While MAGA celebrates the toppling of Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky's Republican primary after he was targeted for defeat by President Donald Trump, some conservative activists are growing alarmed by the stranglehold that Trump now has over the GOP.
On her radio program today, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis warned that Massie's defeat shows that Trump has "absolute power over the makeup of the Republican Party" since GOP voters are willing to abandon all principles and ideology when ordered to do so by Trump.
"The Republican Party should be made up of principled individuals who all are aligned with the same ideology and the same framework," Ellis said, "not just perceived and subjective, frankly, loyalty and fidelity to one leader."
Ellis' guest on the program was former Republican Rep. Bob Good, who himself was defeated in a GOP primary after drawing Trump's ire by endorsing Ron DeSantis in the 2024 election.
Good warned that it is not a good sign that Republican voters will "obediently, robotically obey and vote for candidates who they don't even know" on Trump's command.
"They don't even know Ed Gallrein," Good said of the Trump-back candidate who defeated Massie. "Nobody knows Ed Gallrein. Ed Gallrein didn't take positions. He didn't do debates. He wouldn't answer specific policy questions. His only thing was, 'I will do what President Trump tells me to do.' And when you have 60% of Republicans or so who say, 'Hey, the purpose of a member of Congress is to obey the president, to enact whatever the president's agenda may be,' that is not the constitutional intention of the legislative branch, which is supposed to be the dominant lawmaking body."
"It's very concerning that as some 99% of Republicans in DC have essentially surrendered their voting card to the president," Good continued. "Also, Republican primary voters have essentially surrendered their voting card to the president, where they're saying, 'Hey, we will obey and comply and surrender and just vote for someone because the president tells us to.'"
Good noted that overwhelmingly, Republican members of Congress are "willing to vote for things they would have never voted for under a Democrat president, willing to go along, whether silently or explicitly with policies and things they would never have supported ... out of just simple fear and obedience to the president."
"That is a real danger," Ellis replied, warning that even when Trump is not on the ballot in 2028, "he is not going to let control of the GOP go anytime soon and is still going to want to dictate his endorsements and who's in the party and all of that almost as a MAGA Inc. sort of banner over the GOP even when he's out of office."
"What is the Trump agenda beyond just doing whatever the president says?" Good asked. "The president can change the agenda and change the philosophy or change the policy or redefine what's America First or redefine what's conservative or redefine what's MAGA or the Trump agenda and everyone is supposed to just obey and comply and submit because he is President Trump."
"You've dumbed down Congress—the Republican Congress in particular—when the only criteria that matters is a willingness to say, 'I will obey, worship, submit, adore, surrender to whatever the president says,'" Good continued. "So you are attracting and rewarding the worst kind of, I'll say, character qualities in a candidate and really these aren't even Trump first people; they are themselves first because they're willing to do or say whatever it is to win. in other words, to pledge loyalty to the president. If they determine sometime over the next two years as President Trump moves to lame duck status and if his poll numbers continue to crater and he becomes less popular and they don't think it's in their political interest to be aligned with him, they will drop him, they will ditch him in '28 because it's all about just being in Congress, staying in Congress, getting elected, winning elections; it's not about what you do. So what is the unifying political philosophy, the conservative principles for the Republican Party today? What are the sacred, non-negotiable issues worth fighting for or principles worth fighting for? I don't know what those are for the party at large."
