Although Justin Amash’s Tea Party convictions and public breakup with the Republican Party has given him a higher profile than the usual 40-year-old congressman, even he seems to know that his Libertarian Party bid for president is a longshot.
But Amash is differentiated by factors that stand out in 2020: he’s a fiscally conservative, pro-life libertarian without a single whiff of a sexual assault or financial scandal in his midst. For Republicans disgusted by President Trump’s multitrillion-dollar deficits and slew of groping allegations, Amash should provide an obvious protest vote against the Republican Party.
Yet the ones most livid at Amash aren’t Trump’s allies or even overt Democrats. It’s the sad and strange subset of Never Trumpers who spend most of their time attacking conservative Trump critics and bolstering Joe Biden.
Just last year, George Conway claimed that Amash stepping up for a presidential bid would constitute a “supreme act of patriotism.” But now, he calls it a “terrible idea.” Fellow supposedly Never Trump conservatives have followed suit, with Tom Nichols smearing Amash as this year’s Ralph Nader and Max Boot declaring, “If you don’t back Biden, you’re backing Trump.”
Rick Wilson, the former Republican “political strategist” who now spends his days on CNN laughing about how Trump supporters are so dumb that they can’t read maps, was so enthusiastic about Amash just five months ago that he launched a super PAC to aid his congressional reelection. Now that Amash has thrown his hat in the ring as an actual conservative alternative to Trump, Wilson has soured on him, endorsing the view of Joe Walsh, the racist birther who launched a bid of his own to primary Trump last year, that Amash will only help Trump win.
Jennifer Rubin, who once lauded Amash for having “already outdone every single Republican in the House and Senate,” excoriated the Michiganer’s presidential foray as a “vanity campaign,” likening it to the “putrid reception” of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s independent bid flirtation.
So why the radical reversal among the most sanctimonious of the Never Trumpers? But even more importantly, the unfettered rage?
From a purely pragmatic perspective, it makes no sense. If their definition of “Never Trump” is to maximize the odds that Trump loses, Amash entering the fray seems like a good way to do that. On nearly every economic and regulatory issue, Amash is radically to the right of Trump, and his noninterventionist foreign policy could appeal to Trump’s disaffected paleoconservative followers. He’s devoutly pro-life, a nonstarter for more than two-thirds of Democratic voters.
If you’re a religious conservative disgusted by the Republican Party’s embrace of reckless spending and dismissal of credible sexual assault allegations, especially if you’re not in a swing state, voting for Amash is a plausible option. Outside of a few fringe Bernie bros favorable to Amash’s foreign policy, it’s hard to see how the conservative Christian guy who wants to slash spending will take votes away from the big-government Democrat who loves bombing random countries in violation of international law.
All of which gives the lie to the notion of Never Trumperism in this specific bastardized form. It’s not about saving the Republican Party or the conservative movement more generally. It’s not about empowering conservatives to vote for a moral man who still stands for their principles. It’s about letting Trump tank the Republican Party and shaming conservatives amenable to a President Amash out of voting their conscience.
