Constituents Already Beginning to Turn on Peter Meijer, Who Admits That Voting to Impeach Trump May Have Ruined His Political Career

It’s been two weeks since newly elected House member Peter Meijer (MI-03) took office, yet he has already managed to shoot himself in the foot and upset many of his constituents.

So much so that one could arguably start writing the epitaph on his political career right now.

Stephen Kokx, a writer and lifelong resident of Meijer’s district, recently spoke with Big League Politics about Meijer and his perception among the people who elected him.

Peter Meijer ran on the fact that he’s a veteran. Lots of patriots voted for him. Even though many conservatives in the 3rd district had suspicions he was a moderate, they bit their lip and supported him, trusting that he’d do the right thing in Washington,” Kokx said. “Fact is, Peter’s gone AWOL. He’s abandoned his unit. He backstabbed the everyday, hard-working Americans who voted for him.

According to Kokx, who is highly involved in West Michigan politics, some of Meijer’s constituents are already calling him a “traitor” and a “Benedict Arnold” after he voted to impeach President Donald Trump and blamed him for inciting the breach of the US Capitol earlier this month.

In fact, Meijer just publicly acknowledged that his vote to impeach the president may have cost him reelection. Speaking with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” Meijer said that despite this possibility, he thinks it’s important to have elected leaders “who are not thinking solely about what’s in their individual self-interest, not what is going to be politically expedient, but what we actually need for the country.

To many, Meijer’s actions do not come as a surprise. They bear out the perception of him as an insufficient supporter of the president and his agenda at best, and as a Never Trumper at worst. It was a concern that more than a few conservatives shared when he first announced his candidacy, and it was even highlighted in the local media during the primaries.

[The claim that Meijer is a Never Trumper has been] repeatedly raised in debates, TV advertisements and on social media. It popped again this week, when rival candidate state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, R-Grand Rapids Township, accused Meijer of lying about his past support of a veteran’s group that opposes Trump,” an MLive article from July 2020 said.

There are other misgivings that Meijer’s constituents have about him as well, many of which relate to his background.

For one, Peter’s father Hank is perhaps the richest man in Michigan. The Meijer family’s net worth, which comes from their ownership of a midwestern supermarket chain bearing their last name, is greater than that of the DeVos and Van Andel families. Forbes has even called Peter Meijer “one of America’s wealthiest politicians.”

Furthermore, photos taken from the 2016 reopening of the Cartier Mansion, a luxury jewelry and gift store located in Manhattan, show just one example of Meijer palling around with multimillionaires, models, actors, and other people whom Stephen Kokx calls “limousine liberals.”

Why is this significant? It confirms the perception that “he is […] woefully out of touch with the blue-collar values and working-class families of West Michigan,” Kokx said.

It should then come as no surprise that Meijer raised boatloads of money for his candidacy. Major backers included the uber-wealthy DeVos and Van Andel families, as well as Sheldon Adelson and Rep. Liz Cheney, the latter of whom voted to impeach the president alongside Meijer last week. To his more conservative constituents, Meijer is someone who essentially bought his office and will use it to serve the interests of his benefactors rather than those of the people who elected him.

As for his own campaign contributions, Meijer gave $5,000 to Jeb Bush’s now-defunct super PAC “Right to Rise” on January 7, 2015—one day after the creation of the PAC was announced by Bush himself. Bush and Trump, of course, were sparring partners and foils for one another throughout the early days of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

Meijer’s background not only raises some red flags, he also fails to understand the true nature of the struggle conservatives and patriots are in, Kokx claims.

Americans are under assault from Big Tech, China, social justice warriors, cultural Marxists, Antifa, and corporate fake news networks. I don’t believe Peter understands this at all. Nor does he know what to do about it,” he said.

West Michigan voters deserve better than Peter Meijer. They deserve someone who has lived their life and shares their values. They need a patriot who fights against, not with, the far left. A civil war has been declared on God-fearing patriots. Now is not the time for weak leadership.”

Meijer’s seat was previously held by Justin Amash, the disgraced ex-House member who voted in favor of Trump’s first impeachment, decided not to run for reelection, left the GOP, and sought a presidential nomination on the Libertarian Party ticket. Many in Michigan’s 3rd district, even if they were not crazy about Meijer, trusted him to be a better representative than Amash. Unfortunately it does not seem to be working out as they had hoped.

Regarding a potential primary in the 2022 midterms, there is no doubt that Meijer is highly vulnerable. One of the biggest obstacles, however, is money.

I think whoever challenges Peter is going to have to run a grassroots campaign,” Kokx told Big League Politics. “They’re going to have to fundraise with help from patriots across the country. Peter has a 50 million dollar trust fund he inherited. And he has thousands of dollars of investments in Facebook, Google, and Amazon. He’s owned by Big Tech and Big Business. He’ll spend whatever it takes to keep this seat so the corporations that own him can continue to receive tax cuts and cheap labor while ordinary Americans remain out of work and struggle to get by.”

Although it could be tough to mount a winning candidacy against Meijer, anger and backlash at his representation in Congress has already bubbled to the surface and will surely spread as midterms approach.

God-fearing patriots and Christians want representatives who will fight for them to reclaim their country, not someone who sides with, as Meijer has here, the Deep State and the Democrats,” Kokx said.

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