Marjorie Taylor Greene is unfit to serve. She is a danger to her colleagues and unless her fellow Republicans expel her from Congress they are culpable. Somebody ought to stand up and say, enough.
But they won’t.
There are a few voices among House Republicans who understand and see the threat, including Liz Cheney and Steve Scalise. They take her seriously when she threatens members of Congress and when she stalks high school students, like Parkland mass shooting survivor David Hogg, down the street proclaiming her gun ownership and deriding him for needing armed guards.
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Taylor Greene’s litany of insanities is far too lengthy to list but includes defiling the lives of dead Americans and their families. For Taylor Greene, it seems, there is no depth to which she will not sink, no conspiracy theory too vile to serve her political purposes. Not even the victims of some of the country’s most high-profile mass shootings, including children as young as 5, were too sacred. She called the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School a “false flag.”
But here’s the thing. The Republicans knew. Maybe not every detail, but they knew. And they hid from it. Back in August 2020, she beat John Cowan in the GOP primary to clinch the nomination for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Cowan, a neurosurgeon backed by Scalise, said he warned party leaders, including Kevin McCarthy, that the Milledgeville native and University of Georgia graduate was “bad for the party.” He added: “…at some point, you have to say, ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service.’”
Cowan showed McCarthy the campaign opposition research, which included videotape of Taylor Greene threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Given what we know now, that should have ended her political career.
It didn’t.
Then-Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also a Georgian, put his thumb on the scale by openly endorsing Taylor Greene. He and his wife made contributions to her campaign. After winning the primary, and with her general election opponent driven from the race after enduring vicious threats and harassment, Taylor Greene’s path to Congress was all but guaranteed. Despite her well-documented history of advancing QAnon propaganda, years of anti-Semitic tirades, and other random acts of lunacy, Republicans couldn’t muscle the courage to publicly renounce her. Almost 230,000 Georgians voted for her.
And Republicans did what they usually do. Nothing. Reported Jonathan Swan of Axios: “During previously unreported meetings last summer, House Republican leaders discussed—but then largely set aside —fears that QAnon-supporting conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene would end up a flaming train wreck for their party.”
When she claimed that “Jewish laser beams” started the California wildfire and that white people who voted for Barack Obama are “the most racist people in this country,” Republicans said nothing. When she said, “If you are white and voted against Obama, you are by definition less racist than any white who voted for Obama,” they said nothing.
It has been decades since such uncloaked, unchecked racial animus has been met with such tacit approval. Back in the 1990s, former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott lost his job as majority leader for less.
Taylor Greene, though, is not shy about her goal of preserving a country where whiteness is synonymous with the American ideal. Even so, she recently began systematically removing dozens of past social media posts, including comments about executing Democrats and espousing conspiracy theories.
“It’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is,” she said in one video. “Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”
One Georgia GOP strategist compared her to California congresswoman Maxine Waters, saying Democrats are guilty of the same. It was a dangerous, hateful, and racist response that should be condemned. Waters never threatened to upend a free and fair election. She never threatened members of Congress or railed that Republican politicians should be shot for treason. She never supported an armed insurrection that could have led to the capture and death of her colleagues.
For her part, former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler either ignored the twisted, hateful vitriol or, worse yet, she found it endearing. Whether out of affection or depraved political expediency, the soon-to-be former WNBA team owner donned fresh-off-the-rack Levi’s and beat feet to northeast Georgia to snap an endorsement photo.
Loeffler knew, like her fellow right-wing zealots, that Taylor Greene wasn’t just any Trump supporter. She represented the very sector of the party that put him into office in 2016. Loeffler hoped cozying up to Taylor Greene would be enough to save her the embarrassment of becoming the shortest-serving U.S. senator in the history of Georgia politics.
This brand of white populism has always been a powerful force in American politics. But Trump, with the help of people like Taylor Greene, harnessed and used it as a cudgel. “Take our country back!” turned into “This is our House!”
Taylor Greene claims she is now under attack because she represents “the people.” Though it’s hard to know which people, because it was only recently that she purchased a condominium in the district to run for office.
Make no mistake she did not come to govern. She did not seek election to navigate the intricacies of public policy formulation, nor did she ever intend to negotiate solutions and benefits for her home district. She intends to continue lighting and re-lighting the fires of the Lost Cause. She did not come for the work of legislating. She came for the parade.
A clear and present danger to her colleagues, she should never be allowed to walk the halls of Congress again. She should not be seated. She should be expelled. She should be disavowed by every freedom-loving member from both chambers.
But that won’t happen.
Republicans will never release their collective embrace. And here’s why: They need her.
The party has long benefited from the Taylor Greenes of the world. And to banish Taylor Greene is to bar the door against Trump voters, who are already threatening to walk. So if you’re counting the days before party leaders dump Taylor Greene or someone like Lauren Boebert, think again.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a danger to the Congress and to the country. Unless and until congressional Republicans step up and join the effort to expel her from their midst, they are culpable.
