The rigged Republican primary in Kentucky shows that you can't vote your way out of fascism

When the results of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican Primary rolled in, we all made the same assumption: a seven-term incumbent had been defeated by record-breaking spending from Trump-aligned billionaires and the Israel lobby. That assumption was reasonable given the $32-35 million ad spending that utterly dwarfed the typical $1 million.

While buying the seat would be concerning enough, the reality seems far more troubling: that record spending may have served as cover — or at best, one prong in a multi-layered operation to remove a man who refused to fall in line.

Thomas Massie had become highly respected, winning fans across the political spectrum for his principled stances on foreign policy, corruption, and the Epstein files. He was not just a household name in his country, but admired across the globe as one of the few US politicians who could not be bought. We did not see evidence of a decline in his local popularity prior to the primary so his victory should have been straightforward.

In previous primaries, Massie typically secured two-thirds to three-quarters of the vote, including in 2024 when Trump targeted him for refusing to fall in line. We must therefore ask why a strategy that failed so badly in 2024, suddenly worked in 2026. Was it really the record spending or was there more than meets the eye?

Incumbents win US primaries about 98% of the time and it’s anomalous for one to lose against an unknown opponent. Just look at the figures: voter turnout almost doubled from around 52,000–67,000 to over 105,000. Massie took roughly the number of votes that had previously won him comfortable victories, but almost all new votes went to the challenger.

To emphasise how insane this is: Massie’s 2026 vote total would have secured him over 90% of the vote in 2024, but this time it only gave him 45%.

Social media users have asked AI models variations of: “What is the probability of a primary turnout doubling, with virtually all new votes going to the challenger against a popular incumbent?” The answers come back in the realm of one in undecillion (a 1 followed by 36 zeros). While that figure doesn’t take all factors into account, whatever the true figure, it’s clear we are talking about vanishingly small odds.

Ed Gallrein struggled to draw crowds to his rallies, received few donations from voters, largely avoided debates, and his victory party was sparsely attended. Kentuckians seemed to know little about him, other than he was endorsed by Trump and backed by super PACs. Contrast that with Massie’s established name recognition and massive grassroots support.

For months, polling showed Massie leading comfortably — often in the 65–80% range, with Gallrein trailing at 24–35%, but in the final stretch, the race flipped. Late polls showed a much tighter contest or Gallrein ahead. In the end, Gallrein won by a comfortable 10%.

If this was simply about organic voter enthusiasm, where was the energy? Why did an unknown challenger inspire a massive surge to overturn an incumbent who saw no drop in support? Why did the victor who inspired record numbers of voters have almost no one celebrating with him?

The whole thing stinks — and it stinks more when you look at who Thomas Massie is. The fact that Trump and the Israel lobby poured all their resources into stopping the guy behind the Epstein Files Transparency Act should tell you all you need to know. This guy was the leading voice trying to expose paedophiles and they decided to stop him at all costs.

It seems they could not risk leaving this down to voters so they used every dirty trick in the book to secure victory. Whether this is about stuffed mail boxes or asymmetric resources, presidential intervention, foreign influence, and targeted mobilisation, I don’t think anyone can look at Kentucky and argue this was a free and fair democratic process. It’s ludicrous that these people are now talking about “liberating” Cuba in the name of democracy.

President Trump has frequently claimed US elections are rigged when his side loses, yet in this case, he refuses to entertain the idea of irregularities when the evidence is clear as day.

Now the question you might ask is why am I, as a British writer, concerned about the primary of a political party in a foreign country? And the answer is simple: this is about so much more than just Republicans in Kentucky. It’s about the rise of fascism — and rigging primaries is just the beginning. If we are to take one lesson is that’s we cannot vote our way out of fascism.

We are witnessing the erosion of freedoms across the western world as the ruling class enters panic mode. They have lost every generation under the age of 65 due to their endless greed and sickening crimes. Their system is being rejected, but they are not going down quietly.

As they overplay their hand, the illusion of democracy becomes weaker, but soon they will not need that illusion. Data centres are sprouting like mushrooms in graveyards, feeding off our dying societies. Our water supplies are being poisoned and our environments are overwhelmed by megatons of thermal load for no other purpose than mass surveillance.

Late stage capitalism is a global panopticon that wants to survive by leeching every ounce of humanity from us like vats in the Matrix. And no, this is not hyperbole.

Ask yourself why you are increasingly asked to present your ID or scan your face or your fingerprint or even your fucking eyeball to do anything these days. They are building their digital prison so they can stay in power. You might think we can stop them from going too far, but they will not need police when they have drone swarms and killer robots. They will not need armies when they have synthetic plagues that they exclusively own the cure to.

Science fiction is transitioning to science fact. And the very worst people imaginable — the paedophiles in the Epstein files — are in charge of that transition. These demons are taking absolute power while the window of opportunity remains open.

We tried to warn you that Palestine was a testing ground, that these people don’t give a fuck about democracy. Well, you’re waking up too late and you’re gonna need to figure out how you can fight back. I can’t give you the answers. I can only recommend that you do whatever you can. Soon we are all going to be the resistance, whether we like it or not.

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