Marjorie Taylor Greene Again

Last week I wrote a blog post about Representative Majorie Taylor Greene, reviewing her transition from a QAnon bomb thrower to an advocate of Charlie Kirk's style of polite debate and claiming to be the most authentic proponent of the America First positions that have been fundamental to the MAGA movement. On Friday evening, surprising nearly everyone, Greene announced that she would resign from Congress on January 5. In her resignation address, Greene listed a litany of complaints with both political parties. She said that she was looking forward to "seeing many of you again," but did not reveal her future plans.

The central theme of Greene's resignation announcement was that she has been a hardworking and loyal supporter of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the common American people. In return, she has been betrayed. More importantly, the American people have been betrayed. She began her speech by saying that she has "always represented the common American man and woman," which is why she has been "despised in Washington, D.C., and never fit in." She then went on to say that "Americans are used by the Political Industrial Complex of both political parties," who try to "convince Americans to hate the other side.” Regardless of which party wins, nothing ever gets better for "the common American man or woman."

In Greene's view, she represents "the common American man and woman" who have legitimate political concerns. Aligned against them is an elite establishment consisting of "Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military-Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class". She says that this elite "can't even relate to real Americans" and that if the elite were able to cast her aside, it would be casting aside many common Americans as well. The implication is that Greene is leaving on her own terms rather than waiting to be cast aside by the elites.

While Greene generally shied away from criticizing Trump directly — normally tending to target her anger at the Republican Party — her knocks against him could not be missed. She says that she fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect Donald Trump and Republicans to power. She described leaving her mother's side while her father was undergoing brain surgery in order to travel back to Washington to vote against Trump's second impeachment. In return, she was called a traitor while "most of the establishment Republicans who secretly hate Trump and who stabbed him in the back" have been welcomed. She stated that "loyalty should be a two-way street."

Greene especially focused on the House of Representatives, which she criticized for being out of session for 8 weeks. She argued that the House should have been in session every day trying to fix the health insurance situation. She complained that bills that she authored — most of which are meant to codify Trump's executive orders — "just sit, collecting dust." In her view, not only has the House failed to act in the past, but now that election season is close, Congress will only focus on "safe" issues, and she is pessimistic that much will get done.

The timing of Greene's announcement, late Friday before Thanksgiving week, was unusual. Normally, that would be the time that news someone hoped might go unnoticed would be dumped. As for why she is leaving, I think that we can accept Greene's own explanation. As she noted, she would have to face a hateful primary in which she claims that Trump would spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat her. While she expected to win that election, she assumes that Republicans will lose their House majority. She would then be expected to defend Trump against a third impeachment after he tried to destroy her. Greene is clearly frustrated by Congress's failure to get things done and expects Republicans to be able to accomplish even less in the future. She has no interest in holding what would essentially be a meaningless seat in such circumstances.

My guess is that Greene is largely correct. She is extremely popular in her district and would likely win a primary. However, in the process, she would be the target of an avalanche of negative ads. Just look what happened to Senate Candidate Graham Platner in Maine. He looked like a nearly perfect candidate who everybody loved until the establishment's candidate, Janet Mills, buried him in a mountain of opposition research. Suddenly he was transformed into a women-hating Nazi (though, to be fair, being a women-hating Nazi does not seem to have harmed his chances). By leaving now, Greene avoids being bloodied by Trump. She is leaving after a huge victory regarding the Epstein files. It is much better for her to depart on a high note than after a painful battle with Trump.

Greene was silent about her future plans. She said that she looked forward to a new path ahead. Most tantalizing, perhaps, was when she said that "When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart," and instead realize that "common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington," she will be by their side. This suggests that her future might not be with either major party, but instead as part of a movement challenging both parties’ establishments.

Time Magazine reported over the weekend that allies of Greene had told the publication that Greene has considered running for President in 2028. The report went on to say that if Greene did decide to run, she might play a role akin to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2024, "a candidate capable of siphoning off votes from the GOP nominee, positioning her to leverage that political capital into a possible role within a future Republican administration." Greene, in a lengthy X post, claimed that Time was lying and that she has no interest in running for president. But then, she went on to write what sounded very much like a campaign stump speech, asking Americans if they were happy about al long list of topics.

Greene is clearly upset with the "Political Industrial Complex" that she believes controls both parties. She may be hoping to give voice to the millions of Americans who have similar sentiments. This is a group that includes the legacy Tea Party, QAnon, large parts of the MAGA movement, many disillusioned independents, and even a significant number of Bernie Sanders supporters. If such a movement begins to come together, she can claim that she must run for president, not because she wants to, but because the movement demands it. After all, she promised that if the people came together to confront the Political Industrial Complex, she would be there.

A sentence in Greene's resignation announcement that might go unnoticed caught my attention. Towards the end of the speech, she said, "There is no plan to save the world." "Trust the Plan" is a slogan so central to QAnon that Will Summer used it as the title of his book about QAnon. Was Greene telling her former QAnon associates that their trust has been misplaced? That Trump is not the leader that the plan foretold? That now the movement needs to go in a different direction? Maybe that's a stretch, but perhaps not. As I said in my previous post, Greene has a knack for, like Wayne Gretzky, skating to where the puck is going, not where it is. Greene clearly believes that the Trump era is coming to an end, and she wants to get out in front of whatever comes next.

I would not immediately count Greene out. On Saturday, I attended an anti-Trump protest at the Lincoln Memorial. At one point in a pause between speakers, a man in the crowd saw Representative Al Green standing towards the back of the stage and shouted "Thank you, Representative Green!" The crowd immediately erupted into huge applause and cheers, with many people asking, "Is she here?" and "where is she?" There was quite a bit of disappointment when they realized it was Green and not Greene. What was clear to me is that there are huge numbers of people who are absolutely disgusted with the establishments of both parties and who are ready to support anyone who promises to burn it all down.