“Make no mistake, the viewpoints held by Biden and the Democratic Party are far, far to the left of the viewpoints held by Justin Amash,” says Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina congressman and the only other anti-Trump voice inside the Freedom Caucus. “This is a no-man’s land Justin lives in. He doesn’t think Trump belongs in office. But why would he want to throw the election to the Democrats? Think about the Supreme Court. Think about regulation. Think about these issues he really cares about. That makes no sense, either.”

To understand Amash’s motives for running, his allies say, one must accept that he views any other outcome—be it a Trump victory or a Biden victory—as disastrous. It’s undeniably difficult to fathom how someone who views the president as a menace to the Constitution could see the man running against him as an equally existential threat. And yet, this is exactly who Amash is: someone who sees no real difference between the two parties, someone who feels stung by failing to change the trajectory of his former party, someone who is no longer a Republican but certainly not a Democrat.

“Personally, I think there’s a huge difference between Trump and Biden. But not Justin,” says Raul Labrador, the retired Idaho congressman who was Amash’s closest friend on Capitol Hill. “People must be surprised to realize that Justin would rather see a Trump presidency than a Biden presidency, even it’s a 51/49 proposition.”

On Wednesday evening, I spoke with Amash about playing spoiler, the state of the two-party system and whether Trump’s Republican Party is beyond salvaging. The conversation below is edited for length and clarity.



***

TIM ALBERTA: If you wanted to be president, wouldn’t you have been better off staying in the Republican Party and challenging Donald Trump in a primary, mano a mano?

JUSTIN AMASH: Maybe, but I had no plans on staying in the Republican Party. I was not happy with the Republican Party as I’ve made pretty clear. And I don’t think the Republican Party is going to change anytime in the near future. It’s changed its identity over the past few years and I really don’t feel like it’s a home for people who believe in classical liberalism, or what many would call constitutional conservatism. I think it’s a place now for nationalism and protectionism—it’s a place for Trump, basically.

ALBERTA: Do you feel like the Republican Party is beyond salvaging at this point? And is that going to be part of your message to voters? Or do you think this is a phenomenon that only lasts as long as Trump?

AMASH: No, it doesn’t last only as long as Trump, that’s for sure. Is it beyond salvaging? I can’t speak to the very long run, like what will the party look like in 20 years. If you’re talking about the next decade or so, it’s going to look very much like this party. I don’t think you can underestimate the type of revolution that’s happened in the Republican Party. And it’s not even a revolution of principles; it’s a revolution of tone. The tone has largely supplanted principles.

There are Republicans who agree with me on the principles—many, many Republicans. But even among many of those Republicans, when you go online—I’m talking about talking heads and politicians, for example—you find that they have adopted the president’s style. And style and tone are very much a part of who you are. I don’t think you can separate them from your politics and say, ‘Well, my policies are good, but I’m going to be a jerk to everyone and be rude to everyone and harass people and ridicule people,’ which is largely the style under Trump. I think you’re stuck with that for a while. And that’s not me. Everyone says some things in their life that they regret, but it has become a culture in the Republican Party. And it’s very dangerous.

ALBERTA: You once joked to me that there’s really no difference between John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi. And I’m curious if that same thinking applies to your decision to run for president. What’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats? What’s the difference between a President Trump and a President Biden?

AMASH: Well, there are differences in tone between President Trump and a potential President Biden. But I don’t think that there are differences in the parties to the extent that people think there are. When you get on the wrong side of people on the left, a lot of it sounds like things I hear from people on the right. I mean, it’s very similar. Everyone wants to immunize themselves and say that the other side is so terrible and our side is so good, and that’s just not true. There are differences in degrees, but they’re not that different in kind.

That’s what created Trump. And I think people keep misidentifying the problem. What they don’t recognize is that he’s a creature of this system where everyone is hyperpartisan and hates each other and where they’re told repeatedly, ‘If you don’t vote for our party nominee, you are selling out your family, your friends, your country to these people who want to destroy it.’ And that’s what both sides are told. The Democrats are told that and the Republicans are told that, and we got Trump precisely because people were told, ‘You must vote for him or else. Don’t worry about the fact that he’s bad. Just vote for him. He’ll be better than the other side.’

And now, we’re hearing the same thing from the Democrats. ‘Don’t worry about any concerns you have about Biden. He has to beat Trump. That’s the most important thing. Everyone just keep your mouth shut. Yeah, he’s got a lot of issues. He’s got a lot of problems. We don’t like everything about them, but we’re going to support him because he’s better than Trump.’ This mentality is really dangerous. And we need to fight it. I don’t believe most Americans hold those views. I spend a lot of time talking to regular people. Most Americans are not partisans like that.

What you see on Twitter and Facebook and in the halls of Congress and at White House press conferences is not America. Most people are actually pretty kind, compassionate, they are not superpartisan. They’re not superangry about people who have different views. They don’t have a lot of choices right now because they’re stuck with these two parties. And we’ve let a small group in each party control the entire system and tell us who’s going to be our president, who are going to be our elected officials. And we have to challenge that. And I want to lead that effort right now.

ALBERTA: But OK, to play devil’s advocate—

AMASH: You always do.

ALBERTA: This zero-sum partisanship you’re describing in both parties, doesn’t it feel apples-to-oranges given that you yourself voted to impeach this president? And given that there’s a sense among many people, not just partisan opponents, that defeating this president at all costs is the priority come November?

AMASH: Oh, don’t get me wrong. As I said before, I think that from a personality standpoint, I’d take Biden. I think Biden is a better person than the president—I mean, by all appearances at least. I can’t speak to his personal life or any of that, but he seems to be a better person. But I don’t think the differences between the parties are as stark as people make them out to be in terms of tone and approach.

ALBERTA: You say they’re not that different in style and in tone, but what about in substance?

AMASH: Well, both parties when it comes to the major issues follow the same line. And you saw some of that theater with the coronavirus relief packages, right? Where each side says, ‘Oh, we really need this.’ And the other side says, ‘No, we want that.’ And at the end of the day, they basically aren’t that far off from each other. Even at the beginning of the negotiation, they pretend like they’re really far off from each other. But basically, they have the system in mind where you’d have the Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve handing out cash to the biggest corporations and taking care of the people who are well-connected and you’d have a more convoluted system for everyone else.

And part of the reason they make the system so convoluted is so that they can each get pats on the back from their respective constituencies. ‘Thank you for the thing you did specifically for farmers. Thank you for the thing that you specifically did for airline workers. Thank you for the thing that you specifically did for truckers.’ If they did something like, let’s just send everyone some money, direct cash payments, as I suggested, universal monthly cash relief, there’s only one constituency for that. That’s the entire public. And they’re not getting much out of that in terms of politics. But when they each can go back and say, ‘Hey, I got something from the labor unions,’ and someone else says, ‘I got something for the farmers,’ that’s when they’re winning a political point. That’s the bottom line for what goes on in Washington. It’s pretty sad. And we need a president who will stand up to it and expose it.