The Trump Loyalist Who’s Challenging Peter Meijer in Michigan

Meijer represents his district’s long tradition of moderate conservatism, but John Gibbs is getting help from Trump—and the DCCC.

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GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan—“Father, I just pray that you rain down fire on Peter Meijer’s campaign.”

It was Thursday evening, and Zach Lahring was praying for John Gibbs, the Donald Trump-endorsed challenger to Rep. Peter Meijer in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District. Just days into his tenure in office in January 2021, Meijer was one of only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

About four dozen people gathered to support Gibbs in Muskegon on Thursday at the Barclay Place Event Center. After Lahring, the county GOP chair, finished his prayer, the attendees all stood for the Pledge of Allegiance before rising from their seats again moments later to give Gibbs a standing ovation.

Gibbs proceeded to walk the audience through the highlights of his biography: earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford and studying abroad in Japan, working for Palm and Apple in Silicon Valley, returning to Japan as an evangelical missionary, taking on the libs in the classrooms of Harvard’s Kennedy School while getting his master’s in public administration, and working at a high level in the Trump administration—mostly under Ben Carson at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Rajeev

    Bring back Justin Amash. The rare congressman that actually was willing to stand by principles regardless of application.

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    Pat Riot

    Unless Pete Meijer:

    1. Says he will not support Kevin McCarthy or his GOP equivalent for Speaker...

    2. Says he will not vote to kill the 1/6 committee and start a new investigation to go after the 1/6 investigators, as McCarthy promised...

    3. Says he will not support Kevin McCarthy's promised "revenge impeachments" of Biden...

    4. Vows to support somebody else should Trump win the GOP nomination...

    Then he will be functionality no different than a "full MAGA" candidate. All that matters is *votes* on the House floor, not somebody's "style" that "doesn't feel like Trump" or whatever.

    ***

    In this interview Peter Meijer implies that he *must* support Trump because (wait for it) Democrats made him do it!

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/2/rep-peter-meijer-says-gop-has-no-option-support-tr/

    ***

    Democrats are absolutely correct in trying to beat all Republicans, and trying to beat *dishonest* Republicans like Peter Meijer who will simply pretend to be anti-Trump long enough to get elected.

    Most Republicans were openly anti-Trump on 1/7. Then they all slowly came back home to Trump. Peter Meijer was just a little slower by a few weeks.


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    1. Avatar photo
      Kevin M. James

      You may have forgotten that he voted to impeach Trump.

      At any rate...the question is not whether you prefer Democrats or Republicans. We know the answer to that.

      Nor is it whether there should be any Republicans in Congress or not. There are over two hundred of them in the House and well over forty in the Senate, and there will continue to be at least as many as that after November under any plausible contingency whatsoever.

      The question is whether it is better to have more of those two-hundred-plus be Meijers or Gibbses; whether it is better to have more of those forty-plus be O'Deas or Hankses.

      The DCCC and other important actors on the blue side have voted with their dollars in favor of more Gibbses and Hankses.

      They richly deserve to get what they want...but our country doesn't, which is one of many reasons why I hope they fail.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Pat Riot

        Yes, and you might remember that lawyer who testified in the 1/6 hearings that Trump was an imminent danger to the USA--and then said he'd support Trump if he were the nominee. Or that the former Vice-president Trump tried to hang saying he'd support Trump too. Or basically any Republican politician who doesn't want the Cheney treatment.

        The DCCC is trying to save the country by trying to win the majority in the House.

        There is absolutely no functional difference between Meijer and his opponent. Both will lead to the exact same place from the standpoint of real, official policy.

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          Kevin M. James

          You can't possibly believe that a House of Representatives with a hundred Peter Meijers and Jaime Herrera Beutlers would be functionally indistinguishable from a House with a hundred John Gibbses and Marjorie Taylor Greenes.

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            Pat Riot

            Oh sure I can. I can also imagine a Senate with 50 Mitt Romneys. Maybe all the GOP presidential candidates being Ronald Reagan. Or George Washington.

            Back here on Earth-1 every single House Republican will vote for McCarthy for Speaker and McCarthy will execute his plan to rehabilitate Trump and smear the 1/6 committee and every single GOP House member will support it.

            There won't be 100 Peter Meijers, there will be *one*--all of the others who voted to impeach have either quit or lost their primary or are about to.

            Most House members don't have a famous name like Cheney or have a family worth $6 billion to support them. There's no way they can stand up to Trump, so they don't.

            If the GOP wins the majority in the House, the 1/6 committee will be disbanded and every investigator will be called before the House, they will be put in more danger like Cassidy Hutchison, etc. And at the end of it all of Trump's negative PR from the 1/6 hearings will be nullified among the GOP voting base and they will be ready for Trump again.

