Think More: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Severi on Massie's ouster, JTN on the broader sweep, Stiles on the ash heap, the Post on Iran's moment of truth, and Poulos and Davidson on the data-center backlash.
Massie Falls to Trump-backed Gallrein in Kentucky’s 4th
Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL and fifth-generation dairy farmer. The Wall Street Journal’s final tally showed Gallrein at 54.8% to Massie’s 45.2%. Trump endorsed Gallrein in October after Massie’s defections on the Iran war, the Epstein files, and last year’s tax package.
Trump’s Endorsement Juggernaut Marches On
John Solomon team · Just the News
More than three dozen Trump-endorsed Republicans won outright or advanced to runoffs Tuesday across Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Idaho. Presidents at the midpoint of a second term usually feel political capital contract; Trump is experiencing the opposite. Georgia’s gubernatorial race, headed to a June 16 runoff, is the lone complication.
Money Well Spent: Massie Joins the Ash Heap
Andrew Stiles · Washington Free Beacon
Stiles delivers the post-mortem Massie earned. A Massie-aligned super PAC closed the campaign with an ad featuring an “unexplained” rainbow Star of David, and the candidate, on election night, blamed Israel. Stiles reads the result alongside the recent exits of Greene, Bowman, and Bush: only one party has shown a willingness to purge its open antisemites.
Pritzker’s Department of Human Rights Teaches Illinois that White People are Mosquitoes
Peter Hasson · Washington Free Beacon
Hasson attended a May 15 Illinois Department of Human Rights seminar. The training video depicts white women and police officers as mosquitoes sucking blood from women of color; a black woman, in the final beat, torches the pests with a flamethrower. “Color blindness” and the word “articulate” are catalogued as harms. Governor J.B. Pritzker, 2028-curious, presides over the agency.
Colorado completes its Californication on the Second Amendment
Green walks through Colorado’s session: Senate Bill 26-004 (expanded red flag), House Bill 26-144 (3D-printing ban), House Bill 26-1126 (Federal Firearms License strangulation), and House Bill 26-1302 (background-check delay by another name). The bright spot is Senate Bill 26-043, a gun-barrel sales ban, which Republicans stalled until session expiration. It will be back in January.
Don’t buckle now, Mr. President
Post Editorial Board · New York Post
The Post editorial is the sharpest case against settling the Iran cease-fire into a bad deal: sanctions relief, frozen funds, and an unimpeded Strait of Hormuz in exchange for vague language on enrichment. The piece reaches for Munich, then for Suez. A deal Tehran can spin as vindication is worse than no deal at all.
Making AI Data Centers Work for America
James Poulos · The American Mind
Poulos proposes a “dynamic dozen” data-center plan and reveals that the Department of Energy is already quietly building one. DOE has narrowed federal sites to Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Paducah, and Savannah River. The RAND Corporation projects nearly 70 gigawatts of global compute demand by next year; Anthropic put the U.S. minimum at 50 GW by 2028.
Data Center Animosity Reflects Legit Concerns AI-Mongers Don’t Care About Humanity’s Interests
John Daniel Davidson · The Federalist
Davidson reads the data-center fights as a proxy for the deeper question of whether the human person survives mass AI. Gallup finds seven in 10 Americans oppose local construction.
Achieving Fiscal Savings at GAO
Dan Lips · Foundation for American Innovation
Lips submitted testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch on tightening Government Accountability Office return on investment. GAO delivered $116 in taxpayer savings per appropriated dollar over the past decade but only $79 over the past five years. The fiscal-year 2026 deficit is projected at $1.9 trillion and rising.
