Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray a...:   Kristallnacht in 1938.  A lot of people who had voted for the Nazis had been stampeded there by the assertion that it was the Nazis or the...

The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

 

Kristallnacht in 1938.  A lot of people who had voted for the Nazis had been stampeded there by the assertion that it was the Nazis or the Communists, both of which were populist parties.  The smiling couple probably wasn't smiling by 1945, assuming that they were both alive.

The first rule of logic:  Chesterton's Fence:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

The second rule of logic:  Hanlon's Razor

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

It's tempting to say that this will be an election like no other, and indeed, I think it is in many ways.  In terms of American elections, it's the most important election, even though it's a midterm election, since the the Election of 1860.  It's the election that will determine if Trump continues to rule as an insane dictator, or if the nation can begin to turn the path towards constitutional democracy.¹

Things like this make this a critical election:

On the Cornell rapes:

Letitia James is a corrupt person…And I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won’t get a fair shake.

He later called James a "dog".

I'm an actual conservative.  I am not a populist.  Conservatives believe that man if flawed and that we should be careful to conserve things that have worked or are part of culture until we know what the reason for casting it aside would really be.

The sixth rule of logic: Yeoman's Gate:

Before you go through a gate to get to the other side of a fence, completely figure out, to the extent you can, where the path goes.

Conservatives believe that man is fallen and that our natures and the nature of the world, in its pure form, is dictated by an outside existential, that being God to most conservatives, and nature to some.  We don't cast away easily, and we believe the Natural Law ultimately controls most things.

Conservatism has been killed by Donald Trump.

The most significant force around Trump is that of populism.  Populism believes that the "will of the people" is endowed with some sort of magic virtue. The question is, who are the people?  It's never all the people.  Populists always regard themselves as "the people" and other people as the enemy of the people.  They're easily lead by demagogues  At one time they followed Bernie Sanders around like puppies, now they follow Donald Trump.  The besotted populists believe that the will of the people is magically transmitted to Trump who is always right.  

Trump is a dangerously sick man.

Trump has never been an admirable one.  We could go into it, but people who claim he's "Godly" are rank idiots.  Indeed, a significant portion of Trump supporters at this point are the absolute bottom of the bell curve.  He's deeply immoral and is committing the United States to deeply immoral acts. Fortunately, the bloom is off the rose at this point, and it appears highly likely that the GOP, which has fallen down on its duties in Congress, will be tossed out.  Due to weirdness of Trump's cabinet, we'll have to endure Trump for two more years, probably.

The problem for real conservatives, however, and particularly for Catholics, or indeed for Catholics whether they are conservative or not, is how to vote.

In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, No. 13.

In Wyoming, some of the choices will be easy.  Eric Barlow, the Republican, is the easy choice over Democrat Ken Casner or Dixiecrat Rebecca Bextel.  It's not even close.  Effectively, the races for Governor, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Education are over, and will all go to good Republican candidates.

But the candidates for the House and Senate are a nightmare.

Chuck Gray is a co-religious about whom the public knows nothing.  A far right right winger born with a silver spoon in his mouth he washed up in Wyoming as his daddy, who doesn't live here, has a radio station here.  He barely won the primary for Secretary of State, after having been an abrasive personality in the legislature, by running on lies.  Since the moment of his taking office in that position, he's been running for something else, and the House of Representatives fell to him when Harriet Hageman decided to run for retiring Cynthia Lummis' position.  

Gray has been a horrible Secretary of State and he'll be a horrible Congressman.  His campaign was basically that he loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump.  Trump is a horror.  This is a good reason not to vote for Gray, as if any additional reasons were needed.  If he wins, and he's likely to, he'll be worthless as a junior member a minority party who knows nothing about the state he's supposed to represent.

The Democrat is Lisa Kinney.  I just heard her speak, and she speaks very well.  She didn't have the chance to get into specifics, but they can be guessed at.  I'd be surprised at best if she wasn't "pro Choice", which is pro infanticide.

The Libertarian is Shaun Johnson.  I heard him speak too but he also didn't really have the chance to get into specifics.  The one interesting thing I heard him say is that he wouldn't caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats.

I don't think that Johnson has any chance.  I think Kinney has an off chance.

I suspect that if Kinney wins, Christensen will run against her in 2028 and likely take the seat.  I think he's planning on running.

The choice this year, therefore, is between Kinney and Gray.  Voting for Kinney is saying no to Trump insanity. Voting for Gray is saying yes to Trump insanity.  That's about it.

At the Senate level the Democrats have a really good candidate, James Byrd.  The Republicans have a really horrible candidate, Harriet Hageman, who stabbed Liz Cheney, a former friend of hers, in the back so that she could crawl over her dead political body to go to Washington, where reportedly she already owned a house.  If she was voted out, she'd never come back.  She's shown contempt for her own state on public lands while there, making her potentially an even worse candidate than Gray.  

She received a lot of votes in the primary, in spite of being such a horrible candidate.  It'll take a lot for Byrd to overcome it.

