Marjorie Taylor Greene has some strange ideas concerning the reality of life in America in the 21st Century. I don't need to spell them out. You've heard them. If not, ask David Hogg. Ask Cory Bush. Ask anybody with a soul.
More to the point, Marjorie Taylor Greene is an insurrectionist. She has aided & abetted sedition. She worked actively to overturn a legitimate American election. She has blood on her hands. It is beyond comprehension that she is still a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives.
That said...
I hate to be a buzzkill, but we all need to understand that Marjorie Taylor Greene is wildly popular in her extremely conservative district, as are Gohmert & Gaetz (& many of the insurrectionists) in theirs, for that matter. All they have to do to keep their jobs is keep their district happy; owning the libs seems to be enough. They don't give a shit about you or me & don't need to.
The GOP leadership will not disavow her; indeed, they have embraced her. They don't seem inclined to take away her committee assignments, like they did to Steve King. Kevin McCarthy (who flew down to Mar-a-Lago the other day, in case you were wondering who's still running the Republican Party) just added her to the House Education & Labor Committee (just think about that), with more to come.
Expulsion of a member of Congress requires a 2/3 majority, as per the Constitution. It’s not happening. Censure is only slightly more likely & outside of forcing the accused to stand in the well of the House & listen to the censure, it has very little effect, particularly on someone pathologically devoid of conscience. A reprimand is a worthless cop-out.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is unbound & not going anywhere; neither are very many of the Sedition Caucus. It's frustrating as hell; I know it is. They should all be in jail. We do still have laws in this country that address their behavior. Every last one of them should answer for their actions. All levels of Law Enforcement should be pressured to make them answer, because they don’t seem to have the will. LE is thinking twice about prosecuting the actual Capitol Hill insurrectionists. If that's even a question, expecting them to go after the people in power behind this attempted coup is hopeless. In a sane world, this wouldn't be a question. We are not living in a sane world.
Maybe justice is coming. I’m not optimistic.
I’m looking past the individuals to the system. GA-14 is R+27. If Marjorie Taylor Greene actually vacated her office, whatever the circumstance, she would be replaced by someone with less criminal culpability but the same ideological taint. That goes for most of the seditionists. Unless the Republican Party is marginalized, politically, socially, & morally, the seditionists could be punished, but we will be no better off. Justice improves society; vengeance doesn't.
Don't tilt at windmills. We are not helpless & never will be. Our energy is better spent making sure the Democrats have a bulletproof majority in both houses, thereby rendering these traitors toothless. (We can deal with the Democrats & their flaws later.)
...& that’s a tall order. The Democratic advantage in the Senate is as razor-thin as it can get. A lot of things can happen to alter a 50-50 balance; it probably won't maintain through this year. One death, one resignation, one sufficiently pork-laden promise & the whole game changes beyond recognition. It might get better in 2022; the map is in the Democrats' favor. Of course, it was supposed to get much better than it did this time, too. (Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema & oh, how it pains me to say this, Susan Collins are the most powerful people in Washington right now, but that's a different story.)
The Democratic majority in the House is hardly much safer than the Senate & right now it doesn't look good for 2022. The Republicans will gain enough seats in reapportionment alone to flip the House, & the party in the White House almost always loses seats in the midterms. That’s a fact, but it doesn’t need to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is where we should focus, not on one lunatic from Georgia. It isn't impossible.
America’s democracy has two broken legs & a punctured lung. It need to breathe on its own again before it can walk, or run, or kick ass.
29 January 2021. Delray Beach FL.
©2021 Don McKennan
