Marjorie Taylor Greene has been a congresswoman for just over a year now, but what a year it has been. From stalking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust, Greene’s level of bonkery is so off the charts that Alex Jones thinks she should run for president. Yet while she has become a go-to punchline for late-night hosts and sane Americans, it turns out that Greene actually wields real power in some Republican congressional districts.
As The Daily Beast reports, even many of Greene’s fellow Republicans seem pretty shocked to learn that the freshman rep has become something of a kingmaker in congressional districts that are open to hearing out her “Jewish space lasers” conspiracy theories. As Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Brodey write:
According to four longtime Republican operatives working at senior levels on a variety of competitive GOP primaries across the nation, Greene’s endorsement in competitive 2022 Republican House and Senate primaries is not only considered as welcome, but also as one that should be actively courted—particularly in races where the nominee is likely to be decided by which candidate most animates the ultra-Trumpist grassroots.
“It is stunning,” one of these sources said. “Her popularity among much of the base and what she brings to a campaign right now is not nothing. Actually, it can be good for the candidate, and I don’t know if I would have predicted that a year ago.”
Despite the fact that Greene was stripped of all her House committee assignments more than a year ago, her popularity has bizarrely only seemed to grow. “If you can’t get Donald Trump, you are going to want to have MTG in your back pocket,” a political operative—who “professed zero personal admiration for Greene”—told The Daily Beast.
At the moment, more than a half-dozen GOP candidates have secured that all-important MTG stamp of approval, but the gazpacho-hating congresswoman is apparently being judicious in who she endorses, even though judiciousness is generally not a trait she is known for. According to longtime Republican strategist Doug Heye, it’s pretty easy to draw a straight line between Donald Trump’s presidency and MTG’s newfound popularity.
“It’s not that everyone is trying to get her endorsement,” Heye said. “But… if you’re running on ‘Let’s own the libs,’ and ‘Let’s be culture warriors,’ that’s where you go. One of the things we’ve seen over the past decade-plus now, but that Donald Trump really drove home, is that politics is performance art.”
Clogged toilets and Marjorie Taylor Greene: Kingmaker—just two of the many things we can blame on Trump.
(Via The Daily Beast)