The Modern Boethius

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As evidenced by the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity, we are truly experiencing an eclipse of the sense of what it means to be human. It is imperative to recover an understanding of the true meaning and grandeur of humanity as intended by God. It is in this sense that the challenge we currently face is not technological, but anthropological, and it is my hope that the Encyclical Letter to be published within a few days will contribute to answering this challenge.

Massie did not lose because of Jews or Jewish influence. He lost due to a complicated web of socio-political factors, not due to Jews I write today to rebut the tendentious claim, common from last night, that Massie’s defeat results from Jewish control over American society👇 First, it is undeniably true that pro-Israel groups spent large amounts of money in primary to defeat Massie. They’ve spent about $9 million, about 28% of the total $32 million spent on each side. So this is freely granted. Second, I freely grant that AIPAC often stands for very problematic positions, such as the genocide of Gazas/Palestinians, as our departed Pope Francis indicated. Freely granted—and in general, I myself do not support Israel’s actions in Gaza, Palestine, or Iran. I probably would have voted for Massie against his challenger, were I a Republican in that district. However, one should be extremely careful to draw certain conclusions from those two facts alone. The fact is, there were a lot of other things Massie did completely unrelated to Israel that made him unpopular. And no, I am not just talking about the Epstein files, which his work in was a good thing. Conservative commentator Michael Knowles mentioned a number of instances in which Massie bucked the GOP party line: the leadership vote, the BBB, and procedural rules on the SAVE Act. Massie only voted with the GOP 75% of the time. And that might be a good thing in itself. But it also means that it makes him a maverick who tend to be controversial, and often frustrated what the GOP wanted (which again, could be good thing, but increases the risk of getting voted out). And because he was frustrating what the GOP wanted, Trump, the de facto leader of the GOP, set out to defeat Massie. Again, as mentioned above, his stance on Israel was one reason for this, but there were a lot of other reasons for the GOP leader to want Massie out. And the average GOP voter might have wanted him out for those same reasons. Now let’s look at the race itself. Massie spent about $13.5 total while the anti Massie coalition spent about $18.5 million total. That means 57% of money went to anti-Massey candidate, while 43% did not. That is a notable difference but is not a huge difference that some think it to be. In fact, Donald Trump only spent about 1.5 billion to Kamala Harris’s 2 billion in 2024, almost exactly the same percentage difference as Massie (Kamala 57% of money compared to Trump’s 43%), and Trump won in a landslide. So it would probably be mistaken to say that Massie lost merely because he was outspent. Clearly, some people didn’t like him for his positions. And who are those people? Exit polls indicate the Massie lost the 65+ and older group by a large margin. These are not Jews but mostly white Protestant boomers. In conclusion from what we’ve discovered so far, Massie lost due to a web of socio-politico factors that included his Israeli stance but also included many other issues/factors. And he lost thanks to Protestants voting bloc. Now addressing the so called problematic “Jewish influence.” Many people have a big confirmation bias where they think Jews run society in a harmful way, and distort events according to that bias. You will naturally ignore the other factors for which Massie lost, or fact that he wasn’t outspent by that much or that Trump won with similar spending challenges. Rather, harmful language about Jews as a religious/racial group is not helpful and clearly goes against what the Vatican has mandated, which says we should speak of Jews as our friends. Instead of constantly interpreting events according to a foundation that has been condemned by the Vatican, it’s better to shift to criticizing Israel as a political government made of fallible men, and not to criticize Jewishness as the boogeyman that is cause of all evil in society, a historically anti semitic trope. And as I’ve shown, blaming Jewishness does not account for the full complicated reality.

I’m strongly against what the government of Israel has done in Palestine/Gaza but I’m also strongly against rhetoric that decries “Jewish influence” in society or that makes other similar generalizations of Jewish people. This is the proper middle ground endorsed by the Vatican.