So here's where we are at.  We cannot vote for Gray or Hageman.  Voting for them is voting for the insanity of Donald Trump and the ongoing destruction of the American democracy.  Can we morally vote for Kinney and Byrd, or do we not vote at all on those races.  Not voting on them may very well be like voting for Gray and Hageman. It's an interesting, and paramount, moral question.

Footnotes

1. And save the "we're a republic not a democracy" crap. That's brainless twaddle.  Our Constitution creates a democratic republic and people who say that should have their right to vote, drive a car, or speak a sentence revoked.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Ashley Hinson, Chris Christie, Constitution Party, Donald Trump, inflation, Iowa, John Barrasso, Populism, Rebecca Bextel, Republican Party, Stein Law, Texas, Weird, Yeoman's Tenth Rule of Logic

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Back to the Coliseum.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Back to the Coliseum.:   I've been expecting it all along.  It just came in a surprising fashion. Deep hatred of Catholics is the last acceptable form of outri...

Sunday Morning Scene. Back to the Coliseum.

 

I've been expecting it all along.  It just came in a surprising fashion.

Deep hatred of Catholics is the last acceptable form of outright bigotry in the United States, although there's been a general rise of bigotry and racism during the illegitimate Trump interregnum.  Trump's a populist, and populist tends to boost ignorance, with bigotry feeding on that.  Most of the major populist movements a person can recall, the Nazis, the Communists, the Know Nothings, featured a lot of really ignorant people who were willing to be lead around by a others, sometimes a charismatic, to them, other.¹ MAGA is a populist movement, masquerading as a conservative one, as Nazism was a populist movement that claimed conservatives within it.  It's not too surprising, therefore, that we're seeing more of this sort of thing than we have at any point since the 1960s.

Quite a few of the more ignorant members of MAGA claim they support Trump as he's Godly, which is patently absurd, but there's no denying that far right wing Evangelicalism is a major component of MAGA.  The Press, which isn't very well educated on religion anymore, just keeps calling them "Christians",  which is really misleading.  Some, but not all, far right Evangelicals supporting Trump hold religious beliefs that are very recent and very novel and well outside the mainstream of Apostolic Christianity and also out of the mainstream of most Protestant beliefs.  Almost all MAGA Evangelicals fit into the ignorant of theology and Church history camp that's strong in the United States of being "Bible Believing Christians" who are pretty ignorant of a rule on the history of the books of the Bible.

Around the periphery of MAGA, however, there's been some Apostolic Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, who have been, if not fully in the Trump camp, at least allowed to pitch a tent on its edges.  Some of this is just flat out opportunistic on their part, and it looked like it would have a major impact on the Trump administration due to Trump's flat out ignorance and laziness.  Inside the administration you have the example of J. D. Vance and Marco Rubio, and outside of it you have people like Kevin Roberts.  You even have Peter Thiel, who claims not to be a Catholic but who keeps popping up in certain Catholic circles, as does Jordan Peterson and the Orthodox pundit Rod Dreher.²  National Conservatism has a strong right wing Catholic element to it, which is interesting in that it's sort of the intellectual heir of Fr. Charles Coughlin whose movement was shut down and who remains not widely admired in mainstream Catholic circles.

Most CAtholics that have supported Trump, however, have done so for one of two other reasons.  The thinking ones have done so as it seemed like he was probably the only candidate who would address long held Catholic concerns, like abortion.  People know that Trump himself was a louse, but they were willing to "hold their nose and vote".  Others were Protestantized Catholics, of which there are a lot in the United States in the Boomer and Gen. Jones generations.   These people are victims of the bad Catechization of the 1970s and as the US is a Protestant country, they've picked up a lot of Protestant beliefs.

Throughout Trump's second claim to power I've worried that the "Christian", i.e., far right Evangelical support of Trump would result in two things for Catholics.  The first, which we will not address here, is that the association of "Christian" with Trump would result in Christianity taking a major hit.  Evangelicalism definitely will. The second is that getting on the bus with Evangelicals would result in them beating us up as soon as we weren't of use to them.

And that's starting to happen.

The reason it started is because Pete Hegseth, who is festooned with Crusader themed tattoos announced that the U.S. Army is going to livestream the execution of former US Army Major Nidal Hasan who killed thirteen unarmed U.S. soldiers in 2009. ^{3 4}

The Catholic Church is opposed to killing people.  It's opposed to killing people in pretty absolutist terms and always has been, claims of Catholic haters aside.  It's always been opposed to infanticide, including abortion.  Early on in Church history there were serious debates if Christians, which were all Catholic, were required to be pacifists, and there are some saints who were.  St. Martin of Tours, who had been a Roman soldier, famously told his commander "I am a soldier of Christ; it is not lawful for me to fight."  Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, went to his death in Nazi Germany rather than fight for the Nazi state.  Ben Salmon, an American Catholic layman who has not been beatified went to prison as a conscientious objector during World War One as he held the view that all war was immoral. ⁵   And starting with Pope John Paul II, the Church has opposed the death penalty.

Catholic Bishops immediately responded to Hegseth's live stream the killing announcement by condemning it.  Quiet a few individual priests with  a net presence did as well.  And then almost immediately after that Pope Leo XIV did, stating:

This caused an immediate reaction by some Evangelical Christians on the far right, and it did from a few very far right Catholics who are probably in the Rad Trad camp.  Predictably, a notable number of the Evangelicals threw of pretending they approved of Catholics in any fashion.  Laughable comments that the Pope doesn't know theology were out there, but more radical ones by the Invincibly Ignorant immediately arose as well.

