politics of violence and hate. Even supposed “moderate” Republicans enabled this shit.

When I said the whole party needed to burn under a politics governed by “total war” philosophy, I meant that shit: you cannot have a party that appeals to Trumpism and its politics of hate and violence and expect political and social order once power is transferred to the Democrats.

As Sherman said, “They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.” Once the issue has been accepted, it ends with their complete surrender or our own.

And, to be clear: in my view, the survival of trans people, queer people, people of color, disabled people, depends on the complete and utter destruction of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and any the centrist and moderates who enabled and benefitted from its rise. They all have to go.

Finally, I’d like to end on a prescient note from Sherman: “Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well,” and now annihilation should be their reward. I see no reason why this should be otherwise.