Peter Meijer was one of ten House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” for his actions and inactions related to the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. A Michigan moderate little known outside his district, the then-33-year-old had been a member of Congress for just ten days when he cast his vote. Meijer saw his impeachment vote as a moral imperative, yet knew that by casting it, he may have doomed his political career. When ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos asked as much, he replied, “I may very well have.” He was right. He didn’t survive his next party primary. Many lauded Meijer for his political bravery—the quality that Senator John F. Kennedy described in his 1956 book, Profiles in Courage. “In no other occupation but politics,” the future 35th president wrote, “is it expected that a man will sacrifice honors, prestige, and his chosen career on a single issue.” But in Congress, courage like Meijer’s is often ephemeral, as we’ve seen. The night of the insurrection, after the Senate had reconvened to certify Joe Biden’s election as president, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham spoke forcefully from the Senate floor, pillorying President Donald Trump for what he had done to encourage the rioters and for arguing that he had won the 2020 election long after a slew of courts had concluded otherwise. Soon after, though, McConnell traveled to Mar-a-Lago to make peace with Trump, and Graham, who died this summer, emerged as one of his most vocal supporters. To understand true political courage and why it is in short supply today, I asked four current and former House members—Republican and Democrat—for guidance. They agree on little. But on this matter, they’re aligned with Trey Gowdy, a Fox News host and former four-term House Republican from South Carolina: “The number of Sir Thomas More moments that happened in Congress [while I was there], I don’t remember them.” Tom Suozzi is a fourth-term U.S. representative from a New York swing district who describes himself as “a Democrat, a true-blue Democrat, but also a true-blue American.” He was one of six House Democrats to cross party lines and vote with Republicans in November to end the 43-day federal government shutdown. Suozzi said he did it because the two parties were stalemated over health care, the Democrats’ position on the issue was already clear to voters, and… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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