by Gabrielle Temaat

Professor urges attendees to ‘train with weapons’

At a "Marxism" conference this month, University of California Santa Barbara Professor Butch Ware said Democrats "must be destroyed" and urged attendees to be ready for "war in the streets."

In a video posted to X, Ware said modern Democrats such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are not Marxist enough.

Referring to the Democratic party, Ware said, "They are going to keep giving us the Mamdanis and the Abdul El-Sayeds … because they are there to contain radicalism."

"The Democrats cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed," the professor said.

He also told attendees that they aren’t dreaming "big enough," adding that they should be prepared to fight physically, according to another video posted to X.

"Some of these clickety-clack revolutionaries have never been in a f*cking gunfight," he said.

"Y’all ain’t nowhere near ready for a war in the streets. You better get ready for both kinds of war," the professor said, adding that "if you stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready."

In a video that Ware posted on his Instagram, he said, "You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons."

Several X users condemned Ware’s remarks, including Michael Shermer, the founder of a non-profit educational group called The Skeptics Society.

"If Marxism requires armed violent action, doesn’t that mean that ‘the people’ don’t actually want it (so you have to force it upon them at gunpoint)?" he wrote.

"For over a century Marxism has failed everywhere it has been tried & resulted in >100 million dead. Enough @ButchWare," Shermer wrote.

UCSB paid professor Ware $211,683 in 2024, according to screenshots from the Open Payrolls database posted to X by journalist James Hartline.

Ware teaches courses focused on West Africa, Islamic Knowledge & Spirituality, and African Diaspora, according to the school’s Department of History.

The Marxism conference took place in Chicago, Illinois on Sept. 4 and 5, "featuring leading voices from the American left."

But Ware isn’t the only professor to stir up controversy online in the last few days.

At another recent event, called the "Socialism 2026 Conference," City University of New York Professor Ruth Gilmore said, "It’s capitalism we’re after," according to a video posted to X.

"There isn’t a capitalism that is somehow not racial. There isn’t a capitalism that does not produce and reproduce all kinds of sexual and gender boundaries," the professor said.