Los of hte comments immediately cited the Old Testament, which is a bit ironic as frankly the CAtholic Church uses the Old Testament much more than any Protestant group does.  There's a number of quotes from the Old Testament that address the death penalty, for example:

Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.

Genesis 9:6 

Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.

Exodus 21:12

So there you go. . .but wait:

Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.

 Exodus 21:15 & 21:17

Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

Exodus 21:15 & 21:17

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.

Exodus 21:16

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death."

Leviticus 20:10 (Adultery)

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Leviticus 20:13

Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them."

Leviticus 24:16

Okay then, if we apply to the Old Testament, we need to be killing anyone cursing their parents, kidnappers, adulterers and adulteresses, homosexuals and blasphemeres.

Indeed, if this was fully applied, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Paula White, and Scott Bessant wouldn't be in Washington D.C. as they're either adulturers or, in Bessant's case, a homosexual.  Shoot, probably about 1/3d of the congregation of Protestant congregation would have to be offed, based on my observation that they don't take divorce or pre marital sex as a sin.

Well, what the heck?  Why aren't we imposing the death penalty with sweeping abandon?

Well, that's because the Apostolic Churches and the Mainline Protestant Churches hold the view that Christ fulfilled the law and the Mosaic law does not apply to Christians.  There are a pile of laws in the Mosaic Law that nobody seeks to apply to Christians due to the Catholic Church having alway taken this view.  That's why Christians can eat shellfish and pork.  Protestants who are running around declaring that the death penalty is Biblically mandated are apparently ignorant of the Bible and is laws, or they'd be killing adulterers, blasphemers, parent disrespecters, homosexuals and not eating shrimp.

Indeed, this was the case from day one.  One of the very first debates in the Church was whether converts had to be circumcised.  Nope,  no longer applied.  The dietary laws no longer did either.

It's also odd to see how all of these people aren't citing the New Testament.  While the law was fulfilled by Christ, Christ did set down some pretty strict behavioral requirements.  We are, for example supposed to love our enemies. That's a tough one.  

Some have tried to drag out Church history, of which they're largely ignorant.  "Well, the Church has always killed people. . ."

Nope.  Indeed, from antiquity it's tried to stop it.

As Christ led you from death to life, so you should try to save not only the innocent, but also the guilty from death.

Pope St Nicholas the Great.

Now, I suppose you could argue that Pope St. Nicholas was talking about eternal life, but you sure are't going to save a guy by killing him.

And of course, there's the customary ignorant citation to the Black Legends were demonstrably untrue, but which lots of people still believe.

The Church as been against killing of all types right from the onset.  But people, deep in their hearts, like killing.  Lots of people make compromises with their Faith to justify their own acts and desires.  Today, for example, is the anniversary of the murder of Hymie Weiss, the gangster who sanctioned hits, but who also carried a rosary in his pocket.  As noted, plenty of very conservative Catholics have tried to say "well, I know that the Popes have said no death penalty, but it's still okay . . "⁶

It isn't.

And the real surprise to those not paying attention will be how prolife Catholics really are.  Indeed, I've seen surprising statements in support of the Pope from completely secular sources.

And there's utterly no support for making this execution a public spectacle.  We really are in the last days of the Roman Empire if we've reached that state.  "War, inflation, . . . don't worry, look at my shiny baubles, come watch somebody die."  Panem et circenses.

A danger of politics is that, for people who have a religion, even slightly, that it becomes easy to confuse your politics or your personal beliefs with your religion. The various flavors of the American Civil Religion are packed with that.  Divorce is okay, and even extramarital sex, unless it's homosexual. . . Trump must be a Godly man as he's doing what I want him to, even if he's a liar and a serial polygamist.

There was always going to be a day when the Evangelical far right discovered that the Catholic Church is the Universal Church, it's everywhere, and that local politics are secondary to it.  We're not right, not left, we're Catholic, the original Christians.

Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.  Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’

But he will answer, "I don’t know you or where you come from."

Luke 13:22-30.

This warning applies to us as well.  "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."  Luke 12:48.  We really can't ignore the barbarism of the Trump administration any more.  We've invaded a foreign nation without cause, we're killing Iranians in an undeclared war, and we're murdering people on the high seas.  The Nuremberg Defense or just ignoring it all doesn't work.

Well, we were always going to be hated.  Frankly, as Catholics, when everything is going well for us, it's not going well.

Footnotes:

1.  Hitler was reportedly very charismatic, although watching him from the outside, it's hard to see why.  To his followers, Trump is charismatic, while to most other people he certainly is not.

2.  I'm not claiming that Peterson is influential in the administration, but rather he's in the Catholic end of the National Conservatives even though he is not Catholic.  His wife is.  Dreher was Catholic at one time and converted to Orthodoxy, where he remains with one foot in the Catholic door and nearly, for that matter, in the back pews. Dreher is partially responsible for the intellectual atmosphere that made Trump possible even though he now outright holds Trump in contempt.

