How to Deal with Marjorie Taylor Greene

National Review Online

Wednesday, February 03, 2021

 

No one can be surprised that a little digging has unearthed more noxious and lunatic things that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said or affirmed over the years.

 

The Georgia Republican mused about a space laser associated with the Rothschilds starting the 2018 California wildfires to clear the way for a high-speed rail project. She said Nancy Pelosi is a traitor who will be jailed or executed and liked social-media posts expressing similar sentiments about Pelosi and others. She maintained that the Parkland shooting was a false-flag operation. All of this comes on top of her already-infamous endorsement of the crazed theories of QAnon.

 

Now, there are calls to expel Greene from Congress, and it’s a sign of the pressure that she is under that she’s actually gone back and deleted some of her more outlandish posts.

 

It’d be a mistake to kick her out of Congress. Republicans in her district duly nominated her and then the voters elected her. This is a sign of very bad judgment, but the democratic will shouldn’t be overturned lightly, especially when the voters will have a chance to reconsider in two short years (assuming the Georgia GOP doesn’t redistrict Greene out of her seat).

 

House Democrats are pushing for a vote to deny Greene committee assignments. This will only raise the hackles of Republicans, who aren’t in a mood to be lectured by the Democratic party of Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar about how to police members of Congress who make incendiary comments. Also, it’s a bad precedent for the majority to deny committee assignments to members of the minority it finds objectionable.

 

That said, the GOP should act under its own power, just as it did with former representative Steve King. Greene’s conspiracy-laden malevolence is poison to the electoral prospects and moral standing of the GOP. There’s no reason that the party needs to give her committee assignments, and she’s unlikely to have much useful to contribute to the House Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committee anyway.

 

There’s no pure partisan interest at stake. Greene represents a safe Republican district. If voters decide she’s unsuitable and can’t even work with her own party, they will just elect another Republican — and one presumably not drawn from the far reaches of the fever swamp.

 

Which would be the best outcome. Marjorie Taylor Greene is toxic, and she can’t return to private life to pursue her lurid interests soon enough.