Thomas Massie Is Not ‘Antisemitic’

As every American who struggles to pay their rent, mortgage, gas, diesel, groceries, utilities, and healthcare premiums likely agrees, this midterm election is not really about affordability.

As Bill Kristol's son-in-law, Matthew Continetti, argues in The Wall Street Journal on Friday, it is "more than a gut check on Donald Trump's presidency"; it is really about "antisemitism." Antisemitism — not the Iran War, not diesel prices, not fertilizer prices, not the Trump administration's bungled tariffs, not the government corruption, not the Trump family self-enrichment schemes, not the Epstein Files cover-up. No, it is antisemitism, according to Continetti. "Affordability comes and goes," he writes (does it, though?), but "Antisemitism is a permanent stain."

Before arriving at this stirring conclusion, Continetti scrutinizes all the popular progressives in the Democratic Party and their anti-Israel rhetoric, predictably giving them an F on their report cards. As he makes the case that the midterms are a referendum on whether America will become Nazi Germany, he also, very briefly, turns his attention to the right. Specifically, Thomas Massie.

"Rising antisemitism isn't only a problem for Democrats," says Continetti, who has a sinecure at the neocon think tank, American Enterprise Institute. "No one who travels in Republican or conservative circles can have missed rising anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Jewish prejudice among young men. Republicans have been able to remove antisemitic figures such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) and block antisemitic candidates such as Dan Bilzerian, a social media personality who ran for a Florida House seat. Yet antisemitism persists online and on podcasts." (RELATED: 'Not What We Thought MAGA Was Supposed To Be': America First Skeptics Blast Iran Strikes)

I don’t hate anyone based on his or her ethnicity or religion. Legitimate government exists, in part, to punish those who commit unprovoked violence against others, but government can’t legislate thought.

This bill promoted internet censorship and violations of the 1st amendment https://t.co/MWkvcOba7K

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) May 19, 2022

The problem here is that the definition of antisemitism, a word used so often and so fecklessly, no longer means anything. Just as, in the early 2020s, liberals watered down the definition of "racism" and "racist" to mean any policy or person that they did not like or wanted cancelled — if you believed in funding, not defunding the police, that made you a white supremacist during the summer of 2020, even if you were black — Continetti and other pro-Israel, neoconservative pundits, from Mark Levin to virtually every Fox News contributor, have similarly turned "antisemitism" into a weapon that allows them to smear and dismiss critics who poke too many holes in their pro-Israel narratives. Continetti references definitions of antisemitism given by Zionist and Harvard professor, Ruth Wisse and Soviet dissident and former Israeli official, Natan Sharansky. However, no different than a race-obsessed BLM activist, Continetti settles on his preferred definition: "I know when I see it." Sure, that might work fine for judging whether a movie is pornographic, but judging an ideological opponent? It seems arbitrary and ripe for abuse, which is so often the case and is the case with Massie. (RELATED: Mark Levin Exposes His Deep Historical Ignorance With 'Isolationist! Isolationist! Isolationist!' Whining)

Further, Continetti lumps Massie with Dan Bilzerian, a loathsome internet celebrity who unsuccessfully ran to unseat Republican Florida Rep. Randy Fine earlier this year.* Bilzerian has actually used neo-Nazi rhetoric and spread repugnant Holocaust denial conspiracies; Massie has not. Yet Continetti does not make this distinction — and perhaps on purpose. This is yet another way that neocons try to dismiss critics of Israel. Besides bending the definition of antisemitism to an absurd degree, they smear by duplicitous and illogical games of association. All antisemites and neo-Nazis — say, an online Groyper — criticize Israel. Massie criticizes Israel. Therefore, Massie is an antisemite. It is piss-poor logic, no different than: All serial killers eat food; everyone eats food; therefore, everyone is a serial killer.

Continetti mindlessly throws around the "antisemitism" label without realizing his role in reducing it to an absurdity. (Are these Orthodox rabbis, critical of Israel, antisemites?) If one day, heaven forbid, a real neo-Nazi, who intends to use state power to persecute Jewish Americans and other minorities, rises to power, warnings will fall on deaf ears. In reducing every critic of Israel to an antisemite or neo-Nazi, Continetti and other neoconservatives have helped pave the road for real despotism. Of course, that vile despot is not Thomas Massie.

*Comparing Massie to Bilzerian is like comparing Norman Podhoretz to his son, John: one is intelligent and has principles, however flawed or flawless; the other is simply a goon.