Did you hear the latest knee-slapper from Marjorie Taylor Greene? The Georgia congresswoman quipped that if she had “organized” the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, “we would have won,” and that she would have brought weapons. Greene later insisted that she was kidding — just a little joke, about a melee that cost lives and has done incalculable damage to America’s democratic norms.
It’s another reminder of the kinds of devils Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy is cutting deals with in his all-consuming quest to become House speaker. Because the Republican House majority taking office on Jan. 3 is narrower than McCarthy expected, he can’t win with just his mainstream caucus members. He must reach into the GOP’s extremist fringe.
And no one is fringier than Greene. Her litany of crazy predates her election to the House in 2020 and includes suggestions that California wildfires were caused by space lasers controlled by prominent Jews, and that Hillary Clinton was linked to child-sex ring. While in office, Greene spoke at an event organized by notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Early last year, House members (including 11 Republicans) voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments for endorsing political violence.
It’s a measure of McCarthy’s cravenness that he has vowed to restore Greene’s committee assignments in exchange for her support for his bid to become speaker. This provides McCarthy with needed credibility among the extremists in his caucus — while giving considerable political leverage to a person who belongs nowhere near public office.
Greene demonstrated her unfitness yet again on Saturday, during remarks at a New York Young Republicans Club event. Referring to the aftermath of Jan. 6, Greene said: “Next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon here. And I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”
In context, it was clearly a sarcastic dig at her critics. But the crowd’s eruption of cheers and applause at “we would have won” wasn’t an expression of humor at a punchline — it sounded more like camaraderie with an insurrection, and a clear indication that many in the room considered themselves connected to the “we.” Greene’s triumphant follow-up about weaponry did nothing to dispel that sense. Utterly absent from the exchange was any suggestion that what happened that day was tragic or even wrong.
McCarthy, of course, has continued steeping in the shameful silence to which he retreats every time one of the extremists he needs to reach his goal says something horrific. If, as expected, he ascends to the speakership, it will be on the shoulders of some of the worst people ever to sully the halls of Congress — and the new House leader will be in their debt.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch