Justin Amash: A Libertarian Voice of Reason within the House GOP

[Newenglanddeac]

Justin Amash Emerges as Leading Critic of Fellow Republican Donald Trump

The libertarian congressman uses Twitter to challenge and taunt the president



Mr. Amash says his opposition is based on principle, as a libertarian concerned about government overreach and adherence to the Constitution. While many Republican lawmakers hold similar beliefs, Mr. Amash has been an especially outspoken proponent of smaller government, even on issues—such as reducing surveillance—where his views put him out of step with the more mainstream elements of the GOP.


“To me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Republican in the White House or a Democrat in the White House. I have a duty to defend liberty, defend the rule of law and protect the rights of all of my constituents,” said Mr. Amash

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justin...-of-fellow-republican-donald-trump-1487599201

 

[MysteryMen]

It's sad to me that this is even a story.

WSJ: "Congressman sticks to his principles rather than shamelessly flip-flopping positions when the administration changes"

 

[Deacfreak07]

An actual libertarian. I wonder if he knows knowell?

 

[PhDeac]

An actual libertarian. I wonder if he knows knowell?

I doubt he would admit it if he did.

 

[Strickland33]

Justin Amash Emerges as Leading Critic of Fellow Republican Donald Trump

The libertarian congressman uses Twitter to challenge and taunt the president



Mr. Amash says his opposition is based on principle, as a libertarian concerned about government overreach and adherence to the Constitution. While many Republican lawmakers hold similar beliefs, Mr. Amash has been an especially outspoken proponent of smaller government, even on issues—such as reducing surveillance—where his views put him out of step with the more mainstream elements of the GOP.


“To me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Republican in the White House or a Democrat in the White House. I have a duty to defend liberty, defend the rule of law and protect the rights of all of my constituents,” said Mr. Amash

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justin...-of-fellow-republican-donald-trump-1487599201

This reminds me of http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-want-to-hear-another-fucking-word-about-john-mcc-1792493680:

John McCain—the original Maverick, ol’ Walnuts, the brave teller of truths—is somehow once again positioning himself, to credulous journalists, as a renegade Republican who isn’t afraid to buck his party, despite his three-decade record of not ever actually bucking his party in any meaningful way.

“John McCain just systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s entire worldview,” the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake says of a speech McCain gave in Munich, in which he didn’t mention the president, whose cabinet he has largely voted to confirm.

And now here comes the New York magazine profile, by Gabriel Sherman:

A more accurate way of phrasing “(ambivalently, agonizingly) taking on the president” might be “not actually taking on the president.” McCain has supported every one of Trump’s nominees besides one: budget director Mick Mulvaney, who lost McCain’s support because he has supported defense budget cuts. McCain’s sole inviolable principle is that we must spend an unlimited amount of money on war with everyone forever.

Ever since his longtime aide and ghostwriter Mark Salter wholly invented McCain’s “maverick” persona from whole cloth in the late 1990s, the sum total of McCain’s record of brave or maverick-y actions consists of “giving good quote to reporters.” That’s it.

In 2008, the press mostly, finally fell out of love with McCain, in part because he was running against Barack Obama, but also because it became painfully clear that McCain was and always had been a mostly unremarkable party-line Republican, whose obvious discomfort with the far-right was not actually supported by the backbone necessary to challenge the far-right. Now, with a deranged Republican president and a wholly Republican Congress, McCain will once again try to paint himself as a voice of reason and a courageous truth-teller, while not actually doing anything.

Most of the political press is amnesiac and sycophantic enough to fall for it again, but it is obvious at this point in his long career that Senator John McCain is not going to “fight” Trump. He’s going to say various anti-Trump things, on TV and to reporters, while never using his very real power as a senior Republican senator to interrupt the implementation of Trump’s, and his party’s, eschatological agenda.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

I doubt he would admit it if he did.

No true libertarian