After a House vote, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was removed from her House committee assignments during the first week of February. This is a small step in favor of combating deep-rooted problems within the Republican party.
Greene, a newly-elected Georgia representative, is guilty of supporting conspiracy theories prior to serving her current position in the House of Representatives. This includes beliefs that the deadly Las Vegas shooting which killed over 50 Americans was staged and that a plane never crashed into the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. Greene has also been cited as stating that the Parkland School shooting, which resulted in the death of 17 students and staff, was a “false flag attack.” She described Parkland survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg as “an idiot” in an interview from 2019.
In a speech given to the House floor prior to the vote, Greene claimed she no longer subscribes to such theories. She stated she was “upset about things and didn’t trust the government” when she posted that type of content on Facebook. However, Greene showed little remorse in her apology. She compared the American press to QAnon and went on a tangent about Christianity and abortion.
It should be without question that removing someone from the Education and Labor Committee, who at one point believed school shootings were staged, is a logical decision. The small victory of her removal, however, did not come as a unanimous decision. The growing division in the Republican party has become even more glaring after the surfacing of Greene’s past. Disagreements on how Greene’s actions should be handled have caused a rift in the already fracturing party.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell referred to Greene as a “cancer to the Republican party.” Despite McConnell’s opinion, it is clear her election is a product of rising right-wing extremism across the country that came to a head during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Since Trump’s election in 2016, the Republican party has been in the midst of an identity crisis. Representative Green, like former President Trump, is not an anomaly. Representative Jim Jordan expressed support for Greene following her committee removal. Newly elected members of Congress such as Madison Cawthorn—who has been accused of being a white nationalist—have followed similar strategies to Greene, voicing alarmist opinions on social media to gain popularity. She was voted in by the people of her district, and her election acts as a clear barometer for the anger many conservatives feel toward the current administration. This is the same anger that led to the election of Trump less than five years ago.
Greene is part of a small but growing subsection of the Republican party that abandons interest in policymaking for conspiracy theories and vengeful plotting. Despite being part of the “law and order” party, in the past, she has supported the idea of executing prominent Democrats, such as former President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Her social media accounts reveal more of an interest in fear-mongering than remedying problems for the average American who she claims to advocate for.
Though most Republicans in Congress have condemned her beliefs, only 11 voted to remove her from committees. It is disturbing enough that someone with harmful views and no basis in reality like Greene would be voted into public office. But it is even more alarming that most Republicans weren’t willing to cross party lines to set a precedent that prevents this kind of extremism from infiltrating their party and our government.
