sciamachy
/saɪˈæməki/
noun
- Fighting or arguing against an imaginary enemy; a pointless or symbolic conflict.
- Spending hours arguing online about a fictional character's motives is a modern form of sciamachy.
- The debate turned into a sciamachy, with both sides attacking a straw man instead of the real issue.
- Historians view the border skirmish as a sciamachy, since the supposed threat never existed.