This editorial was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Loath as we are to grant attention to reprehensible Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the latest head-spinning pronouncement from the Georgia Republican demands discussion -- if only for what it says about the House speaker who empowered her after rescuing her from irrelevance. Greene says red states and blue states need a “national divorce.” In red states, she suggests, only “tax payers” would be allowed to vote, effectively disenfranchising millions of lower-income Americans. She would also prevent people who move from blue states to red states from voting for five years, presumably to clear their minds of blue-state ideas.
Thus Greene says the quiet part out loud: Today’s political right is hostile to the very concept of free and open elections and is itching to control them. She also confirms that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, political hostage that he is, has elevated an anti-constitutional, anti-democracy, un-American crank to a position of significant and dangerous national influence.
Greene, of course, is the QAnon-coddling conspiracy theorist and white-nationalist sympathizer who once posited that California wildfires were caused by a space-based laser controlled by Jewish investors. She also voiced support for violence against Democrats, prompting her removal from committees when Democrats controlled the House.
When the new Republican majority took power January, and McCarthy struggled to win the speakership against a cabal of hard-right Republicans who wanted someone else, Greene stuck with him. She has since become a kind of ambassador between the right-wing ideological fringe and McCarthy, whose only ideology is self-preservation. He has rewarded her with assignments to key committees like Oversight and Homeland Security -- platforms from which she could do serious damage with her often-verbalized hatred of any Americans who don’t share her views.
That hatred was on full display in a tweet last week declaring, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states. ... From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
Following up in several interviews, she said red states should limit voting to people who make enough money to pay taxes -- perhaps hitting closer to home about the GOP’s true priorities than some in the party would like. As for liberals who stray from their blue-state reservations: “Once they move to a red state, guess what, maybe you don’t get to vote for five years.”
It’s no surprise that Greene is ignorant of the Constitution she swore to uphold, in addition to being viciously dismissive of the voting rights of anyone with whom she disagrees. She is, after all, quite possibly the single most ideologically repugnant sitting member of Congress.
But she’s not the most craven. That distinction goes to a House speaker who, in his desperate bid for power, elevates an extremist who openly fantasizes about tearing America apart.
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