TODAY’S MESSAGE
Political Power for the People

The California DSA voter guide openly smeared Dr. Butch Ware, 2026 Gubernatorial Candidate, and urged voters not to support his write-in campaign.

What should have been a voter guide for California socialists was a coordinated character assassination campaign against the most openly anti-imperialist, pro-Palestinian, anti-corporate candidate in the race — a candidate whose platform otherwise aligns with many of the very socialist principles DSA claims to champion.

Then, a few sentences later, DSA endorsed a billionaire who made their money from private prisons and ICE concentration camps.

The central tension surrounding Dr. Butch Ware is simple: he’s building political energy that doesn’t originate from Democratic Party infrastructure.

That alone makes him difficult to manage, especially as he begins to attract people disillusioned with both parties.

PRESS RELEASE
FEDERAL COURT DECLINES TO ADDRESS CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION IN WARE v. WEBER; WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN UNDERWAY, CONSTITUTIONAL CASE CONTINUES

What does it look like to have a scholar of liberation history lead the world’s fifth largest economy? In this deep-dive interview, University of California Santa Barbara professor Dr. Butch Ware discusses his candidacy for Governor of California and his mission to prioritize people over corporations.

THE REVOLUTION TELEVISED
Why This UCSB Professor is Running for Governor

What does it look like to have a scholar of liberation history lead the world’s fifth largest economy? In this deep-dive interview, University of California Santa Barbara professor Dr. Butch Ware discusses his candidacy for Governor of California and his mission to prioritize people over corporations.

9 Reasons Why DSA Is Afraid of Butch Ware by Jeremy Leal
1. Butch Ware Exposes What DSA Actually Is

Dr. Ware’s rise has reopened older historical criticisms of DSA.

Michael Harrington--widely considered the central founding figure behind Democratic Socialists of America--and other early DSA figures openly described the organization as operating inside Democratic Party politics rather than building independent socialist power.

📢 In other words, DSA keeps radical energy trapped in the Democratic Party and robs the people of leverage.

2. DSA Attacks Backfired

The California DSA voter guide treated Dr. Ware like a threat. Political organizations rarely spend that much energy suppressing candidates they consider irrelevant.

The attacks on Dr. Ware are untrue and wildly manipulated to create distrust around him. Besides the fact that they are slanderous, they aren’t landing with voters who oppose corporate money, billionaire influence, and politicians who align with U.S. empire.

Instead of containing Ware’s momentum, the backlash has arguably expanded it. Supporters started openly posting write-in ballots online, turning what was supposed to marginalize the campaign into free visibility and organizing energy.

3. Butch Ware Survived Ballot Removal and Keeps Growing

The removal reinforced the perception among supporters that institutional systems close ranks when outsider candidates gain momentum.

📢 Dr. Ware continued organizing after the setback transformed the campaign from a normal election run into something more symbolic: a test of whether independent movements can survive institutional exclusion.

4. Butch Ware Knows DSA Silences Their Own Candidates

According to Dr. Ware, he and Oliver Ma spent weeks discussing a joint endorsement, filming content together, and planning a broader unity effort before DSA allegedly threatened to pull support from Ma if he followed through.

DSA talks about coalition-building publicly while privately enforcing ideological discipline that only protects the Democratic Party establishment.

5. Butch Ware Has A Red Line, DSA Does Not

Without carving out exceptions for politically convenient allies, Dr. Ware speaks about empire, militarism, Palestine, and corporate power in ways that bypass the carefully negotiated language many progressive organizations rely on. This exposes establishment Democrats who continue supporting the U.S. military industrial complex.

It also raises questions about organizations like DSA, which endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for California Governor, while positioning themselves as a working-class alternative to establishment politics.

Americans have already lived through multiple generations of billionaires being framed as altruistic visionaries. Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others were all, at different moments, presented as billionaires the public could trust to shape society responsibly.

Over time, many people came to see concentrated wealth itself as incompatible with democratic accountability. Dr. Ware’s campaign reflects that growing skepticism. His position is that billionaires should not be steering public life, regardless of how "progressive" their branding appears.

6. Butch Ware Siphons Votes From People Exhausted by Lesser-Evil Politics

His campaign appeals to people who believe that perpetual “strategic voting” has become a mechanism for permanently suppressing independent political movements before they can mature into real alternatives.

