Congressman Justin Amash, who represents Michigan’s very Republican Third Congressional District in western Michigan, has left the Republican Party.
Amash got lots of ink yesterday for declaring his independence from Donald Trump.
Amash was, very often, a thorn in Trump’s side (and still is, which is why GOP Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel has launched a primary campaign against him). He was the first GOP House Member to call for Trump’s impeachment, after he read all of the Mueller Report (which very few House Republicans have read, and that’s because House Republicans have a very difficult time dealing with reality).
In typical fashion, Trump responded to Amash’s departure from the party he hijacked by calling Amash a loser.
Amash has an interesting ethnic and religious background. His father is a Palestinian Christian (yup, there are many of those!), and his mother is a Syrian Christian (yes, there are some, though not many, of those). He and his wife, Kara Day Amash, are Eastern Orthodox Christians (there are very many of those).
Youngish (39) Amash follows much of the traditional libertarian line (very limited government, very low taxes, celebrating the individual over the community), but, as of press time, he has yet to declare that he has joined the Libertarian Party.
On NPR this morning, David Welna told us a lot about Amash (https://www.npr.org/2019/07/04/738766431/declaring-his-independence-rep-amash-leaves-the-gop).
Alan Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H*, just told associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, who covers Congress for us, that Amash is in extreme need of both political and surgical intervention.