Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to ‘debate’ AOC: The Georgia Congresswoman has repeatedly challenged her New York counterpart to a debate, but AOC appears to not be interested.
Marjorie Taylor Greene vs. AOC?
It’s become an extremely common rhetorical trope on the right to approach someone they dislike or disagree with and to immediately challenge them to a public debate.
This has been derided as “Debate Me” Culture by the Washington Post– the notion that challenging someone to a public debate that they’re unlikely to agree to is the first move and that the person refusing or ignoring the challenge is a coward for doing os.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) emerged from the online side of conservatism and has often been derided throughout her career for past statements that flirted with both QAnon and antisemitism.
Now, she’s doing the “debate me” thing again with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Greene has been complaining since at least February that AOC won’t “debate” her.
“I have repeatedly asked you to debate me, but you have been a coward and can’t even respond,” Greene posted to X, then known as Twitter, back in February, over a video of AOC on CNN ripping Greene and other conservative members of Congress.
“When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl?”
Greene brought up the idea again this week on a media call that was reported by the Washington Examiner, in which she is promoting her autobiography, “MTG.”
In the interview, to an insult favored by her friend Donald Trump, Greene described Ocasio-Cortez as “not smart.”
“I’ve talked with her multiple times. I’ve asked her to debate me,” the Georgia Congresswoman said in the book, as reported by the Examiner. “She’s afraid of me, is clearly, clearly not competent or capable of debating me with her policies and views on climate change and the Green New Deal, which I think is pretty pathetic, as members of Congress are supposed to debate ideas.”
Of the Green New Deal, Greene accused Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and others who have backed it as a “scam.”
“It’s all basically a scam. And it’s just a means for power and control. And so I really enjoyed writing a chapter about the Green New Deal that features her as what I would say as a pawn for groups that are really interested in climate change because it’s a big money scam.”
It’s not clear what Greene means about the Green New Deal — a proposal by AOC and other Democrats from the previous Congress that was never enacted into law — being a “scam.”
Clearly, however, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t believe that holding a debate against someone who she’s not running against would be a worthwhile use of her time.
It’s often assumed that, as a Democrat on the left flank of her party, AOC is something of a mirror image of Greene and others like her on the right. But that isn’t quite true. Ocasio-Cortez, while she has an online background herself and has used Instagram and TikTok better than most members of Congress have, is not as associated with wild stunts as Greene is. And while AOC’s policy prescriptions are often to the left of her party’s, she has an interest in policy questions that Greene appears to mostly lack.
Also in the Examiner interview, Greene stated that the GOP presidential race is effectively over.
“The primary, in many people’s minds, is over. No, there’s no alternative. And I think the American people see it that way,” Greene said on the media call, as reported by the Examiner.
“If we put President Trump back in office we could fix everything,” she wrote. “We could clean house and drain the swamp that frustrates so many Americans,” Greene says in the book.
Author Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles over the years that focus on politics, technology, and the economy for over a decade. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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