Three Cheers for Justin Amash; Seeing the Two Centers

Amash putting himself forward for House Speaker took guts. It's a step to seeing the reality of our political spectrum: There's the establishment center and the anti-establishment center.

Former Rep. Justin Amash — who quit the Republican Party and lost a valuable committee assignment in 2019 and then decided not to seek reelection in 2020 — has put himself forward as a possible House Speaker.

---

One of my favorite movies is “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. I especially love the scene when R.P. McMurphy, played by the lanky Jack Nicholson, tries to break out of the insane asylum overseen by the draconian Nurse Ratched by picking up a huge sink, hoping to smash it through a window and escape. But strain as he might, he can’t lift it.

He’s mocked by other inmates for trying to breakout.

Spoiler: The film ends with the beefy "Chief" Bromden, played by Will Sampson, executing McMurphy’s plan. He is able to lift the huge sink, put it through the large window — and be free.

Justin Amash seems to want to be smashing through the confines of our current duopoly. It’s of course doubtful that he’s got the strength to do it. And he’ll be mocked by those who view their perpetual partisan chains in the Congressional asylum as good or normal. But it is a very interesting use of jujitsu against the system as it obsesses over the Speakership and Amash makes a compelling case:

One of his points is that he wants to work with people across the political spectrum and that people of various views should be able to introduce legislation. Pelosi and her ilk have effectively restricted such capacities with how they have run the House.

There’s a deeper current going on here, however.

We have two political centers.

Amash stepped into all the sound and fury of the Speakership contest and has made it signify something.

Perhaps something profound if we think it through. 

We are effectively governed by a Biden-McConnell axis. We need a Kucinich-Ron Paul axis. What Amash is doing is a step there. Or could be.

I don’t use these names to idealize any of these individuals, and others could be cited, like Cynthia McKinney. Rather, they are all former officeholders who at least somewhat personify different strains of US politics whatever their limitations might be.

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul — clearly one from the left and one from the right — basically agree on war and peace, civil liberties, trade deals and much else. This largely represents the anti-establishment center.

They are opposed by the establishment center: Biden-McConnell are on the other side of those and many other issues.

In mainstream media discourse — and even in more independent quarters — “the center” means the establishment center.

It’s a lie. A Big Lie.

There are anti-establishment tendencies that keep rising up.

See my piece from 2013: “The Perennially ‘Unusual’ Yet Somehow Ubiquitous Left-Right Alliance: Towards Acknowledging an Anti-Establishment Center.”

On NSA spying, on the war in Syria, on the war in Afghanistan, on education policy, on TPP, on environment/fossil fuel subsidies, on big business control of media, on education and much else you have the anti-establishment center vs the establishment center. And each time it comes up, it’s treated as a novelty.

The possibility of the left and right coming together has long worried the establishment. Sen. Lindsey Graham commented back in 2010: "You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left." 

“Unholy”.

To the corrupt warden, those seeking freedom are heretics.

And massive institutions have been set up to prevent any such move. It’s the point of MSNBC and FNC blaring derision at each other so neighbors can't talk while the likes of Biden and McConnell cut deals for big monied interests for decades on end.

That’s part of what makes the House Speakership so important. The way Pelosi has managed it has restricted what can be meaningfully addressed, what can be voted on and what alliances can effectively be formed.

There are sensible things that some rightwing members of Congress say they want to do right now: Seriously investigate pandemic origins. Cut funding for the Ukraine war.

There are serious people on the left who agree with that, though they might not be adequately represented in Congress.

In fact, despite all the attempts to prevent the manifestation of an anti-establishment center from manifesting itself, last year the House passed the Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act in a 417-8 vote. The Hill reported: “Some of the most liberal and conservative members of the House voted against the bill: Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas).”

Eight members are of course a tiny minority. But such votes are a manifestation of the possibility of a mass realignment of US politics.

While the establishment engages in bipartisan corruption, the anti-establishment needs to propel transpartisan dialogue. (And the establishment would like nothing better than anti-establishment forces to, perhaps in frustration, become parodies of themselves, pursuing ridiculous goals.)

If Amash’s move helps foster some constructive left-right dialogue, that would be remarkable. There are likely agreements between people which we don’t understand now. Even beyond libertarians, there are religious people who are forever trapped in a Republican Party that doesn’t actually care for life or peace. There are “progressives” who have effectively forever enslaved themselves in a Democratic Party that idolizes the CIA.

Few note the patterns and possibilities of left-right dialogue and alliances because doing so might alter our world view and show us that another world is possible. One beyond prison walls.

Sam Husseini is founder of @votepact which encourages cooperation between the left and right.