Edward Feser Big Mad!

Meanwhile, Conservatism, Inc. and the chud brigade on Twitter would confidently assure us that nuking another country does not technically count as “war” and that the Constitution is perfectly OK with dropping as many nukes as Trump wants as long as it's within a 60 day window. https://t.co/GGNSSgnnUZ

— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) March 30, 2026

I haven't checked in with Edward Feser for several weeks, but others have pointed to his posts on X here and there. The big thing that strikes me lately is his use of the term "chud", as we see above. I asked the AI oracle, "can you give an estimate of how many times Edward Feser has used the word 'chud' on X?" Remarkably, it answered,

It is highly unlikely that Edward Feser has ever used the term "chud" on X (formerly Twitter). A search of his public posts and interactions reveals no instances of him using the word.

The term "chud" is a modern internet slang insult typically used by left-leaning users to mock those they perceive as being on the far-right. As a Gen X Catholic philosopher and academic known for a formal, Thomistic style of writing, Feser’s vocabulary generally avoids such contemporary online pejoratives. He has even criticized the use of similar slang, such as "boomer," as being "too stupid for words" and a substitute for actual engagement. While he is very active on the platform in discussing ethics, politics, and theology, his "insults" tend to be more traditionally academic or dryly humorous.

Well, AI itself says AI can be wrong, and it looks like AI is going to be surprised at some point. I wish AI had done an actual search -- I was more or less idly browsing recent posts, and his use of the term seems pretty frequent. The one above was yesterday; here's another one from this past Saturday:

It’s because the chuds delude themselves that a war illegally started by a secular egomaniac in order to advance the security interests of another secular state (and to steal oil along the way) is comparable to a Crusade called by a pope to allow pilgrims access to the Holy Land. https://t.co/McDkkva0zh

— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) April 4, 2026

During my single days, I dated a woman who would get so upset at some of my remarks that she would begin to foam at the mouth. I'd simply never seen this phenomenon, and maybe from a bit of a cruel streak, I'd sometimes see what I could do to set her off. It was pretty predictable, and it resulted in a completely irrational, uncontrollable rage. I'm glad those days are long in the past, but I'm getting a sense of this same distant nightmare in Feser's recent posts. For instance, in the post just above, he calls Israel a "secular state", when this is at best a controversial view; for instance, at Quora:

The common misconception is the Israel is A Jewish State, when in fact Israel is THE Jewish State, or, more accurately, the national State of the Jewish nation. The Jewish religion is the unique national religion of the Jewish People, just as Hebrew is the unique national language of the Jewish People. The very word “Jew” is derived from the name of the land from which the Jews originated, Judea.

A quick web search reveals that couples can't marry in Israel without going through religious jurisdictions. Cremation is very difficult due to Orthodox Jewish opposition. Many of the conditions of ordinary life are affected by Jewish law. In the post above, Feser is implying that Israel is "another secular state" comparable to the US, which has a constitutional prohibition against established religion, which Israel does not. This stretches the definition of "secular" in a way that I wouldn't expect from a careful academic writer.

This again brings me to the question of why Feser seems to have created a sort of intellectual carveout for his estimates of Trump. If I were to ask him, say, about the logical validity of a proof of God's existence, he would speak as a neo-Aristotelian philosophy professor. If I were to ask him about how just war doctrine applies to Trump's strategy in Iran, he would start to use words like "chud" -- the neo-Aristotelian in him would take a siesta.

In fact, as I used to do with my long-ago ex-girlfriend, I'll bet I could find out how to set him off and get him foaming at the mouth. This has me scratching my head. I've seen references lately to a first anniversary of the New Jersey drone hysteria of early 2025 (for instance in an upcoming April 8 episode of the Discovery show Conspiracies and Coverups), in which New Jerseyites, who have always been the butt of a certain kind of joke, began looking up at the sky at night, seeing airliners with blinking navigation lights on approach patterns to Newak Airport, and anxiously reporting that these were drone swarms. Local politicians angrily demanded explanations. TV news reporters pointed upward at the ominous flashing lights.

This died down after several weeks, but now we seem to be seeing a new level of interest in the phenomenon. What caused it? I actually think it was the reelection of Trump and the slow recognition that he was returning to the White House. It seems to have caused a mass hysteria, at least in New Jersey.

Something about Trump makes certain people start foaming at the mouth. I think he even finds it amusing, and sometimes he deliberately sets people off. I need to give further thought to the question of why this is.