Justin Amash is a Profile in Courage

If there is a profile in courage in American politics it is Michigan Republican Congressman Justin Amash who today took to Twitter and threw down the impeachment gauntlet against President Trump in a series of tweets. He began with his four conclusions of The Mueller Report:

1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.

2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.

3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.

4. Few members of Congress have read the report.

In so doing, Amash has gone further than any member of the Democratic Party's leadership. At the very minimum, he has rendered it virtually impossible for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to initiate impeachment hearings. 

Amash has also made himself a marked man and a pariah. Of course, Amash has long been a critic of Trump. But now the White House and the Republican National Committee will see to it that Amash gets a primary challenger. If such a challenge were to succeed then Amash's political career would effectively be over. Perhaps Amash could make a White House bid under the Libertarian Party banner  which the Libertarians very much want him to do. But it would be a quixotic undertaking. The most he could hope for would be that his appearance on the ballot would be sufficient to make Trump lose Michigan and render him a one term President. Should this come to pass, Amash would be public enemy number one among conservatives while liberals, with a Democrat back in the White House, would have no further use for him apart from the Kennedy family bestowing him with the Profile in Courage Award.

Award or no award, Justin Amash is a profile in courage. Here is an elected official willing to sacrifice his ambitions in an effort to stop the madness and our rush towards authoritarianism with no guarantee of success. If this isn't an act of American political courage then nothing is.