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Justin Amash dares to boldly cross a line most of his party colleagues avoid. This past week, the Republican congressman from Grand Rapids seemed downright eager to criticize President Trump, sharply and often.
The 38-year-old representative, who says he's a libertarian with a firm "commitment to the rule of law," fired a volley of 24 tweets aimed at the Oval Office occupant or his congressional backers. All but two were posted Wednesday, the day after Trump returned from his widely condemned remarks alongside Russia's president in Helsinki, Finland.
Justin Amash: "Something is not right here." (Facebook photo)
Amash blasts the president's post-summit statements as "bizarre," "subordinate" and "counterproductive." He speaks bluntly:
Perhaps it was just the president showing insecurity, once again, over the legitimacy of his election. Perhaps it was a sign of a more troubling entanglement with Putin.
Another tweet in the long thread says:
I've heard it said that anyone who disapproves of what took place at the press conference is pro-war or anti-Trump. No, some of us are just concerned about the bizarre behavior of our president at a press conference.
On anothger topic this past week, Amash restates criticism of Trump's "disappointing pick" of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Overall, his two dozen broadsides over four days are retweeted 4,800 times and earn 18,300 approval clicks. Nearly 1,600 reply comments are posted. (The figures undoubtedly include engagement on separate tweets by the same people.)
His brashness also gets a salute Sunday from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who says "in principle I am not a libertarian:"
Michigan Congressman Justin Amash has been a frequent thorn in Trump’s side, and he reacted to the Helsinki business with a tweetstorm criticizing Trump’s servile attitude toward Putin as something that even foreign policy doves should find disturbing. . . .
Amash’s approach is intellectually admirable.
Rep. Amash, running for a fifth term, tweets that he's "concerned about the bizarre behavior of our president." (Campaign site photo)
Outspokenness to separate himself from the party's figurehead began during Inauguration Week in January 2017, when Amash commented on a tweet by the president-elect that swiped at Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. "Dude, just stop," the Michigan Republican responded, earning more than 6,300 retweets.
At that time, Amash had 91,000 followers on Twitter. A year and a half later, he has 141,000 -- a 55-percent surge.
The former one-term state representative won an open U.S. House seat in 2010 at age 30, becoming the second-youngest member of Congress at the time. He's now running for a fifth term and says at his campaign site: "Justin takes seriously his oath to support and defend the Constitution" -- a stance that seems pointedly stated at this time under this president.
Amash, a Tea Party ally, chairs the House Liberty Caucus, a 10-member group the West Michiganian started in 2011 after coming to the capital.
Tweet examples from recent days show why Douthat dubs him a recurring pain in Trump's . . . ahem, side:
I suspect that many of the people defending the press conference performance did not watch it in its entirety—or at all. If they had, they would know that it didn’t achieve the desired effect of bringing America and Russia closer; in fact, it did just the opposite.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 19, 2018
The impression it left on me, a strong supporter of the meeting, is that “something is not right here.” The president went out of his way to appear subordinate. He spoke more like the head of a vassal state.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 19, 2018
Perhaps it was just the president showing insecurity, once again, over the legitimacy of his election. Perhaps it was a sign of a more troubling entanglement with Putin. Whatever the case, the press conference was counterproductive to the goal of improving relations.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 19, 2018
Even the president ultimately recognized that the press conference did not go well, as he tried to correct his remarks that exonerated Russia. Oddly, it took him more than a day to do so. One wonders why the White House didn’t act more quickly if it were simply a misstatement.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 19, 2018