3.  Hegseth is some sort of Evangelical on the far right.  Actual Crusaders would have regarded him as a weird heretic.  

4.  The fact that the killings occurred in 2009 is a really good argument against the death penalty in and of itself as it takes so long and is so expensive that the punishment aspect of it is nearly lost by the time the sentence is carried out.

5. St. Augustine famously developed the Just War Theory, which people sort of naively regard as a Catholic free pass to war.  It isn't.  The theory has always been fairly restrictive and even though Catholics have waged and been in a lot of wars, a lot of wars don't fit the category of being "just".  

Even when they are, finding a war that's justly waged is difficult. World War Two probably stands out as a war which, for the Allies, was just, but the Allies clearly took deeply immoral actions in it, the nighttime bombing raids of the RAF, and the USAF nuclear bombings, being the two primary examples for the Western Allies.

Recently Pope Leo has further clarified the doctrine and while I do not think that his statements actually develop it in any fashion, they caused shock waves and they probably should as Catholics really need to consider if they can morally serve in the U.S. military at this point.

6.  No Pope has declared the death penalty invalid ex cathedra, so a slim ability to argue it's still okay exists.  But it's very slim.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman ...: Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus. 11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere f...

Linked in here as this mentions the namesake of the blog.

Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus.

11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere figurehead, was forced to advocate by Flavius Odoacer, a German commander of the Roman Guard who declared himself King of Italy and a vassal of the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Coin with the image of Flavius Odoacer.

The event is marked as the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages.

Romulus went on to live in exile with a pension and seems to have lived to at least 60 years of age.  He was a Catholic (orthodox) Christian  and may have founded a monastery while in exile.*

Odoacer, while regarding himself as a vassal of Constantinople, had a falling out with with the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno who in turn sent Theodoric the Great to depose him, resulting in a war which cost Odoacer his life in 493.  Theodoric did not stop there, but killed many of Odoacer's followers, including his wife Sunigilda, who was stoned to death, and his brother Onoulphus.  In spite of his short reign and violent death, he's regarded as an important post Empire figure.  Odoacer was an Arian Chrisitan.

Theodoric coin.

Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, who became king, was a hugely significant figure, expanding his reign over a fair amount of what had been the Western Roman Empire.  He was an Arian Christian whose rule mimicked forms adopted from Constantinople.  He was King of Italy, the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths.

Theodoric was a patron of the orthodox Catholic philosopher Boethius for quite some time, but as his rule progressed, Theodoric began to turn from neutral in the dispute between orthodoxy and Arianism and he had Boethius arrested and ultimately executed in 524.

Boethius' magnum opus, De consolatione philosophiae, was written while imprisoned and awaiting execution.  He is regarded as a martyr in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Footnotes:

*This era was marked by a major conflict between orthodox Christianity and Arianism.  To clarify things here, the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church was very much in the future so the use of orthodoxy here does not mean to imply the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Lex Anteinternet: Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christian".

Lex Anteinternet: Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christ...: Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὰ μέρη Καισαρείας τῆς Φιλίππου ἠρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων· Τίνα λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου;  οἱ δὲ εἶπ...

Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christian".

Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὰ μέρη Καισαρείας τῆς Φιλίππου ἠρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων· Τίνα λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; 

οἱ δὲ εἶπαν· Οἱ μὲν Ἰωάννην τὸν βαπτιστήν, ἄλλοι δὲ Ἠλίαν, ἕτεροι δὲ Ἱερεμίαν ἢ ἕνα τῶν προφητῶν. 

λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ὑμεῖς δὲ τίνα με λέγετε εἶναι; 

ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ Σίμων Πέτρος εἶπεν· Σὺ εἶ ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ζῶντος. 

ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Μακάριος εἶ, Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψεν σοὶ ἀλλ' ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

κἀγὼ δὲ σοὶ λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς. 

δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν δήσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν λύσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

τότε διεστείλατο τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἵνα μηδενὶ εἴπωσιν ὅτι αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός.

_____________________________________________ 

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and

he asked his disciples,

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 

They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,

still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 

Simon Peter said in reply,

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

Jesus said to him in reply,

"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. 

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 

Then he strictly ordered his disciples

to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Matthew 16:13-20

The other day I saw an item on Blue Sky posted by Atticus Finch of Georgia which linked in an article on "post truth Christianity".  It brought into focus something that's really been increasingly bothering me in recent years. . .well more specifically the Trump era.

Then, as an example of synchronicity, I was speaking with a close relative of mine who absolutely exploded on the same topic.  I didn't bring it up.  That person did.

Then, this past Sunday, Matthew 16:13-20 was the Gospel reading.

Yesterday there was a post on Twitter in which an Orthodox Christian reacted the same way I am here.

So here's what that topic is.

When the term "Christian" is used recently, it tends to refer to "Christian" support of Donald Trump.  And, hence the error.

While you can find individuals of any stripe of Christianity and religion supporting Trump, in reality, the Christians that support Trump are, for the most part, and most significantly, Evangelical Christians.  Yes, you can find a Catholic or Orthodox cleric here and there that does.¹ And, in fairness, you can find Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, and any number of other sets of beliefs with individuals who support Trump.²  But the real core of the "Christian" support of Trump comes from a slice of the Evangelical world, and just a slice at that.

