Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert weren’t elected to their positions in the House of Representatives by accident. They ran campaigns like everyone else, and won. Given Greene’s “nutty” aka QAnon-supporting and anti-mask-censorship antics in particular, it may be hard for lots of people to understand why.
In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast sat down with Dr. John Cowan, the Republican surgeon who lost to Greene despite both candidates supporting Donald Trump, to get an idea for what people may have had in mind when casting their ballots for her.
“I think this is why she got elected... because people really felt like these guys are absolutely crazy in Washington D.C.,” he explains.
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“And they are, many of them are, trying to actively destroy the country through their policies and rhetoric and whatnot. And [voters] looked at someone like Marjorie and said, ‘we’ve got the answer to that. You know, she’s a fighter she’ll say or do anything.’”
Essentially, says Molly, she won for the same reasons Trump did. Cowan agrees: “I think they just thought, well, we’ve got somebody who’s literally going to kick it to the government and maybe he can crack that or drain the swamp as he was off to say.”
Then, Molly talks to Gregg Smith, a former Marine and ex-colleague of Erik Prince, who is running against the GOP’s Boebert in Colorado. He feels that he can and will defeat her.
Donald Trump had support out there because “people out here will generally vote against the mainstream,” but that support has dwindled, and Boebert’s response to the insurrection is being questioned, he says. But Democrats aren’t going to win the area by pushing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders-level ideologies too hard.
“You’ve got to address the issues that are important out here,” he says.
That’s basically what both Cowan and Smith have in common with one another: hope in the voters.
“I do think people eventually will wake up and see that there’s a lot of darkness there,” says Cowan.
Plus, Smith shares the moment he knew Erik Prince couldn’t be trusted: “I never want to see him again.”
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
