Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has courted controversy since she first ran for political office in 2020.
Indeed, her initial ad for her 2022 reelection campaign featured her firing a high-powered sniper rifle at a hybrid vehicle as a symbol of her conservative bona fides. Marjorie Taylor Greene has always flirted with the gonzo wing of the Far Right.
Yet, in recent months, she started tacking to just the regular Right.
Ever since her alliance with Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was revealed during the contentious fight over McCarthy’s inevitable rise to the speakership in January of this year, MTG has brandished her deal-making abilities.
But old habits die hard.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Courts Controversy
In the run-up of the release of her new podcast, MTG has been doing a marketing campaign that includes her sitting in an offroad vehicle, holding a big rifle, in front of the United States Capitol Building.
Instantly, the professional activists on the Left began piling on for her alleged support of political violence.
A survivor of the January 6 riot and former Capitol Hill police sergeant has tweeted that the photo is another example of MTG’s photo op promoting her new podcast is no longer a sign that the Georgia Republican is just “flirting” with political violence, but is “encouraging it…again.” It’s definitely not a good look for the Congresswoman who has been dubbed “Trump in Heels.”
But is it indicative of her support for political violence?
That’s a bit of a stretch, even for the gun-toting politician who is known for carrying a gun around and taking multiple photos of her shooting. A stalwart supporter of the Second Amendment, as well as an ardent fan of former President Donald J. Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene has had a proverbial target on her back since the day she walked into Congress—in the middle of the contentious 2020 Presidential Election, in which her first act was to openly challenge the outcome of the election that year.
Yet, none of these things prove that she is, in fact, a supporter of political violence. She may be nuts and an extremist but everyone needs to slow their roll when they’re talking about labeling elected officials as “encouraging” political violence—especially when plenty of elected Democrats over the years have said crazy things or taken provocative photos which could easily be construed (and, in the case of the infamous Congressional baseball shooting was perceived) as inciting violence against Republicans.
Democrats Call for Violence
Remember, when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was encouraging crowds of Democratic Party voters to harass any Trump Administration officials they saw in public? Or when the Democrats made a concerted effort to paint former President Trump or anyone who even uttered a positive word in public about his administration as a “fascist”?
Or what about when the cast of Stranger Things, as they were accepting the SAG Award, ranted about how they wanted to “punch some people in the face” who had dared to vote for Donald Trump in 2016?
They made colorful memes and remixes online about that incident. Everyone was told to laugh. Although, if they had been Republicans saying the same thing about Democrats, they’d have been thoroughly investigated by the federal authorities and likely publicly doxed.
And this isn’t the first time that Democratic Party activists have gone after a female conservative politician known for her extreme political views.
In 2010, after the tragic shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Democrats attempted to lay the blame for the shooting not at the feet of the deranged shooter. Instead, many on the Left made the, frankly, creepy argument that Sarah Palin was responsible for the violence because her political action committee had distributed a map with Giffords’ congressional district in crosshairs.
Leftists turned a clear metaphor that is commonly used in the context of electoral politics into some kind of a bizarre conspiracy theory implicating a woman who was, much as Marjorie Taylor Greene is today, the Left’s big female adversary at that time.
It’s the same thing, different day with these people. And it’s unhelpful.
Democrats Calling Everyone They Dislike “Extremists” Are the Problem
In fact, one could make the case that these desperate and baseless arguments that take figures-of-speech out of context or that stretch glitzy promotional material for a new podcast into dog whistles for domestic terrorists are the real contributors to political violence in America.
If you believe that those who disagree with you politically are not only literal Nazis but are actually violent extremists, there are some people out there who would use that assumption as justification for taking extreme—violent—action against those people they were told were Nazis.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is many things. A showman and radical is one of them. But a terrorist?
That’s a stretch, despite her radical notions. All of this talk just needs to stop.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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