The "post truth" comment is what really got my attention.  

American Catholics generally try to make nice with other Christian denominations, although less so in the post 1960 world than we used to, but lots of Protestants don't try to make nice with us.  So we have tended, post 1960, to keep some of our weltanschauung to ourselves.³ So much so, in fact, that we've allowed the Protestantization of lots of Catholics, who now think like Protestants.  While there are exceptions, when you find a real pro Trump Catholic, they probably have a Protestant world outlook and don't realize it.

So, to post truth.

Protestants have been "post truth" for about five hundred years.  Protestants outside the mainline Protestant churches are very post truth.

We've known that all along.

Starting with science, Catholics are in favor of science, not against it.  The entire Big Bang Theory is our deal.  We're not opposed to the theory of evolution.  People evolved from earlier primates.  The world is not 5,000 years old.  It's billions of years old.

We know that. We not only accept that (most of us) but we rejoice in it.  We don't feel that God has to fit within our limited human imagination.

Our basic view is that God gave us the intellect to explore his creation.  So far, we haven't found one darned thing that causes us to question our faith.  Moreover, if you belong to a religion that requires you do deny science, something about it is deeply wrong, even false.

So, yeah, there's a lot of "post truth" Christians out there, and they're coming from the Evangelical end of the pool.  If you find a Catholic holding those views, they've likely dipped their toes in it.  Some are swimming really deep in it.

And here's another thing, which my relative was exploding on.

Catholics have taken a beating for decades simply for being Catholic.  It's okay, Christ told us that we would.  In the US we get, from Evangelicals, the question of "are you Christian?", with the reply from them often being that if we're Catholic, we're not Christian.

Well, I guess when people had access only to their friends and neighbors and a pastor who had been miseducated on these topics, that was not only to be expected but semi tolerable, but it isn't any more.

We are the original Christians.

Πάντες τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ ἀκολουθεῖτε, ὡς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς τῷ πατρί, καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ ὡς τοῖς ἀποστόλοις. τοὺς δὲ διακόνους ἐντρέπεσθε ὡς θεοῦ ἐντολήν. μηδεὶς χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τι πρασσέτω τῶν ἀνηκόντων εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. ἐκείνη βεβαία εὐχαριστία ἡγείσθω, ἡ ὑπὸ ἐπίσκοπον οὖσα ἢ ᾧ ἄν αὐτὸς ἐπιτρέψῃ.

ὅπου ἄν φανῇ ὁ ἐπίσκοπος, ἐκεῖ τὸ πλῆθος ἤτω, ὥσπερ ὅπου ἄν ᾖ Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ἐκεῖ ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία. οὐκ ἐξόν ἐστιν χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου οὔτε βαπτίζειν οὔτε ἀγάπην ποιεῖν· ἀλλ' ὃ ἄν ἐκεῖνος δοκιμάσῃ, τοῦτο καὶ τῷ θεῷ εὐάρεστον, ἵνα ἀσφαλὲς ᾖ καὶ βέβαιον πᾶν ὃ πράσσετε.

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

 The Epistle of Ignatius, 33 to 108, to the Smyrnaeans, written in 107.

Nobody with any religious education of a serious nature denies this whatsoever.  John Calvin and Martin Luther didn't deny that.  The only religion that can raise a hand on it are the Orthodox Churches, and they don't deny that we're first, they just take they position that they are also first, and that actually makes some sense.  There's a schism between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, but we all go back to day one.  That's not to make light of the schism, but it's significant in that we all know that our churches go directly back to the moment Christ founded the church.

No Protestant Church can claim that and maintain the claim, although some try to.  Those that do have to acknowledge that the Catholic Church is first, and try to argue that they're related closely enough to it in order to make the same claim.  That is the claim of the Methodist and Anglican Churches, for example.

All of which brings up the next point.  Any Protestant Church that claims to be authentically Christian that doesn't have a good explanation for this is in real trouble.  Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.  You can't be a Protestant Christian and just claim you are like the original Christian communities.  Take a look at what St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in 107.  St. John the Apostle had only been dead for about seven years when he wrote that.  You aren't like the original Christians if you don't look like the Catholic Church, with Bishops, priests, and deacons.  You can't claim there was a great falling away, a Great Apostasy, early on.  There wasn't. We have all the books and we know that there wasn't.  Ignorance, on this topic, is your only defense (and now that you've read that, you don't have that).

Indeed, if you aren't Catholic, you need to have a really good explanation for it, and there really isn't one.

So, here's the thing, now that Trump is in office and flaming out we're hearing from the same group of people who said that we're not Christians that we need to throw in with them and support Trump.

We do not.

Trump is not a religious man himself, and there's very little evidence that he has any deeply held religious beliefs, if any religious believes at all.  Personally, he's a study on certain of the Seven Deadly Sins.  He's a warning on the love of money.  He's a serial polygamist.  He's a liar.

He's an evil man.