            Democrats should do *anything* they can do stop this.



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          2. Avatar photo
            Emily

            The narrative of the irredeemably evil Republican is pervasive and it has caught on. Scan the Washington post on any given Sunday and drink a shot every time you encounter these words in proximity “republican”, “threat to democracy”, “white supremacist” and “criminal”. You’ll be passed out before lunch.

            It has become broadly accepted that one whole political party (and everyone who supports it) is a criminal threat to democracy, and if you read mainstream media you get steady reinforcement of this idea. Speaking of threats to democracy, I’m not sure how we get through this. Under this precept, I don’t have to listen to republican points of view because they are a threat to democracy. I don’t have to give any individual republican politician or voter a platform to discuss those views - in fact I must not - because they are ALL a threat to democracy. And criminal. And white supremacist.

            I’m not sure where to go from here. It is the purest black and white thinking, everyone painted with the same brushstroke, and I’m seeing it more and more.

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      2. Avatar photo
        Emily

        Totally agree.

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    Kip McCune

    I'm on the opposite side of the state but I'd love it if we had a candidate like Meijer to vote for in SE Michigan.

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  4. Lee

    We've actually got a couple of good, sensible, moderate politicians in our neck of the woods here in southern Michigan. Meijer is good, and here in my home district we now have Elissa Slotkin, who I think is about as reasonable a Democrat as can be found. Best of luck to them both. We need voices of reason like theirs now more than ever.

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    Greg Williams

    "Regardless of the outcome, Tuesday’s election will teach us a lot."

    I think elections like this one are a good barometer of how fast the fundamental idea that "all politics are local" is giving way to big money national influences. If that trend continues it's a sad day for one of the fundamental pillars of American democracy.

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    David Eggleston

    As if there weren’t enough Democratic incumbents who need that money. What a shame.

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  7. AU_88

    “Father, I just pray that you rain down fire on Peter Meijer’s campaign.”

    These are not Christians.

    They are vermin.

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  8. Alan

    Oh no, not the Evil DCCC using their generally ineffective, money to explain to voters exactly who a candidate is, and how crazy they are! How are the poor agency-less sheeple republican voters going to be able to make a decision to not elect a crazy person in the face of....advertising....

    Seriously continuing to talk about how Democrats are running these ads is just wishcasting to not have to say "the problem is that our voters want the crazy people, and if we alienate the crazies there will be no party left and our ideas (the non trump conservative ideas) will lose Oh No!"

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ryne Click

      While I agree with a lot of your point, I am more in the Charlie Cooke’s camp on this one. You can’t simultaneously say that the trump wing of the party is a threat to the democracy while dumping millions into races with the hopes of getting a more favorable candidate. Meijer’s district is +3 Republican. In 22, that’s probably more like +10. Democrats are delusional thinking these bank shots are going to save the house. And if it’s some cunning ploy to make the party more trumpy for future elections, God help us all.

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      1. Alan

        Ir hmmm maybe your party should abandon candidates after primaries if they are whackos? Dems did it in Utah when they backed Ed McMullen. MYbe if the outcome of the primary is MTG just sit on the sidelines and watch them burn instead of sending down the A team (like they are doing in Florida). That’s the big issue. Republicans want trump and his ideology gone but do t want to suffer losses in the interim.

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          Ryne Click

          First, not a Republican. Voted Democratic pretty much my entire life, but have spent the last four years lamenting over the absurdity that has befallen both parties for the last four years to the point where I’m politically homeless. And again, I agree with you. It’s cowardice and cynicism that the repubs don’t abandoned MTG like the did Cawthorne. But I also think the democrats (and media) should think long and hard about what they’re doing here. I’ve listened to the pearl clutching for four years about “platforming trump” and yet there’s little thought about stoping the practice so long as it serves their political interests

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  9. Victoria B

    I live across the state but am rooting for Peter Meijer. I also don’t understand how the DeVos family can support both Meijer and Tudor Dixon.

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    1. Richard Kennedy

      To read the story above, I’d say that GR elites see things a particular way for purposes of the Holy City and environs (forgive me, I also live in southeast Michigan, formerly known as Babylon). DeVoses are the only ones to go public. A max personal donation (I’m assuming here) for a local candidate of a peer family as anonymous as possible, but public support and backing of their true sentiments politically.
      I’ll ask you Victoria, who on the Michigan GOP ballot is an acceptable statewide candidate? I can’t even stomach the two guys keeping mum about their intentions except against each other vying for the privilege of being slaughtered by either Levin or Stevens ( another delightful knife fight) in the new 11th where I am.

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      1. Victoria B

        I can’t think of any. It’s sad. Our state is a hot mess politically all the way around.

