Opinion: If Republicans don’t denounce Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremism, they’ll own it
Today the Republican Party has been broken by members of its paranoid fringe, like the freshman Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now they own it.
It is as bad as it sounds. Greene “liked” a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other comments about executing so-called “deep state” FBI agents. In response to a question directly expressing a desire to “hang” Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in 2018 Greene wrote: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”
She went on to attack the media for trying to “cancel” her because she threatened “their goal of socialism.”
Certainly, some might split hairs over how to judge Greene’s conduct. Does it matter that she did those things as a private citizen, not an elected official? Would she be responsible if the comments were posted not by her but by her staff? How is an online “like” different from a written comment?
These questions are all beside the point. Greene’s online behavior would likely get her fired if she worked at, well, a Pottery Barn. It should be disqualifying for someone in a position of public trust.
Take the reaction of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to her comments. A spokeswoman for McCarthy called them “deeply disturbing” and noted that McCarthy “plans to have a conversation” with Greene about them.
What “conversation,” short of “please pack up your belongings and never return to the Capitol,” could possibly be appropriate? McCarthy’s lame response suggests two things: either he and the caucus are OK with calls for the execution of political opponents, or they are too craven to denounce them.
If unrefuted revelations of online behavior calling for murder are not enough for a member of Congress to be asked to resign immediately, what is? Likewise, if using the power of the presidency to subvert and obstruct the certification of election results, and — if that weren’t enough — to whip up a mob that attacked the seat of American democracy, leading to a police officer’s death, isn’t disqualifying from future office, nothing is.