Throwing in with evil is never justified save for the principle of Double Effect.  I.e., my tipping the pizza delivery guy may have just funded the purchase of illegal drugs, but that was not the intended effect.  My working for the post office may mean that I'm delivering pornography (well, I guess that probably doesn't happen anymore in the age of the Internet, but you get the point), but that is incidental to the occupation, not its purpose.

But this obviously crosses over a line, somewhere.  If, for example, I were a German and this was 1940, a hatred of Bolshevism would not justify joining the SS.

And that's sort of where we are at now, in a way.

Some thinking Catholics supported Trump either openly or quietly with their vote, earlier, as they were opposed to abortion and the weirdness of social trends in sex and gender in general.  Well, the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade and the transgenderism thing is jumping the shark, if it hasn't already jumped it.  Indeed, in Europe, where it first appeared, it's in major retreat.  Obergefell hasn't been reversed, but there's been no case that presented an opportunity for htat to occur, probably because conservatives fear to advance one.

Irish born immigrant  Patrick J. Sullivan.  He became wealthy raising sheep in Carbon County and relocated to Casper in 1892, when he went into other enterprises.  He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1894 to 1896 and from 1898 to 1900, Mayor of Casper from 1897 until 1899, Senator from Wyoming from 1929 to 1930, appointed to fill the seat left by the death of Francis E. Warren.  While he was a practicing Catholic, he tended to deemphasize it at the time as it was damaging to his public standing, something that was the case up until Kennedy ran for President.

Now, mind you, I'm not telling you who to vote for, what I'm suggesting is whom you do not support, or to put it another way, what you should not get wrapped up in.

The MAGA movement isn't justifiable from a Christian perspective at this point, if it ever was.  It's weirdly nationalistic and in many instances engaged in idol worship in the form of fanatic adoration of Donald Trump, even somewhat crediting him with supernatural powers in "always being right".   The administration has committed the military to actions which are outright murderous in the Caribbean and South American Pacific.  It's waging an unjust and illegal war.  It creeps right up on being racist and some of its members hold beliefs that are deeply antithetical to Apostolic Christianity.  Some of the people in it are deeply evil, and all of them are deeply compromised.

Vote for those who you will, and in keeping with your conscience.  But some things to remember.  

Trump is not any kind of real Christian.  Attaching Christianity to this administration is going to have a massive negative impact as it falls.  It is in fact already doing so.  There are people in the secular world who truly believe that its the "Christians" who are supporting Trump, and that people like Mike Johnson and Mike Lee are posters for Christians. They are not.⁴  The fact that they're being made posters for Christianity means that they, and Trump, are driving thinking people away from the Church.  When Trump falls, he's going to take a lot of Evangelical Christianity down with him, just as the fall of the Confederacy during the Civil War heavily damaged the Episcopal Church in the South.

Catholics, we don't want to be part of that, and there's no reason that we should be.

Ecclesia militans.⁵

Footnotes

1.  A prominent example of that is Bishop Barron.  Bishop Barron shows up on occasion at Trump related religious gatherings and he servers on President Trump’s Presidential Religious Liberty Commission.

I'm not here to criticize a Bishop and I don't really understand what the Bishop is doing, or what the Commission does.  Nor have I followed it.  I'm just noting this.  Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is well liked, also serves on it.  Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and Bishop Salvatore Cordileone are advisory members.

2.  Stephen Miller, who just the other day accused the Protestant seminary student who is competing for a Senate seat from Texas of not being Christian, is Jewish.

3.  We can trace this to the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, as we have before, who basically promised to only be Catholic on Sundays.

Kennedy was a horrible example of a Catholic to start with.  But his election was such a thrill to American Catholics that a large number of them followed him into the same easy belief, which has been a disaster for a generation of American Catholics that we're only now just really beginning to recover from.

4.  Johnson is a Southern Baptist, which is presently the largest Protestant denomination in the US, having about 12.3M members.  In contrast the number of Catholics in the US is around 70M.  A person needs to keep in mind that not all Catholics are observant, but then neither are all Baptists.  Anyhow, Johnson also seems to adhere to the New Apostolic Reformation and sincerely believe that he's been licensed to lie in order to bring about a Protestant state.  Lee is a Mormon and therefore not a Christian at all.

5.  This huge icon is a Russian Orthodox icon.

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Leo and the Just War Theory.

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Leo and the Just War Theory.: To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information enviro...

Pope Leo and the Just War Theory.

To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information environments and algorithms that reward conflict can magnify polarization and resentment, increase propaganda and make shared discernment more difficult. Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. [182] Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness. The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.

Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas.

When first released, almost all of the attention given to Magnifica Humanitas was on his discussion of Artificial Intelligence, but then somebody noticed is comments on the Just War Theory, and now people are freaking out.  Conservative Catholic pundits have already come out with the "Pope is wrong" commentary, and even an Anglican journal came out with an article to the same effect.

He isn't wrong.

And this isn't really new.

First of all, the Just War Theory was always that, a theory.  It's not doctrine, and in some quarters its never been accepted.  Moreover, since World War Two the Church has really made significant modifications to what can be considered a "just war".  

So, what did Pope Leo really say here.

First, what's the Just War Theory hold?

