Amash’s Tea Party Comes to an End – By Nic Rowan (American Spectator) / Jan 2 2020
Unlike members of the Squad, he’s gone back to where he came from.
A week after Michigan Rep. Justin Amash declared independence from the Republican Party in a July 4 Washington Post op-ed, the GOP of his native Kent County officially condemned his exit.
“For some, this is a stunning revelation,” the Grand Rapids–based committee responded. “But for many of us, this announcement confirms what we’ve known for years: Congressman Amash does not share our Republican values.”
Amash says he left the party because he cannot abide a system dominated by President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Even without Trump and McConnell, the Michigan congressman likely would have bowed out eventually. His alliance with the GOP was one of necessity, and — like so many other right-wing alliances forged in the Obama years — it was never destined to survive a Republican return to the presidency.
Up until his departure, Amash’s relationship with Republicans resembled the shaky alliance between the so-called “Squad” of freshman Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and House Democratic leadership — necessary to resist the power of the president. Once Democrats regain control of the White House, the similarities will likely persist. Democratic leaders, already so annoyed by the Squad’s calls for socialism, could push them in the same direction Trump nudged Amash: out.
In fact, understanding the rise and fall of Amash may be a helpful way of predicting the future of the Squad. After all, both ran during wave years for their parties — and with minimal aid from their national wings. In the case of Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley, it was outright opposition: they won their seats in 2018 by ousting long-serving establishment incumbents in the primaries. And they continue to capture national attention because they embody the spirit of resistance to President Donald Trump that has been moving within the party since its dramatic loss in the 2016 presidential election.
Amash and his ilk captured the attention of the Republican Party much the same way in 2010. A crew of libertarians who had gorged their minds on the free-market, deficit-slashing writings of Friedrich Hayek and Frédéric Bastiat attacked the party from within, blaming the Great Recession on decades of runaway government spending, and flipped House control from Democrats to Republicans in the process. And though the deficit hawks behind this so-called Tea Party never took control of the House or the Senate, their voices were loud — and they harangued President Barack Obama so effectively — that GOP party leaders were forced to take their demands seriously.
Continue to article: https://spectator.org/amashs-tea-party-comes-to-an-end/
