My heart was broken in Kentucky’s 4th district today. As I neared the home of a new client, driving my beat up old Ford covered in Thomas Massie and Ron Paul bumper stickers, I passed the Ed Gallrein for Congress signs that lined his fence. Now, this is to be expected. Although Trump’s poll numbers are in a free fall and the coalition he built around his 2024 campaign has been shattered, an endorsement from the President is still coveted among a significant enough portion of the Republican party base to cause problems for the incumbent Congressman.
This man’s support for a big donor funded, Trump-endorsed, rubber stamp for the Republican party, however, was not what pained me. My client, a sweet-hearted, if not mildly idiosyncratic, salt of the earth gentleman living on a modest six acre farm, approached me to comment on the oddity of seeing Massie bumper stickers placed beside my Indiana license plate. After some joking banter about resorting to fisticuffs on his front lawn to preserve what we believed to be America First policies, he confided in me as to the source of his support. He met Mr. Gallrein during an unsuccessful State Senate run in 2024, and decided to get behind his current campaign after seeing a picture of Ed in the Oval Office with President Trump.
As we approached the rear of my work truck, the old man told me, had Gallrein not joined the race with Trump’s support, he’d have gladly campaigned for second amendment loving Thomas Massie. He then pointed to my Ron Paul 2012 “Restore America Now” decal, telling me, “now that’s my guy right there.” Fourteen years earlier it was Ron Paul Revolution signs adorning the parkway where Ed Gallrein signs now encroached. Like so many of us prior to Dr. Paul’s entrance into the national spotlight, for this man, political change and the broader fight for individual liberty seemed a futile pursuit, obstructed by a permanent government leviathan.
After a devastating loss to Mitt Romney in the Republican primary, followed by a lukewarm response to Rand Paul’s 2015-16 presidential run, Ron Paul Revolutionaries were in a holding pattern politically, with many, including my new friend in Kentucky, backing Donald Trump against the repulsive thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency. He was “the new Ron Paul” after all. At least according to Megan McArdle of Bloomberg at the time.
Many have been labeled “the new Ron Paul” or “the next Ron Paul,” but none as absurd as Donald Trump. While his confrontation with Jeb Bush and condemnation of his brother’s disaster in Iraq bore a passing resemblance to Dr. Paul’s debate stage clash with Rudy Giuliani over the origins of 9/11, Trump’s role as the torchbearer for the liberty movement was all smoke and mirrors.
While Ron Paul’s political career has been defined by consistency in both rhetoric and policy, Trump’s campaign pledges were hollow and his stated objectives seem to shift with the tides of the moon. Ron Paul taught us about the Federal Reserve and Austrian economics; Trump inflated the money supply and ballooned the deficit. Ron Paul championed free trade; Trump used tariffs as a weapon and initiated trade wars which left Americans poorer. Ron Paul preached a non-interventionist foreign policy, embracing the Golden Rule; Trump starts aggressive wars based on flimsy lies and openly mocks piety.
Thomas Massie, on the other hand, represents an uninterrupted continuation of the spirit that Ron Paul embodied during his congressional career and delivered to the disenfranchised masses from Republican primary debate stages. His personal life is the personification of a modern frontiersman, while his political career has served as a repudiation of the war party, the corruption that feeds at its trough and the inflationary monetary policy which makes it all possible.
In his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Congressman Massie asks, “are you going to let a foreign country, or lobbyists for that foreign country buy a seat in Kentucky?” But it’s more than that. Are we going to allow the flame, lit by our forebears and carried by patriots, be extinguished at the altar of an empire thrashing wildly on the global stage as it cracks and crumbles under its own weight? Are we going to allow the executive branch to implement an America last policy by crushing the final palisade preventing the sweeping colonization of our legislative branch?
Kentucky once again finds itself the battleground in a fight for the Republic, as it had been during the passage of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-1799. This time, Thomas Massie is our Thomas Jefferson and the roles of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton will be played by Israeli billionaires and insincere quislings. My new Kentucky friend may have been wooed by Donald Trump as he hijacked portions of the liberty movement, turning the Presidency into a bludgeon and the military into a mercenary force, but the people are homesick for the America they once dreamed of and their voices will ring out for freedom once more.