Well, let's look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It states:

According to CCC 2309, the following conditions must be met in order for war to be just:

(1) The damage inflicted by the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain.

(2) All other means of putting an end to it must have shown to be impractical or ineffective.

(3) There must be serious prospects of success.

(4) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the principle of proportionality).

So, presently, those are the criteria set out in the Catechism.  Will this be changed?  I suspect it will be modified.  And frankly, based on prior statements by the last three Popes, the Catechism does not support the view that the Pontiffs have  been stating.  The thing that they've repeatedly stated is that war is only justifiable for defensive purposes.  Hence the comment; "Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated."

So, with this in mind, what we might suppose (although I'm treading on dangerous grounds here as I'm not a theologian) is that the Church would modify the material set out above to read:

A country may legitimately act in self defense when:

(1) The damage inflicted by an attacking aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain.

(2) All other means of putting an end to it must have shown to be impractical or ineffective.

(3) There must be serious prospects of success.

(4) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the principle of proportionality).

Is that a big change in what the Popes have been saying?  Not really.

But does it effect some sort of a change?  Well, yes.  A clarifying one, in my view.

What I think the Pope's statement makes clear that the moral laxity in interpreting the Just War theory is not justified.  It never has been, but all too often those citing it go on to hold that whatever war they're speaking of is kind of sort of justified by the theory.  That should not have been the case, and it needs to come to an end.  

It's needed to come to an end for a long time.

There's no way that, for example, the US and Israeli war upon Iran is a just war.  No way.  At least from the U.S. prospective, it's an illegal war as it defies the requirements of the U.S. Constitution for Congress to declare war, making it immoral to a certain extent from the onset.  But the criteria required for a just war even as the CCC states it cannot be met.  The first criteria alone, that Iran was inflicting damage upon the United States in a way that is lasting, grave, and certain, was never met.  The repeated baloney that "they've been attacking us for 47 years" didn't come close to meeting this criteria.  Yes, Iran is a sponsor of terrorism.  Terrorism, however, is an act of the weak and is largely ineffectual.  Launching a massive offensive against Iran was not justified by the fact that Iran acts immorally. 

Indeed, on that score, the war does not meet, in my view, the requirements of the forth criteria.  And it never met the requirements of the second criteria either.

A war launched to change the regime, which was an earlier excuse for the war, was certainly not justified.

And it turns out that the third criteria cannot be met either.  The war has actually made the regime more hard line. The only chance for success would require a massive ground invasion of the country, which is certainly not proportional to the hoped for outcome.

What Pope Leo has clarified is something that other Popes have said, to some degree, and which follows the history of the discussion on the death penalty. Pope St. John Paul the Great made statements to the effect that the death penalty could not be justified in the modern world. The following two Popes amplified that.  Catholic conservatives have still refused to accept that, but that's completely correct.  In the modern world, the criteria which would allow for the imposition of the death penalty simply to not exist.

And with Pope Leo's statements, it seems fairly clear that the criteria for launching an offensive war never exist either.  That's been somewhat presumed all the way back to the 1940s, but now its clear.

And, it should also be clear, this is not a mere academic discussion.

War is killing people and breaking things. There's no two ways about it.  Killing people intentionally is gravely evil, except in self defense.  Supporting killing people except in self defense is likewise gravely illegal.  The same Catholic beliefs that hold that murder is immoral, that abortion is immoral, lead directly to war and the death penalty being immoral.  You cannot, no matter how much you might want to stretch it, supporting abortion if you are a Catholic, and frankly at this point, you cannot support immoral wars.

It was Pope St. John Paul, I think, who instructed that Catholic lawyers should not represent people in divorces.  Judges can still preside over them however.  Which brings us to this next point.

Catholic politicians can clearly not support immoral wars.  When people like Chuck Gray and Megan Degenfelder come around seeking votes, as they are Catholic, their position on this war should be asked of.  If they support it, as Trump supports it, they're willing to condemn their souls to Hell for their ambitions, or at least risk that.  Those Catholics in the Trump administration supporting the war, and we don't really know who they are (we know that Vance wasn't in support of it) are doing the same, to a larger degree.  The military raid on Venezuela that occurred earlier likewise presents the same problem.  Any invasion of Cuba, which it seems likely we will do, poses the same situation.

But beyond that, can Catholic servicemen morally serve in these wars?

I'm sure opinions will vary, but I don't think they can.

And that is a real change.  And given that war involves death, that's a change for the good.

Related threads:

Just War 101: Catholic Teaching for a Dangerous Moment

Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.

Archdiocese for the Military Services. Not a Just War.

Churches of the East: Magnifica Humanitas

Churches of the East: Magnifica Humanitas: Just out, it's notably already being hailed as a great work, and notably already criticized by the United States Secretary of the Interi...

Magnifica Humanitas

Just out, it's notably already being hailed as a great work, and notably already criticized by the United States Secretary of the Interior.

 MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS

OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE LEO XIV
ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON
IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra...: I've been saying for awhile, and statements like this really demonstrate it: It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of...

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

I've been saying for awhile, and statements like this really demonstrate it:

It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope.

Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas on Fox News.

