To Capture the "Enemy"

Increasingly, we view each other as enemies due to disinformation and democracy tampering. With such buzz about violence, it's important to consider how we should treat those we view as "the enemy."

Violence is not the answer.

In the United States Marine Corps, there exists the Commandant’s Reading List, which is a list of books that are recommended reading for Marines. On this list are books about warfighting, duty, and service or service gone awry. Examples include the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides for strategy and tactics, Rifleman Dodd for adherence to duty, and others. One of these is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which is something that I’ve read off and on for years, refreshing my knowledge. If you haven’t read it, then it’s easy to think that it’s an instruction manual on how to violently destroy an enemy.

It’s not. That stuff is in there, don’t get me wrong. But long before that, there are sections on discipline and self-control, and how to avoid violence. According to the ancient warfighter, hardly ever a correct solution. Take this tidbit:

To capture an enemy’s army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a battalion, a company, or a five-man squad is better than to destroy them.

-Sun Tzu, III - Offensive Strategy, 2

What does it take to capture an army without destroying it? This is the core of the hearts-and-minds campaign that the United States military used to engage in, before Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. This is what the USAID and other services, which looked to the untrained as wasteful, were for. How easy could it be for an army to fight against someone who, they knew, if they gave up, would feed and clothe them? Wise, yes. And this is wisdom lost on those who have never considered trying to save anyone at all. And this is the part of the battle that we typically lose on the left.

Graham Platner gets it. This guy is 40 years old, an Army and USMC vet, and a worker, and he’s jumped into the race on the left side because he believes, as I do, that suffering isn’t the point of life. He believes that people deserve respect, and importantly, he’s bringing the philosophy with him. There are things he believes that I don’t, but there are a couple of important things he does believe in, that Universal Health Care is important to save lives, and that people deserve it. There are no unworthy in his platform, which I read through this morning. He rails against the “billionaire economy” and against politicians who hedge and hope not to be noticed, like his opponent, and so many free-loading Congressional representatives (among whom I count both Democrats and Republicans).

Take a look at his list’s top 10, copied from his website:

• Ban billionaires buying elections

• Rebuild our failing healthcare system

• Support Small Business - Break Up the Monopolies

• Stop the mass deportation machine; pass real immigration reform

• Defend our air, our water, our land and our climate

• Decisive action on the housing crisis

• Defend Medicare and Medicaid

• Protect Social Security - before it goes bankrupt

• End billionaire tax dodging

• Uphold tribal sovereignty and self-determination

I know from talking to my conservative family in Texas that these concerns aren’t just left-wing focus-group topics. In fact, up until that last one, these are exactly the topics I hear concerns about. That’s how I know his message will resonate with the masses, and if I were a gambling man other than buying the occasional lottery ticket, I’d put hard cash on his ability to win this election. What’s the most important thing about his message, though?

That he’s punched through! People who have no interest in politics know who Graham Platner is and what he stands for because of his viral advertisement. And it’s hard for them to shove him into the socialist box due to his prior military experience and the fact that he’s a hard worker. This is the missing link for us on the left. We have great ideas, but the people delivering those ideas often seem like they’re talking down to us, and it’s so very obvious that the millionaires in Congress won’t be impacted one way or the other by their policies, except to make more money in the billionaires’ stock market. Not a good look.

If we want to win, we must capture “the enemy” (who aren’t really an enemy so much as are consistently lied to). To do so without violence will require a change in leadership, an influx of new untainted blood, right or wrong, and a strong platform that speaks directly to the American people. This list is a terrific start, and Graham Platner is a sign of things to come.

Stay tuned, change is coming, friends.