“How can you become a Democrat when we voted you in as a Republican?” asked Luke, a 57-year-old from Grand Rapids, as boos, hisses and heckles rumbled through the crowd on Tuesday at his first town hall-style meeting since publicly declaring that President Donald Trump’s behavior had reached the “threshold of impeachment.”
Amash rebuked the accusation to the cheers of the crowd that packed the auditorium. “I haven’t changed,” he said. “I’m who I said I was.”
Since he first outlined his belief that the special counsel’s report showed that Trump “engaged in impeachable conduct,” Republicans nationally have lined up in opposition to Amash, a five-term Republican with a reputation for saying “no.” From his earliest days in Washington, Amash has been a marginal figure, consistently voting against both political parties, publishing explanations of his latest “no” on a Facebook page where he proclaims, “I defend liberty and explain every vote here.”
Principled, yes, even critics will concede. A thought leader in the Republican Party? No.
But in Trump’s Republican Party, no figure is too marginal to be ignored — and even the faintest spark of opposition must be snuffed out, doused, crushed and buried.
Since Amash concluded that the president “engaged in impeachable conduct,” the billionaire DeVos family, whose money has helped bankroll the Republican Party here for decades, said through a spokesman that it would not financially support the congressman. Two Republicans have announced they will run against him in next year’s Republican primary race. And the president called him “a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there.”
“He’s isolated and marginalized himself in D.C.,” said Jim Lower, a state representative who rushed to put forward his primary challenge after Amash’s initial flurry of tweets about the president’s actions.
But in Grand Rapids, his political stronghold, Amash’s boldness was still applauded — wildly. Political strategists and voters say this congressional district in southwestern Michigan may not only tolerate an unabashed and frequent Republican critic of the president. It might also demand it. Amash’s event on Tuesday served to underscore the voter dynamics that will ultimately dictate his political future representing Michigan’s 3rd District.
There were voters angry over a perceived lack of loyalty to the party and those appreciative of a politician consistent in his views and votes. Attendees came in “It’s Mueller Time” shirts, a liberal cry of support for the special counsel, and red “Make America Great Again” apparel.
For a little over two hours, Amash fielded question after question about his analysis of the report and his legislative record, jousting with former supporters who lamented his refusal to toe the party line and calling for a respectful dialogue as audience members heckled at long-winded or controversial remarks.
One attendee fretted that Amash would lose re-election and the district would “miss out on a principled representative.” (Amash said that he was not concerned.)
In a reminder of Amash’s wavering political standing, hundreds crammed into the orchestra and mezzanine levels of the DeVos Center for Arts and Worship at Grand Rapids Christian High School, from which all four of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ children graduated. Auditorium employees estimated at least 800 people attended.
“He reminds me a lot of Barry Goldwater,” said Lon Johnson, a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. “He’s consistent in his principles. You may not like those principles, but consistency is a principle lacking in our Congress right now.”
Despite the wrath from his Republican colleagues, Amash has doubled and tripled down on his argument, repeatedly using Twitter to rebuff his critics with long strings of messages expanding on his thinking.
He prefaced his meeting with another series of Twitter posts Tuesday, accusing Attorney General William Barr of misrepresenting aspects of the special counsel’s investigation to protect Trump.
Several of those in attendance peppered Amash with questions about infrastructure, the immigration system, health care and legal marijuana. But others applauded Amash’s courage — and pressed him on his reasoning.
“I was disappointed and bewildered,” said Eric Richards, 57, a lawyer from Cascade Township in suburban Grand Rapids, of his initial reaction to Amash’s tweets. He brought an annotated copy of the Mueller report (“Well, the congressman complained that his colleagues didn’t read it”) and a list of questions for Amash.
“I think the congressman marches to a different drummer,” he said, “and that tension is becoming untenable.”
Since his election as part of the 2010 wave of Tea Party Republicans, Amash has frequently and successfully framed his opponents as figures of the establishment. His margin of victory has remained comfortable, though it dropped in 2018: He won by 11 percentage points, compared with the 22-point margin he enjoyed in 2016.
Critics here say the 2020 campaign might be different. They would not bet against him just yet, but he has made his road to a sixth term more difficult — and there is some speculation that he would consider running for the presidency as a libertarian candidate. (Amash said that he would not rule out the possibility, because he does not rule things out.)
“This fits Justin’s brand — he may do things his voters and district don’t like, but he’s quick to explain them,” said Michael Meyers, a Republican strategist based in Grand Rapids. “Whether this one goes too far, and people are going to listen? That will be interesting.”
The district is historically Republican, once represented by Gerald Ford before he was named Richard Nixon’s vice president. But an influx of younger voters and college graduates have shifted parts of the district leftward, causing some Democrats to wonder if the district could flip if Amash is bruised badly in a primary or defeated by a hard-right Trump supporter.
Possible redistricting, currently in the hands of the Supreme Court, could shift the demographics of the district even further.
The National Republican Congressional Committee does not get involved in primaries, a spokesman for the organization said. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for House Democrats, has not formally targeted Amash’s district, but an official said that the group was actively recruiting challengers for the general election.
Lower said that he planned to focus not only on the congressman’s stance toward the president’s conduct, but also on what he deemed to be a weak legislative record. Lower, along with Tom Norton, a National Guard veteran, have both filed to challenge Amash, who did not have a primary opponent in 2018.
“I don’t think the district is going to buy into it, frankly,” Lower said of Amash’s explanation of the president’s behavior as reaching “the threshold of impeachment.”
But Amash has been here before. In 2014, business-minded Republicans began a series of primary challenges against black-sheep Republicans who they believed were giving the party a bad name. In the far suburbs of Detroit, Kerry Bentivolio, sometimes a Santa Claus impersonator, lost. Across the state, Amash won by nearly 15 percentage points — and demanded an apology from his vanquished Republican rival.
His allies — and grudging admirers — say that voters have come to expect Amash, who considers himself a libertarian and strict constitutionalist, to choose principle over party. And Amash waved off concerns that his independent streak would cost him re-election, telling attendees, “You have to do the right thing regardless.”
“You already knew I was independent,” he told the crowd, concluding a lecture on the failure of Congress to adhere to procedure and buck party lines. “That’s not going to change.”
His conviction was enough to persuade Teena Quinn, 68, a retired social worker, to reconsider abandoning Amash at the voting booth.
“I was ready to,” she said, miming a slitting gesture across her throat. Now, she said, “I have to think about all these things.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.