Kentucky Congressman Tom Massie and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy are politicians whom President Trump targeted in primary races last Tuesday. Both fell because of Trump’s displeasure and his firm control of his party’s base. In both cases, the fallen politicians gave the president good reasons to be annoyed.

Many of Massie’s political stands over the last year have been bizarre, starting with his charges that the administration is hiding the truth in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal because it didn’t release its files on Epstein expeditiously enough, and because a significant portion of the files were redacted or withheld because of ongoing investigations or concerns about victim privacy. Massie, with generous media assistance, assisted the Democrats in turning that scandal into a Republican problem, even though it was one in which they were far more embroiled than Trump and his party.

Moreover, some of Massie’s recent stands on border security and Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill were so quixotic that I’m still trying to make sense of them. Concerning present military operations in Iran, Massie’s comments have usually sounded at least as hysterical as those of Trump’s Democratic enemies. Even if he decided to oppose the president’s actions in this matter, he could have been much more measured in his language.

I’m pointing to these indiscreet stands as someone who genuinely likes Massie and who would have had trouble voting for Ed Gallrein, his victorious opponent. Unlike Massie, Gallrein, a former military officer and longtime farmer, sounded during his campaign like someone from Fox News central casting. In interviews, he gave obviously canned answers to questions for which he’d been prepped. Gallrein was predictably high on taking military actions (perhaps anywhere) and prolixly enamored of Israel, a country with which Massie thought the Trump administration had become overly entangled.

Before Massie went over the deep end, he was, for me, an endearing political figure, although admittedly a quirky member of Congress. I liked Massie almost as much as his equally gutsy companion on the right, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also seems recently to have lost her marbles and now says things that the left finds quotable.

Since his election to Congress from Northeastern Kentucky in 2012, Massie has taken courageous positions and sometimes has done so without support from his party. Soon after being elected to Congress, he called for abolishing the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, neither of which he believed was constitutionally founded. (How about going after other federal agencies for the same reason?) He also loudly protested the COVID shutdowns and even (to his credit) forced all his mask-flaunting fellow Congressmen to return to Washington and ensure a quorum for congressional meetings.

One particularly controversial Massie vote came in May 2022 and was against a non-binding congressional resolution condemning anti-Semitism and, at least by implication, making criticism of Israel a form of anti-Jewish hate speech. Massie was the only member of the House to vote against this resolution and did so on the grounds that it could be used to weaken the First Amendment. Although Time magazine produced a snotty commentary about Massie’s vote, ridiculing him as the “new Dr. No,” his concerns may have been justified. The woke left and its administrative and judicial allies would be all too happy to shut up their opponents after branding them as anti-Semites. This persecution of dissenters has been going on in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe since the 1970s.

On the contrary, as I beheld the smirking face of one of Trump’s other fallen adversaries, Bill Cassidy, on a talk show the other morning, I rejoiced over his well-deserved defeat. Cassidy still preens as someone who voted to impeach Trump five years ago for inciting an insurrection. Ever since that “momentous decision,” he has been the darling of the corporate media and is now basking in particularly cloying flattery from the left after coming in third in the Louisiana Republican primary last Tuesday.

It may be useful to keep in mind that if the Democrats had found an AOC or James Talarico to run against Cassidy, in the unlikely event that he had won last week’s primary, this current leftist hero would be reduced to the status of a fascist by the same media that are now celebrating him. Next to his fellow RINO, Lisa Murkowski, Cassidy seems to be one of the most smug and self-important senators I’ve heard interviewed. As with Murkowski in Alaska, I must ask myself whether the senator’s conservative state couldn’t find a more ideologically appropriate representative to send to Washington. Perhaps to his credit, Cassidy has remained only slightly below average in his conservative voting record as a Republican, while, according to Heritage Action, Murkowski’s rating is considerably worse.

For the reasons given, I am happy with Cassidy’s downfall, but I do not cheer Massie’s. At his best, the Kentucky lawmaker recalls other maverick defenders of constitutionally limited government, from Robert Taft down to Ron and Rand Paul. Unfortunately, Massie has fallen off the rails, and now we’ll have an all too familiar Republican type taking his place. His joke after learning he was defeated was that he had to find his victorious opponent in Tel Aviv to congratulate him. That was not entirely humor. Gallrein’s campaign was heavily financed by American Zionist organizations, which raises the question of how independent he’ll be once in office, particularly on foreign policy.