In the past four years, the Republican Party in the US has seemingly gone under a massive shift in ideology and party loyalty. Once known as the party of family values, the Republican Party is now home to conspiracy theorists, ride or die Trump supporters, and people who spout hateful language. One of these individuals who has become a new face of the Republican party is Georgia’s 14th Congressional District Representative and first term Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene’s reprehensible comments, actions, and threats of violence should lead to her expulsion from the US House of Representatives.
Long before her time in Congress, Greene had a history of hateful and bigoted behavior. She has been labeled, and rightfully so, as a far right QAnon supporter upholding white supremacy and antisemetic prejudices. She spewed conspiracy theories relating to 9/11, the Clintons and Obamas, Pizzagate, and called school shootings fake and stage events. From verbally harassing gun violence victims on the streets of Washington DC to calling for the execution of Democratic politicians and equating the Democratic Party to Nazis, she has stood for something that has been long hidden underground in the United States.
Since her victory in 2020, her reign in Congress has been quite chaotic. Republican Party Leadership initially tried to distance themselves from her when Facebook videos of racist comments resurfaced, but that distance has seemed to fade. Greene has stated that black people are slaves to the Democratic Party, that Muslims don’t belong in the US government, that George Soros, a Jewish Democratic donor, is a Nazi, and even that if she was black, she would be proud to see a Confederate monument because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War. However, her uncontested general election ensured that her atrocious behavior continued. She has bullied and harassed members of Congress way beyond the general deviousness of politics, including confronting and stalking Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, threatening Rep. Cori Bush online and in person, making transphobic comments against Rep. Newman’s transgender daughter, and hunting down Rep. Talib and Rep. Omar with a Bible claiming they need to swear in on that instead of the Quran. This kind of behavior should never be tolerated in the highest levels of government, and only emboldens other individuals around the country to engage in the same kind of hatred and bigotry. This only begins to explain the kind of person Greene really is, one that lives in the political landscape of the 1950s, not 2021.
Greene also jeopardized the lives of millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. She declared that COVID-19 wasn’t real and was instead a ploy by the Democrats to get Trump out of office, that Dr. Fauci must be fired for being dishonest with the American people, and that wearing a mask is unnecessary because the science is fake. However, the worst comment of all would have to be her comparison of the COVID-19 mask wearing and vaccinations to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, which is just absolutely disgusting and appalling. There should be no room in any level of government for a person who has made these sick and twisted claims. Even after visiting the Holocuast Museum in Washington DC and making a so-called apology statement about her remarks, it didn’t take long before she continued spewing the same ignorant, disgusting comments.
Rhetoric from elite individuals matters. They are part of highly connected social networks, and influence public opinion on a subject or issue as many look to this person for news, opinions, and facts. We see Greene’s influence by allowing for hateful, bigoted, ignorant actions and lies to continue. The January 6th Insurrection, the big lie about widespread voting fraud in the 2020 election leading to sham recounts and audits, vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, and allowing loons like a woman in Tennessee to sell Gold Stars of David with the words “Not Vaccinated” on them all point to how dangerous keeping a person in power like her is. She is an embarrassment to the country, to the Republican Party, to American Democracy, and she must be expelled immediately.
On February 4th, the House of Representatives voted to remove Greene from her committee assignments, with all Democrats and 11 Republicans voting to do so. I do have some concerns about this process, and how the party in power could essentially expel whoever they wanted when power shifts between the two, but this was a necessary step that needed to be taken.
The House must go further, and Marjorie Taylor Greene must be expelled immediately, ascertaining that the United States does not tolerate bigoted, racist, transphobic, xenophobic, radical right wing, white supremacist, QAnon conspiracy theorists in any level of our government.