Bill Cassidy made his bed years ago, but he had the benefit of a just-extended six-year Senate term.

The incumbent Louisiana Republican, who’d voted at the end of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial to convict the then-former president for his actions on January 6, 2021, was held fully accountable for that vote during Saturday’s Republican primary. And that’s as it should be.

Cassidy, though, didn’t just get smoked in the primary by Donald Trump’s preferred candidate, State Representative Julia Letlow; he didn’t even finish second. Instead, he finished behind both Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming — both of whom will now advance to a June 27 runoff vote. The winner will then be the strong favorite to win the general election in the November 3 midterms and thereby become Louisiana’s next senator.

Cassidy thus becomes the latest, ahem, Republican of conscience to bite the dust for having shivved the undisputed leader of his party. The losers’ club Cassidy now joins is led by former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who was trounced in her bid for reelection four years ago, and it includes anonyms like Tom Rice, Peter Meijer, and Jaime Herrera Beutler — all of whom lost in their respective Republican primaries — as well as others like Mitt Romney and the lachrymose Adam Kinzinger, both of whom saw the writing on the wall and retired rather than facing their voters. Indeed, only three of the 17 Republicans who voted either to impeach or convict Trump will likely remain after the 2026 midterms.

Saturday’s vote, just as the vote two weeks ago in Indiana, makes clear that President Trump still has plenty of juice among Republican voters.

Cassidy got a miserable 24% of the vote on Saturday, but if you’re inclined to argue that Trump should’ve let bygones be bygones and allowed him to keep his seat safely Republican in the run-up to a tough midterm election, remember: Cassidy didn’t just vote to convict Trump in his impeachment trial; he also called on him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. For Trump, that’s unforgivable.

To say that Cassidy can’t read a room is to understate these two grave miscalculations toward Donald Trump. And let’s be clear: They were miscalculations. They weren’t votes of conscience, as the mainstream media wants you to believe. They were Beltway elite votes, not grassroots Louisiana votes. The fundamental facts of January 6 are pretty much what they were when Cassidy sided with Democrats and voted to convict Donald Trump. Cassidy just figured that the then-74-year-old Trump was damaged goods, that he’d never run for president again, and that the Republican Party was ready to turn the page.

On this score, he was at least partially right: The Republican establishment was definitely ready to move on from Trump. What Cassidy failed to understand, though, was that in a representative democracy, the people get to make that decision.

Cassidy not only failed to comprehend the rigged nature of the 2020 election; he also failed to comprehend the enduring connection that Donald Trump has with those who’ve voted for him. Cassidy thought Trump would simply go gentle into that good night — unlike the rest of us who just knew he’d be back.

“Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is a disloyal disaster,” posted Trump during Saturday’s vote. “His entire past campaign for the Senate was about ‘TRUMP,’ how he’s with me all the way, and then, after winning, he turned around and voted to IMPEACH me for something that has now proven to be total ‘bullsh**t!’”

Indeed, Cassidy, an MD, seemed to be positioning himself for hatchet-burying and reelection when he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s HHS secretary despite his personal misgivings. But that merely exposed Cassidy’s cravenness. Here, I’m reminded of Winston Churchill’s words to Neville Chamberlain:

To paraphrase, Cassidy was given the choice between electoral defeat and dishonor. He chose dishonor, and he got electoral defeat.

Trump, as we’ve long noted, is a lethal counterpuncher. He doesn’t always hit first, but he always hits hardest — just like your big brother when you used to give him that preemptive shot to the shoulder. Search the Internet till your heart’s content, and you won’t find an unfriendly utterance from Trump toward Senator Bill Cassidy until Cassidy punched him with that impeachment conviction vote.

As columnist Margot Cleveland rightly put it, “Donald Trump’s philosophy of practicing politics is simple: ‘If you hit me, I’ll hit you back 10 times harder.’ This is his way of imposing discipline so he can get things done. Many Republicans mistake this for childish petulance. The ironic thing is that when these oh-so-high-minded Republicans (Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Thom Tillis, etc.) get their comeuppance, they are the ones who react with truly childish petulance.”

Just so. Here’s the whiny, scolding, childishly petulant Cassidy from his concession speech: “Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution. And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”

Kentuckians have a strong and independent streak about them, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens to perennially thornish Congressman Thomas Massie tomorrow, when he goes before his state’s Republican primary voters.

“Tom Massie of Kentucky,” posted Trump, “the worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our country, is an even bigger insult to our Nation than Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.”

Even worse than Cassidy? I don’t think so, at least not in terms of character and conviction. Massie is what I might call a radical libertarian. As such, he’s not a team player, and he’s typically unhelpful to the efforts of congressional Republicans. But he sticks to his guns rather than blowing with the political winds — which is precisely what a certain soon-to-be former Republican senator from Louisiana tended to do.