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        1. BMW

          I think the DeVos family backed Dixon while James Craig and Mike Brown were still in the race. Those guys seemed like decent candidates to me, or at the very least better than Dixon. IDK why the DeVos family chose Dixon; I think they had better options.

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      JR

      Yeah, Dixon and Meijer seems like an odd combination.

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    Aylene Wright

    So although Meijer's quotes here are rather diplomatic, he lays all the cards on the table in a Common Sense guest article here. Very Amash-y in his criticism of both parties.

    https://www.commonsense.news/p/why-the-democrats-are-funding-my?r=cfom&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

    Although I think that the explanations by Democrats that Meijer quotes aren't totally bogus, either. They are basically stating "The handful of Republicans bucking the crazy Trumpists don't really matter if the GOP as a whole are trending towards craziness. We *have* to do anything we can to fight and defeat that crazy institution, even if that means the few relatively good ones also go down, that's just collateral damage".

    It's certainly an understandable mentality if you see domestic politics as equal to total war. Taking covert action to replace a moderate politician in an enemy country, in favor of a crazy extremist more likely to make mistakes that denigrate the military capacity of the enemy, could likely be justified in some realpolitik analyses.

    Of course, I think treating domestic politics as war is ill-advised and runs the risk of actual political violence as moderates get displaced by extremists. But if you think that the ship has already sailed on that, then cutthroat tactics can be justified. But there's a definite "we have to destroy the village to save it" vibe that really disturbs me.

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      Kevin M. James

      I unwisely started reading the comment section below that article...what a crazed carnival that became. Looks like hundreds of MAGAites descended on it, for some reason or another...and almost no one else, leaving them speaking only to themselves in the end.

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      1. Gabej1989

        Kevin, it’s an abomination. I go so worked up I had to go for a walk.

        When someone is STILL claiming that the mob was unarmed, then I know there’s no hope for them. It’s probably the simplest, easiest little tiny fact to know by now.

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    2. Mathew A

      " think treating domestic politics as war is ill-advised and runs the risk of actual political violence as moderates get displaced by extremists."

      very much agreed.

      Also, if the Dems were really that concerned about winning, maybe try ditching the wacko's in their own party.

      I'm really tired of picking the lesser of two evil's. Can't we have a sane party.

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      1. Alan

        We are? We elected a pro police mayor in NYC, recalled progressive prosecutors in SF, and haven't let the other "nutjobs" have real power. What else do you want?

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        1. Mathew A

          "We elected a pro police mayor in NYC, recalled progressive prosecutors in SF"

          A very good start no doubt.


          "What else do you want?"

          A repudiation of child mutilation (gender surgery on kids). Same with puberty blockers that can cause infertility. Also stop putting men in women only places (see all the rape's occurring in CA women's prisons were they are putting men).

          Likewise stop pushing race essentialism that says the single most important thing you can know about someone is the color of their skin. Or that you are evil if you are white.

          Stop trying to get rid of meritocracy and gifted programs. Stop opposing school choice.


          Further down on the wish list, would be a return to fiscal sanity (the Republicans are almost as bad about this. They seem to really only care about debt when Dems are in charge).

          Ooh, and a cherry on the top might be to pass Chip Roy's bill that allowed for accountability for government employees so we could start firing all the bad and lazy ones. Or at least get them working.

          Oh, almost forgot stop trying to take away guns. I'm sure there's others, but that's a good start.

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          1. Alan

            Get rid of all the crazies that supported the storming of the capital after the poll numbers showed the base supported it and I'd be happy to do that. Problem is, if you did that you wouldn't have a party left.

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    3. Alan

      So what exactly is wrong with airing honest ads? Like if all I’m doing is making the crazy person more visible to the primary voters I’m not influencing them to vote for him am I? No, I’m just saying “hey here is a person you might want to vote for”. The problem is the voters

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        David Chen

        Because it is a PRIMARY.

        It is a highly unrepresentative group of voters in a broken system of picking candidates. Exacerbating the issue and deflecting blame on 'the voters' is like if they picked candidates by chimps and you stacked a bunch of bananas on top of one portrait.

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        1. Alan

          Right, but it’s not quite like that. Chimps like bananas. No one is telling voters to like crazy. It’s not inherently human to like crazy it’s a choice. No one is telling them crazy is good you totally should do this. They believe that of their own free will. The ads are just saying “this guy fits your preference best” it’s no different than those internet sites that try and match you to a candidate

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            David Chen

            I blame these people for voting for the lunatic as much as anyone, but everyone knows primary voters are a terrible electorate in every way. If MTG's district had the supreme power to pick the GOP nom for the presidency, it would still be stupidly reckless for the Dems to try to get MTG picked cause they think shes an easier opponent. If you know that pool of voters are filled with idiots, dont chum the idiots.

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