Amash seeks Michigan return: Libertarian success in Trump’s GOP?

Former Rep. Justin Amash served in Congress for exactly one decade, with his final years in Washington, D.C., featuring him dramatically quitting the GOP, voting to impeach former President Donald Trump, and deciding not to run for reelection. At the time, in 2019, he said Congress’s corruption was worse than in the famous Netflix series House of Cards and decried the two-party system as “an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”

Now, more than three years after his final day in office, Amash has decided he wants back in the game and is running for Michigan’s open Senate seat — as a Republican.

“It is still broken and dysfunctional,” he told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “But as a member of the Senate, you have more leverage to affect the change that’s necessary.”

“And now there’s actually a great opportunity because there’s a change in leadership [with Mitch McConnell stepping down],” he added. “So, I think there’s a good chance to start fresh.”

But why is the former congressman running as a Republican after so famously quitting the GOP, and making history as the first Libertarian Party member of Congress, just a few years ago?

“In Michigan … if you don’t run as a Republican or a Democrat, you have very little chance of getting elected,” Amash said. “And that’s because the laws are structured in such a way to make it almost impossible to both get on the ballot and then get votes.”

“We have straight-ticket voting here, among other things,” he explained. “So, if you were to run statewide as an independent or as a Libertarian, too high a percentage of the population will vote straight-ticket Republican or Democrat [for you to win].”

A cynic would be forced to conclude that after just a few years, Amash is already giving up on the Libertarian Party as a serious alternative. Yet he insists that, in the long term, he hopes there will be another option to the two-party system, “but we have to change election laws to make that happen.”

At first glance, it seems like Amash might have a task on his hands to convince Republican primary voters to entrust him with the nomination just a few years after quitting the party in such a high-profile manner. But he didn’t seem worried, arguing that his strong record as a fiscal and constitutional conservative will matter more to primary voters than partisan loyalty.

Amash’s pitch to them is simple: If you want someone who will fight to cut government spending, stand up for the whole Bill of Rights, and work to fix Congress’s dysfunction so it actually serves the people, he’s your man.

There’s an orange elephant in the room, however.

While in Congress, Amash voted to impeach Trump and emerged as one of his sharpest critics. But most primary voters in the Michigan GOP are still on the Trump train, if the former president’s recent sweeping victory in the presidential primary over rival Nikki Haley is anything to go by.

I asked Amash if he thinks that Trump-supporting primary voters are still going to be open to his candidacy.

“I’ll run on my own record and my own positions, whoever the president is,” he replied. “Whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden — it’s likely to be one of the two — I’m going to serve as a check against that person. That’s my job.”

The former congressman explained that on many policies, he would still be willing to work with a future President Trump, such as securing the U.S. southern border. Yet he ultimately sees the role of a senator as, in part, to hold the president accountable.

“What we really don’t want is to send senators over there who are going to bow down to anyone, whether it’s a Republican president or a Democratic president, because I have to represent all the people,” Amash added. “I think people will view it as a positive that they know I’m willing to challenge anyone to protect their rights.”

Another unique aspect of Amash’s candidacy is his perspective as a second-generation Palestinian American given Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the fierce debate within the Right on how far U.S. support for Israel should go amid mounting civilian casualties in Gaza.

“Everyone condemns what happened on Oct. 7,” he said unequivocally. “Hamas is a terrorist group. What they did is completely wrong, completely immoral, completely contrary to what humanity should be. So, I’ve been an outspoken opponent of what Hamas did — and what they do to the Palestinian people as well.”

“That doesn’t alter the fact that what is going on right now in Gaza is a human catastrophe that is almost unprecedented in modern times,” Amash continued. “You have people just being blown apart. My own relatives were killed.”

He specifically criticized Biden for funding the war without exerting more “leverage” over how Israel is fighting it.

“That has to change,” he said. “And I’ll speak out against that. I don’t think that we should be funding any country, not just Israel, that is involved in an offensive military operation.”

That phrase, an “offensive military operation,” jumped out to me, and I pressed the former congressman on whether, in light of the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel’s war against Hamas really qualifies as “offensive.”

He insisted that it does “because it’s extended for a long period of time.”

“This is the same when the United States takes actions overseas,” Amash continued. “A lot of times people try to play this game where they categorize U.S. actions overseas as defensive when they’re actually offensive. We’re seeing this right now with what goes on in the Red Sea. When there are attacks on U.S. ships and other vessels in the area, of course the United States has the ability and the right to defend itself, to fire back … and the president has the unilateral power to do that.”

“But that’s very different from planning an operation that happens maybe a week later or several weeks later or a month later and then suggesting that that is a defensive operation,” he concluded. “That becomes an offensive operation.”

Amash said that at this time, he would “absolutely” vote against more aid to Israel. This puts him at odds with many of his would-be Senate GOP colleagues, but polling shows that rank-and-file Republican voters are somewhat split on this question.

Amash insisted that primary voters won’t hold this position against him: “I don’t think voters want us to send funds overseas, to fight offensive military operations, without any check by the United States and no approval by the United States Congress for the war.”

And especially given Michigan’s significant Muslim population, having a nuanced position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be an asset for Amash in a general election. Ultimately, it’s just one of many areas, from protecting civil liberties to opposing corporate welfare, where he thinks he could have crossover appeal to Democrats and independents.

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This has become an even bigger dividing line among Democrats. During Michigan’s Democratic primary, progressives who thought Biden was too supportive of Israel backed a slate of uncommitted delegates. The split is thought to be one of the reasons Michigan is once again competitive at the presidential level.

“I will uphold the Constitution, and I will represent everybody,” he concluded. “I’ll hold town halls where everyone can come and speak to me about their concerns. And that’s something that members of Congress are just not used to doing. They get elected, and they think their job is to represent one party. I don’t view it that way.”

Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist, co-founder of BASED Politics, and Washington Examiner contributor.