
Henry Olsen says Justin Amash Acts Like a Typical Democrat Because . . .
Welcome to Crazytown, USA.
The Atlanticās Conor Friedersdorf acknowledges that Justin Amashās lonely stand may not lead to Donald Trumpās impeachment. āBut the nature of it,ā he wrote, āforces conservative Trump voters to make a clarifying choice: To stay loyal to a president of bad character, they must attack a man of good character who votes in accordance with the principles they share.ā
As if on cue, the Ethics and Public Policy Centerās Henry Olsen accepted the challenge.
Olsen took to the pages of the Washington Post to argue that Amashās break with Trump was overblown because Amash is āneither unbiased nor a typical Republican.ā
Well, yes, we knew that, right? Amash is ābiased,ā because he has a point of view. And he is surely not a ātypical Republican,ā or he would be hiding in the tall grass with his colleagues.
Olsenās point, however, is that Amash is an apostate, who has defected to the other side. Indeed, Olsen writes, the conservative Michigan congressman is really āmore like a typical Democratā because he opposed so many of Trumpās policies, including āthe dramatic increase in government spending that Trump has sanctioned,ā and his ātariffs and trade policies.ā
Eyes rolled. As CNN congressional reporter Haley Byrd (who has profiled Amash) tweeted:


The reality is that Amash is one of Congressās few consistent conservativesāheās a libertarian who is respected by members of both parties for his principles, which bear not the slightest resemblance to the Democratic platform.
But Olsen tries to question Amashās credibility by noting that Amash often splits with his Republican colleagues. He then quotes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as saying that Amash āvotes more with Nancy Pelosi than he ever votes with me.ā
McCarthyās charge is simply not true. According to FiveThirtyEightās congressional tracker, Amash voted with Trumpās position 54 percent in the 115th Congress and (so far) 92 percent in the 116th Congress. He votes with McCarthy 69 percent of the time. Yet Olsen parrots his line with total credulity and does not correct the record. Perhaps because, as Olsen argues, loyalty to GOP these days is not measured by votes, but by pledged fealty.
And on this point, Olsen has been consistent, if disingenuous. In January, when newly-elected senator Mitt Romney penned an op-ed questioning Donald Trumpās character, Olsen lashed back with a piece headlined āMitt Romneyās op-ed crystallizes all the reasons the old GOP establishment has been pushed aside.ā (Because, of course, it was the belief that character counted that was the GOPās fatal flaw. Or at least that is what Olsen argued.) He wrote:
Romney would like you to believe you can have your cake and eat it, tooāthat you can be against Trumpās character but for his policies. But that doesnāt work in the real world. Railing about character hurts the president, and Republicans know that.
It was a revealing moment in late-stage Trumpism. Olsen was providing intellectual cover to the argument that no criticism of Trump from the right should be tolerated. If you supported Trumpās policies, then you had to be silent about all the restāthe lies, the grift, the potentially illegal conduct. Everything.
In Olsenās circular logic, any criticism of Trump is, by definition, an act of disloyalty to the GOP, and therefore none of it constitutes legitimate Republican dissent. To dissent is to betray.
And what exactly was Amashās betrayal? He took the details of the Mueller report seriously.
Olsen makes no attempt to refute any of Amashās argument that Trump may have obstructed justice, except to accuse him of prejudging Trumpās guilt by calling for an impeachment inquiry. What really miffs Olsen, though, is that Amash is getting so much attention:
Partisan pundits and Never Trump Republicans have latched on to Amashās stance as a way to promote their unwavering agendaāthe removal of Trump from office. But thereās no reason to think Amashās decision represents anything more than what it plainly is: a decision by an ideologue who uses his review of the Mueller report to come to a conclusion he had already reachedāthat Trump is bad for America and needs to go.
And here we come to Olsenās piĆØce de rĆ©sistance:
In this, if in little else, Amash has much in common with the progressive āresistance.ā Each believes their ideological ends justifies the means, no matter how divisive impeachment would be for the nation at large.
Letās unpack the attempt at logic here. Amash is now the equivalent of AOC because he thinks that āideological ends justify the meansā?
But, isnāt this exactly what Olsen has been plumping for? An ends-justify-the-means ethos in which it is bad form for Romney, or Amash, or any Republican to express qualms about Trumpās character, ethics, or the legality of his conduct because . . . judges, tax cuts, immigration, etc.?
Isnāt that the whole point of Olsenās insistence that Republicans cannot āhave their cake and eat it tooā? And isnāt it Olsen who argues that you have to break some eggs to make the Trumpian omelet?
In contrast, Amash struck a different note at this weekās townhall meeting. Hereās what he said:
Think about how well things are going with the economy and people are still so mad. Why is that? . . . I think itās because of the tone weāre setting at the top. Weāre not treating one another with respect. We need to bring that back. We need to treat one another with love and respect. And we donāt have that right now. If thereās one thing that I pray and hope for our country itās that weāll love each other and care about each other regardless of our backgrounds and differences.
This kind of division is dangerous and it destroys liberty.
Iām a big believer in liberty and the Constitution. Nobody cares about liberty in Congress more than I do. One thing you see around the world is liberty cannot survive in a system where people hate each other and where there is no virtue. You canāt have a system like that. Our Founders and Framers talked about that. You have to have people who care about virtue and you have to have love. So yes, as Friedersdorf suggests, we do indeed have a clarifying choice to make.