Last week there was a “teachable moment” of sorts, as Ohio Rep. Max Miller uncorked a highly ill-advised tweet attacking Lizzie Marbach, who like Miller had served as a staffer in President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, for expressing a quite common Christian sentiment:

This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen.

Delete it, Lizzie.

Religious freedom in the United States applies to every religion.

You have gone too far. https://t.co/QCx8oAT1Kr

— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) August 15, 2023

And then it got worse:

God says that Jewish people are the chosen ones, but yet you say we have no hope.

Thanks for your pearl of wisdom today.

— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) August 15, 2023

To call what happened next a firestorm would be to put it mildly. Miller was eviscerated by a wide range of commenters, from Ilhan Omar to Matt Walsh, and a few hours later he was apologizing — though grudgingly, at best — to Marbach. (READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Quick Things: What Really Brought About Trump’s Atlanta Indictment?)

It didn’t help that she was in the process of being terminated by Ohio Right to Life, where she served as communications director up until last week. The optics of that separation — not to mention the fact that Miller’s wife serves on the organization’s board — made it look as though the congressman, who is Jewish, had Marbach fired for professing a core tenet of her Christian faith in a tweet.

Marbach might have gotten the last word on the exchange…

Max, I accept your apology 100%.

However the truth is that it is not me from whom you need forgiveness, but God himself. I genuinely pray you seek Him and find salvation! https://t.co/6f07pHwxBE pic.twitter.com/hhJtCg8C3n

— Lizzie Marbach (@LizzieMarbach) August 16, 2023

…but the damage was done.

Why do we continuously have these episodes?

Can’t the Max Millers of the world see that people embracing the Judeo-Christian values system are under an unrelenting, vicious attack from those who hate us for the fact that we hold those values?

There’s a term in military law that may apply here. 10 U.S. Code § 899 Article 99 proscribes what’s known as “Misbehavior before the enemy,” and here are the elements:

Any member of the armed forces who before or in the presence of the enemy—

(1) runs away;

(2) shamefully abandons, surrenders, or delivers up any command, unit, place, or military property which it is his duty to defend;

(3) through disobedience, neglect, or intentional misconduct endangers the safety of any such command, unit, place, or military property;

(4) casts away his arms or ammunition;

(5) is guilty of cowardly conduct;

(6) quits his place of duty to plunder or pillage;

(7) causes false alarms in any command, unit, or place under control of the armed forces;

(8) willfully fails to do his utmost to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy any enemy troops, combatants, vessels, aircraft, or any other thing, which it is his duty so to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy; or

(9) does not afford all practicable relief and assistance to any troops, combatants, vessels, or aircraft of the armed forces belonging to the United States or their allies when engaged in battle;

shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

Nobody is trying to execute Max Miller here, but, frankly, the Right — defined as those people who want to preserve and defend the Judeo-Christian values system that is under assault by people who believe that God is dead, and they have replaced Him — has far too many people guilty of misbehavior before the enemy.

It is not an attack upon Jewish people that a believing Christian would proclaim that Jesus, or the grace of God more generally, is the source of hope and salvation.

What’s problematic here is that a Jewish conservative who by his nature would be trafficking with, and seeking support from, Christians as he builds a political career would find it either necessary or appropriate to declare victimization because someone of a faith generally allied with his own would proclaim the tenets of hers.

It’s hard to even fathom the thinking that would produce such a reaction.

Not all that long ago, a scholarly paper by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning posited that society has morphed from an “honor culture,” in which those whose honor was slighted or insulted would defend themselves with violence, to a “dignity culture,” in which violent retribution has given way to more “civilized” efforts at recompense, such as lawsuits or other appeals to third parties. We’re now moving to a “victimhood culture,” as the Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf writes:

The culture on display on many college and university campuses, by way of contrast, is “characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization.”

It is, they say, “a victimhood culture.”

Victimhood cultures emerge in settings, like today’s college campuses, “that increasingly lack the intimacy and cultural homogeneity that once characterized towns and suburbs, but in which organized authority and public opinion remain as powerful sanctions,” [Campbell and Manning] argue. “Under such conditions complaint to third parties has supplanted both toleration and negotiation. People increasingly demand help from others, and advertise their oppression as evidence that they deserve respect and assistance. Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood … the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights.”

Max Miller’s howling about Lizzie Marbach’s profession of faith — calling it “bigotry” — is classic victimhood culture.

And victimhood culture is not part of the Judeo-Christian values system, one of the proudest achievements of which is the emphasis on nonviolent means of dispute resolution.

There is no dispute resolution in what Miller did to Marbach. He might have apologized, but she will always be known as the woman who was accused of religious bigotry by a sitting U.S. congressman. In victimhood culture, those kinds of injuries are never contemplated by the “victims,” and because of that we all become more and more damaged and less and less able to forgive the kinds of slights — microaggressions — for which we’re furthermore conditioned to be watchful.

A healthy society with healthy values wouldn’t think to conjure up such a term as “microaggressions.” It takes a victim mentality, rather than an honor or dignity mentality, even to recognize such a thing. And it has no place on the right.

Marbach forgave Miller, so it’s fair to declare the kerfuffle closed. But the lesson to be learned from it is quite simple: The Right cannot win this cultural Ragnarök in which we are now enmeshed unless we learn to treat each other better — and to reject the victimhood culture so illuminated by Miller’s unhinged reaction to Marbach.

Do better. And think before you tweet. Every time the Right eats its own, we take another step toward oblivion.