Both political parties have always had oddballs entering their ranks, elected officials who probably aren’t fit for the job. Sometimes these situations can end in disgrace — such was the case when Republican congressman Steve King lost his committee assignments over racist comments which led his own party to back his primary challenger. But it’s often easier for parties to protect their own.
So it is with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly sworn-in firebrand conservative representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Greene checks some of the more traditional Tea Party/populist boxes, but she also brings some quirks all of her own. She’s a well-known adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory. She believes that numerous school shootings — including Sandy Hook and Parkland — were hoaxes staged by crisis actors. On social media, she’s supported the idea of executing Democrats. In one post she seemed to suggest that the California wildfires were either intentionally or accidentally started by a space laser controlled by ‘Rothschilds Inc.’ Less than a month into her term, Rep. Greene is already facing resistance.
One commonly heard refrain this week is an example of textbook political whataboutism: why should Republicans be expected to censure Rep. Greene when, on the other side of the aisle, Democrats have not just left Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota alone — they promoted her? Omar has come under fire for Twitter comments she made that many Republicans, advocates, media outlets and others consider to be anti-Semitic. Why does she get a pass?
Rep. Omar is far from without blemish. She has shown a concerning willingness to pal around with anti-Semites and make statements that appear to demonstrate a thinly veiled disdain for the state of Israel. She’s also faced serious, well-reported allegations of campaign finance misdeeds that could be grounds for her own censure if the claims pass muster.
But let’s remember that it wasn’t Rep. Omar who suggested that a Jewish-controlled space laser had caused the wildfires in California.
Rep. Greene’s fixation with a nefarious world organization run by the Rothschilds could be ripped from the pages of The Protocols of the Elder Zion. The Overton window may have shifted in the last few years when it comes to the uncouth statements politicians can get away with, but Greene’s are stunningly beyond the pale.
If our concerns are earnestly about which elected official is a threat to American Jews, the pol who sees George Soros and his money and the Rothschilds and their invented sci-fi technology hiding behind every corner seems like the safer bet.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called Greene’s ‘loony lies’ a ‘cancer’ on the GOP. House Democrats have already stripped Rep. Greene of her committee assignments after Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy demurred about doing it himself. But her Republican colleagues in the House — with some notable exceptions, such as fellow freshman Rep. Nancy Mace — have largely closed ranks around Rep. Taylor Greene, with all but 11 voting against her removal.
There’s a legitimate case to be made that, egregious as these statements all are, it’s not appropriate to remove a member of Congress (either from his or her committees or the body itself) for things they’ve said or done — within the law — before they were elected.
But Republicans shouldn’t pretend that there is a corollary to Rep. Greene on the other side of the aisle. There simply isn’t anyone that unselfconsciously wacky.
And Greene isn’t just a curiosity, either. She is a hateful bigot, someone who defames the victims of school shooting, who believes that the Clintons have taken part in satanic child sacrifices. Her views are both fundamentally wrong and, unless Republicans take significant action, those of a GOP member considered in good standing.
This simple fact should be intolerable. And you can only tolerate the intolerable for so long before it consumes you
Drew Holden is a public affairs consultant in Washington DC and a former Republican congressional staff member.
