The Republican who dared to take on Trump – and how the party machine hit back

The hundreds of Republicans who gathered for the “squash Amash” rally outside the Michigan congressman Justin Amash’s downtown Grand Rapids office on Friday left nothing in doubt as they spoke about the man they feel betrayed their party by calling for Donald Trump to be impeached.

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“Pathetic”, “lightweight loser”, “a joke” and the phrase uttered with perhaps the most derision: Rino, or “Republican In Name Only”.

“He’s out of his mind, absolutely out of his mind,” said Grand Rapids resident Carol Noordhoek, who voted for Amash in the past, but said she “absolutely will not” vote for him in 2020.

Wayne Weller, from nearby Grandville, echoed that: “He’s so far out there that he’s a Democrat.”

Even with the venom directed toward Amash, the event was also somewhat festive. It was Flag Day, Donald Trump’s birthday and the anti-Amash protesters sang Happy Birthday to Trump as they waved flags, waved inflatable rhinos and a pro-Trump float circled the block.

The mass protest was the latest – and most highly visible – wave of blowback against Amash since the 39-year-old libertarian-leaning Republican declared on Twitter that Trump engaged in impeachable conduct by obstructing justice during the Robert Mueller investigation.

It was also the latest sign that dissent in Trump’s Republican party is not to be tolerated and that those who break ranks will bring down the ire of the party machine, the White House itself and Trump’s fervent supporters.

Amash has been the lone sitting Republican congressman to call for Trump’s impeachment, and his political career – at least in his own party – is now very much in question.

In the days following his tweet, several Republicans announced that they would challenge Amash for his seat in 2020. A poll released this week by the Michigan political news outlet MIRS put one of those challengers, the pro-Trump state congressman Jim Lower, up by 16 points in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up.

Amash’s impeachment stance predictably drew the president’s hostile attention too.

“Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponent’s hands!” Trump tweeted.

This week, the Trump administration suggested it may support an Amash challenger in the primary, and the Republican National Committee is considering the rare step of backing an incumbent’s opponent.

Last week, the billionaire DeVos family, of which the education secretary, Betsy, is a part, announced it would cut off financial support for Amash. The mega donors have directly contributed $300,000 to his campaign throughout his career.

That news came just as Amash announced his resignation from the conservative House Freedom Caucus that he co-founded several years ago. He faced criticism from the group, though it stopped short of forcibly removing him.

However, if Amash is fazed by the blowback, he isn’t publicly showing it, and he isn’t new to the pressure of being at odds with party leadership. He landed in office when Republicans and the Tea Party took control of Congress in the 2010 midterms, and like many of those who were part of that wave, he hasn’t always played by Republican leadership’s rules.

While Republicans generally vote with the party about 95% of the time, Amash has only done so about 62% of the time throughout his career. He recently broken with Trump on the border wall, the Saudi Arabian war, tariffs and loosening firearm regulations.

When Donald Trump Jr trash talked on Twitter this week Amash zinged the president’s son.

“See you soon Justin… I hear Michigan is beautiful during primary season,” Trump Jr tweeted.

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Amash responded, quoting a 2016 email Trump Jr sent ahead of the Trump Tower meeting in which a Kremlin-linked lawyer offered dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Moreover, Amash says he has more support than his party is aware of. He told the Detroit News that some of his Republican colleagues privately said they agree with him, but he declined to name them. He also told the outlet this week he was “confident” of his re-election chances.

At a recent town hall on the issue, Amash stressed Congress’s “duty to keep the president in check”.

“I believe in the people I represent,” he said. “I believe the people are smart enough to figure out what’s going on … The president did much worse than I did in this district.”

Meshawn Maddock, one of the organizers of the Grand Rapids protest, dismissed that idea.

“We can’t ignore this – he’s directly attacking the president,” Maddock said. “He’s a libertarian. Actually he just needs to stop running as a Republican and come out as a libertarian.”

Amash may do just that. There are rumors that Amash will seek the Libertarian party’s 2020 nomination, which he did not rule out at a recent town hall. Were he successful in seeking the party’s nomination, he could potentially do serious damage by siphoning Republican votes from Trump in a state that the president won by only 10,000 votes.

“I’ve said many times, I don’t rule things like that out,” Amash said. “If you’re fighting to defend the constitution, if you find a way to do that that’s different and maybe more effective, then you have to think about that.”

But those who gathered in Grand Rapids were convinced Amash was living out his final days in politics.

“If President Trump were here today, he would say ‘Justin, you’re fired!’” Maddock told the protesters to loud cheers.