That comment was stupid.  But then, he's called Catholicism a cult.

The Catholic Church is an Apostolic Church.  It was founded by Christ.  John Smyth, an Englishman, founded the Baptists in 1609.  

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a Catholic doctrine. There is no salvation outside the Church.  None the less, the Church holds that those who did not come to Christ innocently, or those who did not come to the Church innocently, can be saved, which operates again through the Church.  You can't be held responsible for what you innocently didn't know.

But what about here?

We're in the death throws of the reformation.  Things Smyth could get away with believing in 1609 there's no excuse to believe now, other than invincible ignorance.

Being a pastor of a 14,000 member church puts a pretty heavy burden on you and your soul for remaining ignorant.

Smyth is also a Fox News contributor, which really figures.  

As an irony here, although one he will not be capable, right now, of appreciating, Smyth has gone after Mormons, Jews, and Muslims as well.  In normal times, he would not have a national television audience.  He would have a local Dallas one as Texas is part of the former Confederacy and the Baptist rose in the wake of the Southern defeat in 1865, replacing the Episcopal Church in the South as the dominant religion culturally.  Nationally, however, picking on Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Mormons would get you booted off of television.

Religious aspects of this aside, this brings up a political one I've warned about here repeatedly.

Catholics voting for MAGA candidates are voting for a group that not only doesn't regard the Church highly, they don't believe it's a Christian religion at all.  People like Lyin' Chuck Gray, Reid Rasner and Megan Degenfelder, who are Catholics who run as MAGA are making a political bargain that will cause them, as it seems to have already for Lyin' Chuck to decide between their faiths, and their political fortunes.  Degenfelder has signs up all over which say "Endorsed by President Trump".

They should say "Endorsed by Blasphemous Donald Trump".

And this isn't merely esoteric.  We're in the same position now that Catholic Germans were in the 1932 German election (and the Catholics in fact went for Hitler much less than German protestants did).  There's really going to be no good "um, well, the other guy . . . " excuse here.  The far right Evangelical edge of the Trump coalition isn't even pretending not to hate Catholics much anymore.

And what about Mormons?  

Mormons include a heavy MAGA contingent, although the only really devout Mormons I know here locally right now are heavy duty Never Trumpers, and openly so.  But then you have guys like Deseret Mike Lee who come pretty close to viewing Trump positively in some sort of creepy religious terms.  Deep in the Jello Belt it's always been the case that there was a sort of ignorant conservatism in some quarters, and in the last 16 years, in spite of guys like Mitt Romney, it's really come out.

Trump and Islam is simply laughable as a joke.  In the last election Trump drew a fair amount of Islamic support because Muslims were so mad about Joe Biden's support of Israel.  Well, they got what the should have expected. The only person Trump loves more than Putin (and of course Trump) is Benjamin  Netanyahu and as a result we've supported genocide in Gaza, a war in Lebanon and we helped Israel attack Iran and we can't get out of it.  I suspect that most Muslims are voting for the Democrats next go around, just like most Hispanics will be (and in both instances, this really gives the Democrats a chance to evolve away from their sea of blood positions).

And this sort of thing should even be a revelation for Jews of all stripes, although I think they're more awake to what MAGA is than most.  The strong Trump support for Netanyahu comes in part because Netanyahu is good at playing Trump, much like Putin is.  But it also comes from people like Hegseth or Huckabee, who have a radical Protestant view of Israel and want to bring about the Second Coming of Christ basically by force, which they see current events as an opportunity in which to do so.  Put another way, do you really want to get in the car with somebody who wants to drive you to a giant gun fight?

Donald Trump, of course, is sort of beyond all of this.  Trump isn't any sort of serious Christian and we don't really know if he has any religious beliefs at all.  Most of his life has been spent chasing cash through real estate development and his hobbies have been golf and chasing tail.  Christians are just a convenient vehicle for him.  If the Sultan of Oman offered him a bigger better airplane tomorrow if he'd convert to Islam, and remind him that Muslims can have more than one wife, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he signed on.  His personal conduct actually squares better with Islam than Christianity, which is after all a religion focused on the poor and duty.

In the end, all of this is going to fall apart.

Christians who aligned with Trump, just like Muslims and Mormons who did, are going to have to pay the cost.  It'll be different for each.  For Muslims, well their fellows are playing through blood right now.  Jews will pay by the backlash that's already started.  

For Christians, it'll be different, depending upon where their allegiance lay.  For the ignorant members of the American Civil Religion, and for the hardcore Evangelical right, this will be the beginning of an end of an era that started in April 1865, when the South fell and the Evangelical far right stepped into its own.  For the Protestant world in general, this will accelerate the death of the Reformation.

For the Catholic and Orthodox Christians who supported Trump, how could you be so blind?

Nonetheless, this will be a good thing for the Catholic and Orthodox.  A delusion that started in 1960 that you could be fully American and fully Catholic, or Orthodox, has ended.  National Conservatism will end with it.  

And that will be a good thing.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.

Labels: 1860s, 1960s, 2020s, It was because of the Civil War, Politics, Racism, Reconstruction, Slavery, The Lost Cause, The Second Trump Administration, You heard it here first, Zeitgeist