In today’s GOP, the popular thing to do when you’ve said something controversial or upsetting or even just incorrect is not to apologize or fix it. It’s to double down. Last week, Marjorie Taylor Greene — the Trumpiest of the freshman class of congresspeople — earned even more scorn than usual when she compared mask mandates to the Holocaust and Nancy Pelosi to Nazis. It was widely seen as highly offensive, so of course when doubled down.
As per CNN, Greene was approached at an event on Saturday and asked about comments that were condemned by fellow Republican lawmakers as well as the American Jewish Congress, who said that “such comparisons demean the Holocaust & contaminate American political speech.” But Greene didn’t think she was being anti-Semitic.
“I stand by all of my statements. I said nothing wrong,” Greene told a KPNX reporter. “And I think any rational Jewish person didn’t like what happened in Nazi Germany, and any rational Jewish person doesn’t like what’s happening with overbearing mask mandates and overbearing vaccine policies.”
When asked if she understands why many would find what her comparison offensive, she avoided answering directly. Instead she asked the reporter if she understands “about being forced to wear a mask or being forced to have to take a vaccine or even have to say whether they’ve taken it or not.”
So there you have yet another classic double down. Meanwhile, Greene’s Republican colleagues have called out her insensitive and ahistorical comparison. Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois representative who’s being critical of the Trump part of his party, called her statements an “absolute sickness” while Liz Cheney, recently ousted from her position of power for not being Trumpy, dubbed them “evil lunacy.”
A CNN survey also found that fewer than half of House Republicans have publicly said that they’d get a COVID-19 vaccine. Whether they’ll get one anyway, in secret, to protect them from a highly contagious virus, is another matter.
(Via CNN)