When new Republicans get elected to Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has one goal for when they arrive: Get to them before the GOP establishment makes them into “zombies.”
At his Liberty Karaoke fundraiser on Tuesday night, Massie told Red Alert Politics that his top priority for the coming year and the next term is to strengthen the Liberty Caucus with as many impressionable outsider freshmen as possible in order to keep the Party and the broader right-of-center movement grounded in libertarian principles.
“I want to get them on my side before the establishment makes them their zombies,” he told Red Alert.
The Tea Party Express organized Massie’s fundraiser at O’Sullivan’s pub in Clarendon, Virginia, where he was welcomed by a group of energetic libertarian youths. Nearly sixty guests attended, one of which was fellow House Member Justin Amash (R-Mich), who gave his compliments to the Kentucky Congressman and the Tea Party Express. In addition, he promised to match every dollar raised for Massie that night.
After Amash’s introduction, Massie spoke of his dissatisfaction with the Republican establishment with its lack of principle and backbone. He pointed out what he and Amash were doing to change it, by building — and leading — coalitions with anyone willing to work with them.
“The leadership has about 160 votes in its hand at nearly all times,” Massie told Red Alert after his talk. “In order to get to 218, they sometimes must either work with the Left or the Right. The Liberty Caucus encourages them to work with us, and the larger or stronger it is, the more effectively they can do that.”
He cited the Marketplace Fairness Act — also known as the Internet tax — as a key example of unnecessary and unprecedented government and corporate intrusion into the citizen’s private life and said that if it came for a vote today, it would pass because the establishment does not have the clout to stop it. Ultimately, though the libertarian wing of the Republican Party in Congress is small in number, the courage of its members will go a long way to reshaping the party’s principles and reasserting its members’ devotion to upholding them.
“The first three months you spend in Washington, you spend the whole time wondering, how did I get here?” Massie told the crowd. “Eventually that passes and you then start to wonder, how did any of these other guys get here?!”
In a follow-up interview with Red Alert, Amash echoed Massie’s priorities but also mentioned that the debt is the most important policy issue of the decade. Amash said he isn’t worried about concerns, voiced by Republicans in the leadership and the more moderate wing of the Party, that the Liberty Caucus’ initiatives create more infighting among the Republicans and make it more difficult for the party to come together and reach across the aisle. In fact, he noted that he and others were actually leading the Congress by reaching out with Democrats and making compromises. The only difference was that he and other libertarians were doing it without the leadership.
The two Congressmen hung around after their speeches to take pictures and pose for selfies with the Tea Party Express. Unfortunately neither of the Congressmen sang karaoke.