7. Butch Ware Exposes Hollow Progressivism from Democrats

Dr. Ware is transforming political consciousness. He speaks with moral clarity, and makes establishment left politics feel spiritually empty by comparison.

For decades, Democratic politicians have promised transformational policies like universal healthcare while continuously delaying meaningful action once in power. Dr. Ware, by contrast, has openly argued that California should use executive authority, immediately, to expand healthcare access and treat the crisis with urgency. Democratic politicians only support such urgency rhetorically, but not in practice.

A candidate who confronts systems makes carefully-managed political branding feel disconnected from the scale of suffering people are actually living through.

8. Butch Ware’s Campaign Proves That Independent Left Politics Are Actually Possible

This is the real reason underneath all the others: people may eventually stop asking the Democratic establishment for permission to organize politically at all.

9. Butch Ware Shatters the Idea That DSA Owns the Left

Many critics argue that DSA and Democratic-aligned progressive spaces increasingly function as gatekeepers of “acceptable” left politics.

📢 Who gets endorsed. Who gets platformed. Who gets treated as legitimate. And who gets treated as dangerous. DSA spends more energy policing outsider candidates and independent organizers than building independent political power.

Recent backlash with labor organizer, Chris Smalls, and also Aida Ashouri, for Los Angeles City Attorney 2026, reflect the same underlying tension: DSA presents themselves as vehicles for political transformation, but often become uncomfortable with movements, parties, and candidates they cannot control.

Dr. Ware’s campaign challenges that whole structure. It has attracted support outside traditional party channels, mainstream media, and progressive institutions. Butch Ware proves political momentum can still emerge independent of the political establishment.

• Write-in instructions

  • Butch Ware is a registered write-in candidate for Governor of California. Under California law, write-in votes for registered candidates are fully tallied and included in official election results. The establishment removed him from the ballot. You can put him back. By June 2, write BUTCH WARE on the write-in line of your California Governor's race ballot to vote for a candidate who will fight to bring power back to the people.

  1. — Receive your ballot — by mail before June 2, or in person at your polling location on Election Day.

  2. — Find the Governor's race on your ballot.

  3. — Look for the blank write-in line at the bottom of the candidate list.

  4. — Fill in the bubble (if applicable) & write BUTCH WARE clearly in the blank.

  5. — Submit your ballot as normal. Your vote is valid, legal, and will be counted.

THE REVOLUTION TELEVISED
Art as Resistance vs. State Propaganda: The Political Value of Expression

Discover what true solidarity looks like when we move beyond labels and transactional relationships. Join Imani B., Angelica Ross, and Chris Smalls for an inspiring and deeply personal conversation about building collective power and staying true to the mission of liberation for all people, moderated by Alioune Dia, brought to you by Dr. Butch Ware.

THE REVOLUTION TELEVISED
Why Intersectionality is Essential for Liberation

What does it mean to be a cultural producer in today’s political climate? Join this powerful panel discussion Unity Uprising ATL: Black Radical Tradition and Collective Liberation organized by Dr. Butch Ware at The Murph in Atlanta, Georgia as creators and activists Dr. Charlene Carruthers, Xavier Conely, and F.D. Signifier explore the intersection of media, community organizing, and the black radical tradition.

EVENTS THIS MONTH
MOTIVATION MAY EVENTS

MAY 20TH - TOWN HALL MEETING (PALMDALE) 6PM

Your Network Is the Field Operation

Download the Empowerment app at empowerproject.us — invite code: bware4gov2026

It maps your existing social media connections against California's registered voter rolls. You can see today which people you already know are registered voters who haven't heard about this race yet. That's your list. No cold calls. You start with your community.

128 volunteers are already active. Tuesday night — 9pm ET / 6pm PT — live training stream for everyone.

THE WIRE HAS A NEW HOME!

thewirenetwork.com — subscribe for real analysis, real updates, and political education the mainstream press isn't giving you.

19 Days left. One Ask.

Write-In “Butch Ware”

Vote Butch Ware. Tell your family. Tell your coworkers. Tell anyone who will listen that there is a candidate in this race who means what he says, who has never wavered, who was in compliance the whole time and who is still standing.

Butch Ware for Governor 2026

📬 [email protected] | 📞 1-888-583-WARE

Democracy Will Not Be Redacted