Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) didn’t lose Tuesday — we lost him at least a year ago, when he deviated from being a principled conservative firebrand and started trafficking in conspiracy theories.
Massie and his supporters claim he was ousted because he didn’t support Israel, but Massie never supported Israel in his entire high-approval 14-year tenure. Notably, just days after the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, Massie was one of two Republicans (the other was former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene) who voted against an emergency aid package to fund Israel’s defense systems like Iron Dome.
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Political pundits claim he was ousted because he voted against President Donald Trump’s agenda. The reality is Massie was always a gadfly who frequently clashed with Trump and even endorsed his long-shot primary challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the 2024 election. Despite Trump’s chronic discontent, Massie won all of his election cycles, including a 2024 primary in which he won 76% of the Republican vote and an unopposed general election.
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Massie’s principled stand against foreign aid and willingness to question Trump’s actions were always fine and often welcomed by me and all of his supporters, which is why he won all seven of his previous election cycles in landslides.
The only apparent difference is that, this time, he resorted to cheap shots to stir up an antisemitic voting bloc he believed would lead to victory. It was surprising to watch someone with a postgraduate engineering degree from MIT make such a fatal miscalculation.
For me, his first eyebrow-raising moment came when he backed up former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s claim that American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a group comprised of American Jews supportive of Israel, subjected congressional representatives to a humiliation ritual that required displaying QR codes on their badges as they begged for donations. AIPAC has denied this claim, and no evidence has surfaced.
Massie was (rightfully) leading a crusade to release the Epstein files and expose rich, depraved sex offenders. Why, then, did he go out of his way to carry water for a former congressman who resigned in disgrace amidst an underage sex scandal?
The majority of Americans and I support transparency of the Epstein files. However, Massie lost the plot when he began making wild claims that Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli intelligence asset and implied that Israel was blackmailing our government at the highest levels. Ironically, the massive file release that Massie achieved did not reveal proof of Mossad or CIA ties.
As Election Day drew nearer and the tightening of the race became clearer, Massie doubled down on dual-loyalty accusations that Israel was “buying” an election through Jewish American donors and baseless claims about Israeli puppet masters controlling Trump and the Republican Party. In April, he went on the Tucker Carlson Show and claimed each member of Congress has an “AIPAC babysitter” and implied that Israel is the only country that lobbies Congress this aggressively, leaving out the fact that other countries like China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia have spent much more money in recent years.
While pro-Israel groups donated a record amount to opposing Massie, the simple fact is that no amount of political advertising can physically force the hands of voters. While Massie claimed that the election was a “referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress,” ultimately it was Kentuckians who decided they had enough of Massie’s antics as they cast their ballots.
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Massie lost sight of the reason Kentucky voters and Americans like me supported him: his sober approach to attacking out-of-control spending and the expansion of big government. It’s sincerely a shame that Congress will be without Massie’s fiscally responsible voice.
He can blame Trump, he can blame pro-war neocons, he can blame Jewish donors, but in the end, it was Massie who made the decision to fly too close to the sun. He has no one to blame but himself.
Aaron Bergh is a small business owner in California and longtime advocate for personal liberty, free enterprise, and fiscal responsibility. Follow him on X @realAaronBergh.
