I don't I agree with Justin Amash on everything, but at least one Far Right sociopath is sticking to honest-to-God constitutional conviction (until his deep-pocket backers insist he change his tune).
So who had Amash as TBD?
To quote from Digby at Hullabaloo:
As it turns out, Amash is literally the only member of the Freedom Caucus who took any of that stuff seriously. The rest have become the most sycophantic of Donald Trump's toadies, acting as his most loyal henchmen. Their dedication to the Constitution and fiscal rectitude seems to have evaporated on the day Barack Obama left office. The Tea Party itself has morphed into the Donald Trump base, gleefully abandoning all the principles it claimed to hold dear and instead cheering on Trump's endless betrayal of constitutional principles.
Amash, on the other hand, seems to have believed what he said. He took to Twitter over the weekend, becoming the first major elected Republican to have the guts to state the obvious. He had read the Mueller report and recognized that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses. Anyone who has read it and acting in good faith would say the same thing but so far Amash stands alone among Republican members of Congress.
His fellow Republicans are not happy about it. Trump called Amash a "loser" and a "lightweight." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, “I don’t think anybody is going to follow his lead." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared that Amash was "just looking for attention" and is "out of step with America." Amash's longtime buddies in the Freedom Caucus formally condemned him on Monday night.
I don't agree with most of Amash's libertarian philosophy. But he is a champion of civil liberties and a harsh critic of government surveillance overreach. I've often admired his willingness to stand up to his party on those issues in the past, and it's telling that he never signed onto their "deep state" conspiracy theory to protect Donald Trump. Given Amash's record, if there was the slightest granule of plausibility to those theories, he'd be on board. Now he's gone further and called for the president's impeachment, based on the fact that Trump committed crimes while in office, a genuine affront to the constitutional order...
Amash is already facing a primary challenger, which is no surprise when this is a standard response from the GOP when one of their own goes Full Apostate. But the Republicans have to be terrified of the situation.
It's not that Amash is giving other Republicans the opportunity to quit on #Teamtrump. It's that Amash is giving Democrats the political cover to openly pursue impeachment proceedings.
The Dem leadership under Pelosi has been putting the brakes on the Impeach The SOB movement among their ranks. It falls under the "Democrats Are Cowards" public meme but Pelosi has legitimate concerns about overreach. There are fears that trump could use the media circus of an impeachment hearing to regain voter support (which IMHO is an overrated fear because trump's clowning won't be able to hide the facts of trump's crimes).
But Amash makes it harder for Pelosi to stay quiet. If even a Republican - with a reputation for civil libertarian consistency - is openly calling for impeachment, it's going to make the Democrats look weaker and self-defeating (again). At some point, Pelosi is going to have to let the dogs out. Amash is making that sooner rather than later.
We're watching in real time politicians trying to find moral conviction to uphold the Constitution and the system of Checks and Balances.
This is the moment the Democrats have to grow a spine and hold trump - and the corrupt Republican Party - accountable.
1 comment:
His political patrons, the DeVos family, have pulled their financial support.
-Doug in Oakland
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