{"id":1313676,"date":"2019-08-18T19:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T01:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/will-column-amashs-independence-shows-voters-they-dont-have-to-settle-for-binary-choice\/"},"modified":"2019-08-18T19:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T01:48:00","slug":"will-column-amashs-independence-shows-voters-they-dont-have-to-settle-for-binary-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/will-column-amashs-independence-shows-voters-they-dont-have-to-settle-for-binary-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Will column: Amash\u2019s independence shows voters they don\u2019t have to settle for binary choice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan \u2014 It is difficult to discourage and impossible to manage Justin Amash because he, unusual among politicians, does not want much and wants nothing inordinately. He would like to win a sixth term as congressman from this culturally distinctive slice of the Midwest. He does not, however, want it enough to remain in today\u2019s Republican Party, which he has left because that neighborhood has become blighted. Amash, 39, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, also has left that once-admirable faction because he does not define freedom as it now does, as devotion to the 45th president.<\/p>\n

He is running as an independent, which might accomplish two admirable things: It might demonstrate that voters need not invariably settle for a sterile binary choice. And it might complicate Donald Trump\u2019s task of again winning Michigan\u2019s 16 electoral votes, which he did in 2016 by just 0.2 percentage points.<\/p>\n

With a city named Holland and a college named for John Calvin, West Michigan\u2019s culture reflects its settlement by Dutch Americans, who set about vindicating Max Weber\u2019s connection between the \u201cProtestant ethic\u201d and the \u201cspirit of capitalism,\u201d a spirit incubated in 17th and 18th century Amsterdam. Distinguished Michigan denizens of Dutch descent have included Peter De Vries, America\u2019s wittiest novelist.<\/p>\n

Local Christian schools drummed into Amash and other young sinners fear of a particular moral failing: pride. His one-word description of his constituents \u2014 \u201cmodest\u201d \u2014 suggests an aversion to vanity, vulgarity and ostentation that has an obvious pertinence to the leader of Amash\u2019s former party. Amash compares West Michiganders \u2014 culturally, not theologically \u2014 to Mormons. Donald Trump carried 16 states by larger margins than he carried Utah, and won only 51.6% in Amash\u2019s district, which traditionally has been the epicenter of Michigan Republicanism. \u201cI think,\u201d Amash says dryly, \u201cthe Trump people are confounded by this area,\u201d where Trump held his final 2016 rally.<\/p>\n

A few hours after Amash declared his independence from the husk of the Republican Party, he marched in several Independence Day parades where \u201cI got an overwhelmingly positive feeling.\u201d This might indicate increased negative feelings about Trump, who carried Michigan by just 10,704 votes out of 4,799,284.<\/p>\n

In Amash\u2019s single term in the state legislature, he cast the only \u201cno\u201d vote on more than 70 measures. In 2013, he had the gumption to vote against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act for no better reason than that there was no reason for it, and it was inimical to federalism: It \u201ccreated new federal crimes to mirror crimes already on the books in every state.\u201d His average margin of victory in four reelection contests has been 15.1 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Amash, the son of a Palestinian refugee who arrived in West Michigan in 1956, is philosophically unlike Grand Rapids\u2019 most famous son, whose philosophic interests were few and did not include Amash\u2019s favorite Austrian economists (Von Mises, Hayek). Amash, however, shares Gerald Ford\u2019s devotion to the idea, if not the actuality, of Congress. Ford\u2019s pipe, loud sport coats, decency and legislative seriousness validate a famous judgment: \u201cThe past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presently, Congress is rarely a legislative, let alone a deliberative, body. Two years ago, when Republicans controlled the House, a Republican congressman defended a committee chairman accused of excessive subservience to the president by saying: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to keep in mind who he works for. He works for the president. He answers to the president.\u201d Pathetic.<\/p>\n

Because congressional leaders live in terror of spontaneity among the led, hearings designed to generate publicity are tightly scripted, which is why, Amash says, such hearings are \u201can elaborate form of performance art\u201d and members \u201coften look as though they are asking questions they do not understand.\u201d Congressional leaders\u2019 stern message to potentially unmanageable members is to pipe down and \u201clive to fight [for spending restraint, entitlement reform, open House processes, etc.] another day.\u201d Amash\u2019s campaign slogan should be: \u201cVote for someone who is as disgusted with Congress as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Libertarian Party might ask Amash to take his \u2014 actually, it\u2019s the Founders\u2019 \u2014 message to the nation as the party\u2019s presidential nominee. He does not seek this \u2014 he has three young children \u2014 but does not summarily spurn the idea of offering temperate voters a choice of something other than a choice between bossy progressivism and populist Caesarism. Or he could become the first non-Republican the Grand Rapids area has sent to Congress since 1974.<\/p>\n

George Will\u2019s email address is georgewill@washpost.com<\/a>. (c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan \u2014 It is difficult to discourage and impossible to manage Justin Amash because he, unusual among politicians, does not want much and wants nothing inordinately. He would like to win a sixth term as congressman from this culturally distinctive slice of the Midwest. He does not, however, want it enough to remain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1313676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 05:29:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}