Top O’ the Briefing
Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur is spending the day working on a rather ambitious cultural appropriation schedule for the summer.
One of the eternally frustrating things about being a Republican is the fact that, quite often, some elected officials in the GOP are indistinguishable from the Democrats. In Congress, legislation that is important to real Republicans can be held hostage by one or two squishes who prefer attention to principles. The bitterly ironic thing is that they always use principles as their excuse for giving their constituents and colleagues a shiv in the back.
The party has been in dire need of a righteous purging for a very long time. Unfortunately, a lot of the squishes (I prefer that to “RINO”) have solid financial backing behind them and older Republicans can be averse to change. Throw in the fact that the GOP Establishment likes to follow the money and the housecleaning becomes difficult.
It took a long time, but President Trump has remade the formerly intractable Establishment and the party is finally starting to shed some of the dead weight, both at the state and federal levels.
Earlier this month, several Republican incumbent state senators in Indiana who had thwarted redistricting efforts that would have favored the party lost their primaries. President Trump supported all of their opponents and a message was most definitely sent.
Last weekend, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana lost his primary after more than a decade in office. Cassidy sided with the Democrats during the J6 fake insurrection kangaroo court impeachment. Republican voters in Louisiana had to wait a while to exact their revenge, and they didn’t serve it cold.
The hits just kept on coming last night, which Catherine covered:
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has lost his primary race after making himself unpopular in the GOP for blocking Trump administration policies and obsessively condemning Israel and Operation Epic Fury.
President Donald Trump, who has responded to Massie’s constant critiques by fervently campaigning against him, celebrated the Tuesday win for Massie’s primary opponent, Ed Gallrein. Massie has been one of Trump’s most consistent GOP critics.
Massie has been an absolute cancer in the party. At this point in history, it is unconscionable for any Repuublican in Congress to be consistently pushing back on President Trump’s agenda, giving aid and comfort to the mentally unwell Democrats who are trying to shred the Constitution.
He was an ungracious scumbag during his concession speech. As my Townhall colleague Joseph Chalfant wrote, it shows you why he lost. Rude and dishonest is required behavior for Never Trump Republicans, so Massie will fit right in when he inevitably becomes a CNN or MS Now contributor.
In Texas, the less-than-reliable John Cornyn may be bounced after almost a quarter century in the Senate. He’s facing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a primary runoff election. President Trump finally weighed in on that race and endorsed Paxton yesterday. Catherine also wrote about that.
Cornyn isn’t the worst of the squishes, but he can’t always be counted on. That he’s lasted this long in Texas is proof that incumbent senators are very difficult to beat in a primary. They’re easiest to pick off after one term. A 24-year incumbent who is doing right by his constituents rarely faces a serious challenge in the primary or the general election.
Seeing problematic squish Republicans lose their primaries is a dream come true for longtime activists like myself. Back in the Tea Party days, we took our shots with primary candidates when we could, but the Establishment types were not in the mood to have their delicate Beltway sensibilities offended by the grassroots rubes in the hinterlands. We had some successes, but they were few and far between.
I said earlier that President Trump remade the GOP Establishment. More precisely, he’s become the GOP Establishment. The “Harumph!” Republicans in Washington are learning that buddying up to the lunatic Democrats doesn’t have any upside. This isn’t about blindly supporting Trump, it’s about representing their constituents like elected officials in a representative republic are supposed to.
Consequences are back on the table. That’s going to be a rough adjustment for a lot of the political class.
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Hopper grew up on the Hudson River in Nyack, New York. As a child, he watched boats push out from docks into open water.
That shift from structure to vastness stayed with him: The Long Leg (1935) — a lone sail cutting through space, solitude set to wind. #artbots #hopper pic.twitter.com/YCERSnwaw6
— Edward Hopper (@artisthopper) May 17, 2026
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