Another one bites the dust.
The past few weeks had been billed as a retribution tour for Donald Trump, as he settles old scores with his critics within the Republican party.
Call it what you will, but the evidence is now overwhelming that the Republican party is Trump’s party and nothing – not an unpopular war in Iran, not sagging poll numbers among the general public, not rising consumer prices, not concerns about billion-dollar White House ballrooms – has changed that.
Thomas Massie, the independent-minded congressman from Kentucky, was comfortably defeated on Tuesday in the Republican primary race to decide who goes forward to take on the Democrats in November’s midterms. The Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein is heading towards a 55% share of the vote.
Republican rebel Massie, a constant thorn in Trump’s side, is just the latest in a political casualty count that is now stretching into double figures. His transgressions were multitude.
He opposed Trump’s tax-and-spending budget package last year because he said it drove up the federal deficit. He voted to curtail the president’s military operations in Venezuela and Iran. And, perhaps most notably, he was the driving force behind efforts in the House of Representatives to force the release of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender with ties to the rich and powerful.