Massie Lost Because He Was Always a Party of One

Yesterday, Kentucky’s Fourth District retired Thomas Massie from Congress. In the hours since the call was made, the loudest voices online have offered a single story: Massie was felled by Jewish money, by pro-Israel donors avenging his criticism of aid to Jerusalem. Massie himself, in a concession speech that managed to be both funny and ugly, joked that it had taken him a while to reach his opponent Ed Gallrein because Gallrein was in Tel Aviv.

That framing is convenient. It is also wrong.

I have known Rep. Massie since his first term. We attended an event together at the Library of Congress, where he was welcomed as one of the new House conservatives, shoulder to shoulder with Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows. As the Freedom Caucus was forming, on paper, he should have been a charter member. He didn’t join. That decision said everything. The boys on the right wanted a confederate. Massie wanted a soapbox.

What followed was not a record of anti-Israel votes. It was a record of votes against almost everything his party supported. He cast one of two Republican votes against Donald Trump’s signature tax bill, citing the deficit. He blocked, by demanding a roll call, the bipartisan COVID relief package in 2020, drawing the president’s first fury. He voted against making lynching a federal hate crime, calling it........

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