Ripon Profile - U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer

hear what we’re for, not what we’re against, and that we are focused on fixing the problems they face every day and making their lives better.”

Goeas then took a number of questions from the crowd in attendance, including if he thought President Biden’s proposed tax plan will erode some of his support among more centrist and independent voters.

“I think we have two major problems coming out of the Trump Administration,” he observed. “One is that because of the way he handled the pandemic, we lost something that we, as a party, had been living on ever since Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan wasn’t about having no government. He was about having a leaner, more efficient, more effective government. It was about how we can make government do a better job.

“The other problem is that Trump spent money like a drunken sailor – something we used to say about the Democrats. So he took away not only the image that we manage government better, but he also took away our ability to bring the money part of it into the equation – in terms of spending it on the right things and spending it effectively. That is going to make our tax argument that much tougher.”

Finally, Goeas was asked about Trump’s “America First” primary candidates for Congress and their likelihood of success at the ballot box next spring and summer given that their strategy seems to neglect civil political discourse and instead prioritizes aggressive and inflammatory rhetoric.

“I worked with Michelle Bachmann and her presidential campaign,” he stated. “I had no relationship with her before then and I was just astounded with the conversations I had with her early on, by how smart she was. But what I later found out was that she had learned all the wrong lessons in her congressional years of how to act out there and she didn’t check facts. She said whatever she felt in her gut was the right thing to be saying to get attention. She had built her whole Washington presence on Fox News where she was never contested. You always have to look at these guys and say ‘In a different arena, how are they going to do?’

“I think if they end up being a bunch of candidates that feed on each other, trying to come out on top the way that Trump did, I think they’re just going to cannibalize each other and be in deep trouble. The only one that seems to be moving more in the right direction is the Governor of Florida. He seems to have softened his rhetoric and softened his anger that he showed in the early days. Maybe he’s got it, but I would say he seems to be the only one showing any signs of kind of tracking in the right direction.” RF

Name: Peter Meijer

Occupation: Representative for Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District

Previous positions held: I was an noncommissioned officer and Human Intelligence Collector in the Army where I conducted interrogations and source operations. I was also a Conflict Analyst for a non-governmental organization in Afghanistan that specialized in safety and security operations for aid workers. Additionally, I served as the chairman of the board of directors of Student Veterans of America—one of the largest post-9/11 veteran service organizations.

Individual who inspired me as a child:

I would say Gerald Ford. Obviously he is our hometown president in Grand Rapids, but our family was also closely involved with the Gerald R. Ford Museum and the Ford Presidential Foundation. It was humbling to not only have a chance to meet President Ford, but also I began to understand and appreciate how he had served and how he arrived at the position that he did – especially with regard to Watergate and the Nixon pardon – and how vital it is to have thoughtful, decent leadership in periods of turmoil. It is something that really left a mark. Issue facing America that no one is talking about: The ways in which our cyber vulnerabilities can easily be exploited that would fundamentally undermine our national security. We think of cyber security as ransomware attacks, but there is also the possibility of the crippling of our electrical grid that could be used to turn back American forces or dissuade us from involvement in a conflict. That would be detrimental.

How does your time in the Army reserves and your previous

deployment to Iraq shape the way you approach serving in Congress? It really shaped my understanding that what the government does and then what the government does not do lies hanging in the balance. Our country has gotten to where it is because of hard work, because of sacrifice, and we must appreciate that. At the same time, we have to take seriously the oaths that are sworn. One thing that unites members of Congress and members of the military is having to swear an oath to the Constitution. There are a lot of things that are easy to take for granted or easily to not fully appreciate, but our country exists because we collectively believe in it. We believe in this ideal and this shared notion as Americans.

Finally, finish this sentence: “If I could change one thing about American politics today, it

would be…”: … to make sure that we collapse the distance between decision and consequence. To have more accountability. To have a system where our government is not some abstract entity where tax dollars come in and go out, but to better connect the people to what is being done in their name and to have them understand what is going well, what is going poorly, and why.