Majorie Taylor Greene Epitomizes All That Is Stupid About…
A. America, B. MAGA, C. Conservatives, D. All of the Above?
Reports abound that right-winger Americans are utterly exhausted by the endless antics of Greene. Known by many as the “queen of chaos,” Greene has angered more fellow wingnut colleagues than Matt Gaetz. As much as we all want to watch as this utterly out-of-her-mind whacko self-destructs, I think we might be overlooking just how deep the capacity for stupid is in our nation.
Greene is beloved among conspiracy theorists. She has openly doubted in official proceedings on the House floor about whether a plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11. Before she was known outside of Georgia, she became infamous for verbally abusing survivors of the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. She is a video showing her before she was elected by the people of Georiga (key word here, “before”) pursuing survivor David Hogg like a rabid street urchin, calling him a coward for testifying before Congress. She then looked into the camera and told her future constituents that George Soros paid Hogg to play his role in the false-flag operation at the school — the government planned the event, she tells us, to kill children to take guns away from people.
In a sane — or at least saner world — Greene would be mocked endlessly. People would make cuckoo clock sounds and roll their eyes when discussing her. In today’s right-wing America, Marjorie Taylor Greene was chosen not once but twice by the people of her district in Georgia and has, in many ways, become one of the most powerful and feared members of Congress.
How did she get this power? Was it thanks to her tireless work on passing bills that improved the lives of the American people? Was it because she works across party lines to make America truly “great again?” No, it’s because Greene first made it known to the disgraced ex-president that “her seat is his seat;” and then she has spent all of her time using every possible perk and power available to a member of Congress to “chase down” America’s victims and badger and abuse them with her supermarket check-out lunacy. She has turned the House of Representatives into an express line check out argument over the number of items in our collective basket — “No, it says, up to 12 items, and you have 13! I don’t care that the tuna is buy one get one free, it still puts you over the 12 permitted in the basket. Move it out of here!”
While I hope Greene’s future does soon revolve around such future arguments, I am afraid the shoppers of her Georgian holler won’t find themselves enraged by her vileness.
Increasingly, the right is starting to reckon with the predictable drawbacks of that.
Sen. Thom Tillis’s (R-N.C.) comments to CNN on Tuesday were particularly biting. Amid Greene’s efforts to oust McCarthy’s successor, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Tillis called her a “waste of time” and a “horrible leader.”
“She is dragging our brand down,” Tillis said. “She — not the Democrats — are the biggest risk to us getting back to a majority.”
Tillis added, “I’m embarrassed to have actually lived geographically in her district at one time before she was there (The Right Starts to Reckon).”
I am sorry, Senator Thom (what is it with odd names for Southerners?), your coming to Jesus moment as you stand at the gates of heaven is a bit too little too late. Tillis merely wants to go on the record to prove to history that he was one of the “saner” ones in the right-wing fascist movement. While Tillis has proven to be sane enough that the North Carolina Republican Party recently censured him for being too “not fascist,” Tillis has offered tepid support for Trump’s run for the presidency. It is that bit of hypocrisy that prevents many Republican voters from breaking with the crazier elements of the party. Tillis may be against Greene, but the two are for Trump, making them allies.
Right-wing media has also been jumping on the anti-Marjorie bandwagon, and not because they, too, have suddenly seen the light. Trump has made it clear that he is choosing to support Speaker Johnson at this moment because it’s in his interests. He doesn’t want to be seen as choosing Greene’s do-nothing chaos-mongering over Johnson’s get-something-done approach. Once Trump nodded in the direction of the green light, Murdoch-owned New York Post shouted to the rooftops that “Moscow Marjorie” was an agent of anti-American chaos.
Greene’s fights against Johnson and Ukraine aid, among other issues, such as banning TikTok, have also earned her increasing criticism from right-leaning media:
The New York Post cover on Sunday blared “NYET, MOSCOW MARJORIE.” (Nyet is Russian for no.) It has recently run pieces calling her “Putin’s useful idiot” and referring to her plot against Johnson as a “lunatic case.”
A Fox News opinion columnist wrote a piece last week titled: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot. She is trying to wreck the GOP.”
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal — like the New York Post and Fox, a property of the Murdoch media empire — recently christened her “Rep. Mayhem Taylor Greene” and said she “and her crew of vandals prefer to scream and throw soup at the walls.”
Even the staunchly pro-Donald Trump Newsmax recently ran a piece asking, “Who put Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge? (The Right Starts to Reckon).”
Stupidity runs deep in our country. It is a source of energy that, if we were able to bottle it, could reverse the most deleterious effects of climate change overnight. The penchant for stupid is not a market cornered by the right; we see lots of it on the left, too. The whole “support Gaza” over American democracy movement unfolding is a prime example of historical ignorance. Nonetheless, the conservative movement and the fascist revolution into which it has evolved have driven its roots deep down into the heart and soul of red America. Majorie Taylor Green is not just some name or face that can be pushed aside when the rest of the lunatics tire of her.
Regrettably, I think this moment could possibly make Greene stronger and the rest of us weaker. Greene is Trump-esque in her mania and she will outlast them — us — because she has the backing of way too many Foxified Americans.