Shortly after being deposed by Republican primary voters last Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) took a parting shot at his Jewish bugbear: “I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.” This wasn’t the first anti-Israel conspiracy Massie spewed. A few days before the election, he framed it as a “referendum” on “whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.”Others echoed similar arguments. “Israel won in Kentucky,” wrote left-wing talking head Cenk Uygur, who also asserted that “Israel controls our government.”
FAILED MAGA HIJACKING: MASSIE SHOULD LOOK IN MIRROR INSTEAD OF BLAMING ISRAEL FOR POOR POLLING
Beneath these remarks is one of the oldest antisemitic canards in the book: that scheming Jews run the world. It’s an ugly, contemptible charge. It’s also baseless. Massie did not lose because of Jews or Israel. He lost because he picked misbegotten fights with President Donald Trump, the most powerful man in Republican politics.
Israel had little to do with Massie’s defeat. As with all foreign countries, it is prohibited from spending money in U.S. elections. Massie’s district has very few Jewish residents. What it does have is legions of supporters of Trump, who won 67% of the vote there in the 2024 election. Overwhelmingly non-Jewish Republican primary voters decided that Massie, whom Trump demanded “be thrown out of office,” was unfit to represent them in Congress.
