Trump vendetta has left GOP ripe for 'scary' extremist coup: expert

The conventional wisdom on Rep. Thomas Massie’s primary loss in Kentucky last month is that the election was a referendum that settled the question of who controls the Republican Party: It’s Donald Trump.

But for the anti-Israel and anti-interventionist flank of the MAGA movement that calls itself “America First,” Massie’s loss marks the emergence of a splinter group aiming to take over the GOP from within, and then outflank Trump or his chosen successor in 2028.

Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent figures in the “America First” faction, declared on his podcast on the day after Massie’s defeat that “nothing will be the same after this.” He added that the win for Ed Gallrein, Trump’s handpicked replacement, is “likely a Pyrrhic victory,” because the election “confirmed how the system actually works” — supposedly in favor of a small group of people who put Israel’s interest before the United States.

Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying admirer of Adolf Hitler whose views have been mainstreamed, in part, through a guest appearance on Carlson’s program, announced on his show that he would be “supporting the Democrats at this point out of pure vengeance.

“I will gladly take the L,” he continued. “I will gladly take a couple steps back while we wait for the demographics to change. And then it will be our party.”

Massie’s concession speech felt more like a victory party.

As his supporters chanted, “No more wars,” followed by “2028, 2028,” the candidate gleefully echoed a declaration from the crowd: “We’re just getting started — I like that!”

Massie dangled a hint last week that he’s considering a run for president while announcing that he had filed paperwork to keep his congressional campaign committee open.

Before that, he posted on X that “there’s a quiet all-out war for the future of our country,” while tamping down on his supporters’ baseless claims that the primary election had been rigged.

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and a longtime observer of the far right, told Raw Story that the “America First” faction mobilization behind Massie is “a big deal.” She added that the support of far-right luminaries such as Carlson and Fuentes and a lesser-known cohort of openly antisemitic internet influencers who volunteered for the Massie campaign is cause for concern.

“I hope this faction of the Republican Party and the MAGA movement is not in ascendance,” Beirich said. “I hope they’re pushed out and sidelined, because it would be scary if they came to power.”

The Massie campaign attracted a grab bag of extremists that included a Jan. 6 seditionist, an alum of the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally, and an influencer who routinely promotes violent antisemitism.

Massie shook hands with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes during a campaign stop and reportedly expressed sympathy for his legal troubles after he was prosecuted for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump commuted Rhodes’ sentence immediately following his January 2025 inauguration, and last week the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the case.

David J. Reilly, who attended a torch march on the eve of the Unite the Right rally, said he accepted an invitation to join a group of internet influencers who embedded with the campaign and produced content on the ground to promote Massie.

An episode of Reilly’s podcast recounting his experience campaigning for Massie included acknowledgements to sponsors marketing “pro-white coffee” and “soap and skincare products that won’t turn you gay.”

Ryan Matta, another influencer embedded with the Massie campaign, appeared to call for a genocide against Jews while at the same time denying the Holocaust in a video posted to X five days after the Kentucky primary.

“What if we were actually able to find documented proof that told us step by step of how evil and vindictive these people were,” Matta said. He went on to fantasize about an AI program that would tell school children that “there was never six million killed,” and it was a “gosh-damn lie” that “Mr. H. Adolf was a bad guy,” apparently referring to Hitler.

Massie acknowledged the influencers during his concession speech.

“I want to thank the influencers who came all this way, and produced all the videos and got out the young vote,” Massie said.

Massie was not available for comment, his press secretary told Raw Story.

In the past, antisemitism of the type exhibited by Matta “would have led to fierce denunciation by the candidate and the party,” Beirich told Raw Story. “Now, we’re living in a time that it happens, and it’s like it’s just another Tuesday.

“The big problem is the mainstreaming of antisemitism, and the potential violence directed at Jews that can come from that,” Beirich added. She pointed to the recent San Diego mosque shooting resulting in the deaths of three people as an example. Although the targets in that attack were Muslims, the manifesto of one of the shooters reportedly includes the repeated phrase, “It’s the Jews,” as an answer to the question of “who is to blame for all the wrong in the world.”

One of Matta’s videos, posted on X last week, referenced the mosque shooting. Matta shared a video by another influencer attacking the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, for promoting legislation that would provide grants to houses of worship to enhance security.

“I don’t know if you guys have seen this video… about what the, you know, the ADL and these rat b-----ds are attempting to cram down your ... throat here in America,” Matta said. “But this is exactly why I’m screaming from the rooftops: Get the f out.”

In an interview with CBS last week, Massie denied that he is antisemitic.

But the lawmaker hasn’t hesitated to point out that donors who want to ensure that the United States continues to back Israel spent millions of dollars to unseat him. During the same interview, he mentioned that Miriam Adelson, a casino magnate who backed his opponent, is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, while questioning her loyalty to America.

Some of Massie’s supporters have joined Fuentes in calling for the GOP to be punished in this year’s midterm elections, although none appear to have articulated a plan for Massie and his allies to carry out a hostile takeover of the party before 2028.

Matta suggested he might campaign for Melissa Strange, Gallrein’s Democratic opponent.

During the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally in Michigan on Sunday, Ivan Raiklin, a Massie supporter who has called himself Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” called on South Carolina voters to vote Libertarian in the general election to counter Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a proponent of the war against Iran.

Reilly, the white nationalist influencer, told his viewers they “need to punish the GOP,” while singling out Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, and Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager alongside Wiles in Trump’s 2024 campaign.

“They need to be out of a job,” Reilly said. “They need to go to Israel, where they can live out the rest of their days in peace among their people, because their people are not our people.”