It didn’t take long on Tuesday night for the results to show that Republican Thomas Massie, congressman for Kentucky’s 4th District, had lost his primary battle. Opinion polls and prediction markets were heavily against him winning, so I wasn’t totally surprised. Primary upsets have become fairly common within the Republican Party, and losing Thomas Massie is only going to further corrupt the GOP.
Thomas Massie was elected to the House of Representatives back in 2012, when the Republican Party was heavily tied to the so-called Tea Party movement. In the 14 years since then, many of his old Tea Party allies have either gone full MAGA or retired. You could almost see Thomas Massie as the last remnant of a political movement that was, in many ways, fueled by conservatives (and funded by billionaires) who could not handle the idea of a Black man serving as president of the United States.
I was never really a fan of Thomas Massie, to be honest. He was already a millionaire before entering the House of Representatives and often voted in the interests of himself and the class he belongs to. Calling himself a Libertarian-Republican did not necessarily mean he supported liberty in practice, because unless it was an issue he was personally enthusiastic about, he would almost always vote no on everything logical, including issues involving the progression of LGBT rights and racial minorities, despite usually keeping his language fairly restrained on both subjects. His old family Christmas picture (above) still makes me laugh whenever I think about all the MAGA Republicans who are now calling him a RINO and a secret Democrat.
This comes at a time when Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is so absolute that there is virtually no dissent left, unless a politician is preparing to retire and no longer fears consequences. Thomas Massie clashed with Trump in the past, mainly over budgets because of his reputation as a fiscal hawk. But he was also outspoken about United States involvement with Israel, and I think the final nail in the coffin was that he was one of the very few Republicans who seemed genuinely serious about not only releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, but also ensuring consequences for the criminals connected to them. You know the Orange Cheeto was never going to let that slide.
Ed Gallrein is now the Republican nominee for the election later this year, and it is very likely he will become the next congressman representing Kentucky’s 4th District in 2027. He does not strike me as a particularly talented politician or gifted speaker, and it seems unlikely that he will climb the ladder to the Senate. Instead, he will probably end up like the hundreds of Republicans in the House of Representatives who hear Trump command “jump” and immediately ask, “How high?” The Republican Party will continue shifting further to the right, and hopefully that will eventually alienate enough voters that Republicans begin losing races in states that once seemed like guaranteed wins.