During World Wars I and II, warfare evolved in ways that dragged humanity into a new, darker modernity. War was no longer a so-called “gentleman’s affair” governed by rules, honor, or decency. While laws of war existed, they often came too late—and were just as often bent or broken.
For instance, strafing enemy soldiers from the air—once deemed unconscionable—became standard practice. Killing sleeping soldiers in their barracks had previously been viewed as dishonorable, yet even that taboo faded. Poison gas, banned after World War I, was still stockpiled and researched. The deliberate firebombing of civilian cities like Dresden and Tokyo blurred the line between military necessity and civilian massacre. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced the world to accept the normalization of mass civilian casualties under the guise of ending war. Starvation blockades, torture of prisoners, summary executions—once considered beyond the pale—became “necessary evils.” The justifications? “War is war,” “All's fair,” and, of course, the ever-abused “fog of war.”
After WWII, the world held the Nuremberg Trials in an attempt to cement those moral lines into law—hoping to keep nations, leaders, and military officers accountable. But the erosion had already begun. The idea that “winning at any cost” was acceptable had seeped into military doctrine—and beyond. That made sense. War is indeed war, after all. When war evokes the need to counter existential threat, it becomes necessary. The enemy requires no need for care, or humanity.
Over time, that mindset filtered into politics. It took root in authoritarian regimes and was exploited by dictators. And in the 1990s, it found fertile ground in America. Newt Gingrich, borrowing ideas shaped by Soviet-era KGB tactics, brought a zero-sum mentality to the Republican Party: not compromise, but conquest. Not debate, but destruction.
This opened the door for someone like Donald Trump, who weaponized narcissism, division, and ruthless gamesmanship. The goal became winning—not for the nation, but for the tribe. “Us vs. them” thinking replaced any remaining notion of shared sacrifice or civic responsibility. The harm done to others no longer mattered—as long as “we” weren’t the ones paying the price.
Much like corporate thinking and evangelism—two ideologies that fused, then spread beyond their originations—this mindset infected religious institutions, corporations, and eventually government, schools, and media. "Winning at all costs" became a replicable strategy. It permitted despicable things. Lying to the public became de rigueur. Cheating, breaking laws, ignoring the Constitution, demanding loyalty to a single person—but not offering loyalty in return—became normalized.
This is, at least, understandable in war. When facing an enemy from another country who attacked you, responding with equal or greater force can be morally rationalized. War demands hard choices. But here's the rub:
When those tactics are used within your own country, against your fellow citizens, that is not acceptable. That’s not just politics—it borders on treason. It is seditious. It is insurrectionist.
So what else could it be?
It is betrayal—plain and simple.
A betrayal of our founding ideals.
A betrayal of our neighbors.
A betrayal of truth, law, and common decency.
When war tactics are turned inward—used not to defend a nation but to dominate its people—it ceases to be politics.
It becomes sabotage.
It becomes psychological warfare.
It becomes treason wearing a flag pin.
And make no mistake:
It doesn’t end with victory. It ends with ruin.
It ends with democracy hollowed out, flying its colors while forgetting its soul.
This isn’t strategy.
It’s surrender—surrendering integrity for power, country for control, future for the fleeting thrill of the win.
And unless we name it, call it what it is, and confront it with courage—
It will become not just the past we failed to learn from,
But the future we allowed to be stolen.
That brings us back to the modern Republican Party.
They are no longer playing politics—they're playing war, and not against foreign enemies, but against fellow Americans. Against truth. Against democracy itself. Gingrich may have lit the match, but others carried the torch straight into the halls of Congress—and then into the Capitol rotunda on January 6th.
So what do we do?
We refuse to meet their fire with silence.
We expose the lies.
We vote like our country depends on it—because it does.
We push accountability, not just for the figureheads, but for every enabler, every cynic hiding behind a flag while gutting what it stands for.
We make decency louder than cruelty, and truth stronger than fear.
Because if we don’t reclaim the rules, they’ll burn the gameboard.
And then call it a win.
Compiled with aid of ChatGPT
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