It’s now inevitable: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s victory in Tuesday’s runoff primary in one of the most conservative voting districts in Georgia will impact the coming election nationwide.
That’s because Greene is a conspiracy theorist — a disciple of the ultra-right-wing faction QAnon, which claims President Trump is battling a cabal of devil-worshiping saboteurs who “traffic children for sex,” reports the Washington Post.
QAnon is an offshoot of a series of online posts and videos by “Q,” described by The Hill as the “mysterious figure” who first turned up on YouTube in 2017 spouting outlandish claims about the “deep state” supposedly running the federal government.
Greene, who would become the first QAnon devotee with a vote in Congress, insists she doesn’t know Q’s identity, but tells audiences that “Q is a patriot. We know that for sure.”
Politico, which has led investigative reporting on Greene, unearthed several videos showing her making bigoted remarks that are unsupported by facts.
Greene calls the 2020 election “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”
In a Wednesday morning tweet, President Trump left no room for doubt about his own position, calling Green a “future Republican Star … strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!”
“Among her more incendiary comments,” Politico says, Greene called the 2018 elections of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the first two Muslim congresswomen, “an Islamic invasion.”
She has suggested that Jewish Democratic megadonor George Soros — who escaped the Holocaust in his native Hungary — was a Nazi himself, and turned Jews over to them.
And she described Black people as “slaves to the Democratic party” who should feel “proud” to see monuments to Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery because they symbolize “progress made since the Civil War,” Politico says.
Such views alarm many Republican leaders, while Democrats are delighted to be handed tons of political ammunition for what’s sure to be a bruising national campaign ahead.
“Republican candidates running across the country will have to answer for her hateful views in their own campaigns,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Greene’s GOP opponent in a primary runoff on Tuesday, neurosurgeon John Cowan (who lost by a 20-point margin), told a recent interviewer:
“She is not conservative — she’s crazy.”
It does seem all but certain that Greene will win in November: the 14th Congressional district in northwest Georgia is one “where the GOP nomination is tantamount to a seat in the House,” says Politico.
Greene’s election would not alter the two parties’ relative numbers in Congress.
But, says Politico, her victory “saddles House Republicans with a new member who has espoused a slew of opinions many view as deeply offensive at a time when the country is facing a nationwide reckoning over racial justice, and the GOP is struggling to appeal to once-loyal voters in affluent suburbs across the country.”
Here’s one of her TV ads:
