The Patriot Post® · Marjorie Taylor Greene's Unique Challenge
Democrats have basically two arrows in their quiver for this fall’s midterm elections: Buying voters with things like student loan cancellation, and scaring people over the supposed “insurrection” that took place for a few hours on January 6, 2021. The latter is the reason for the latest flap over Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
More on her in a moment.
To be sure, we’ve condemned the rabble-rousers who led the riot at the Capitol while drawing bright lines distinguishing them from the folks who showed up to a protest, walked through the Capitol (sometimes after police had let them in), and wound up being prosecuted and detained to an extreme double standard.
Even so, no one — not even that horn-helmed shaman guy — has been charged with insurrection. Donald Trump did not incite one, despite the Democrats’ bogus impeachment effort based on that spurious charge. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is not disqualified from office by participating in an insurrection.
Yet that’s exactly what some leftists argue in Georgia’s 14th District. A group with the ironic name “Free Speech for the People” aims to bar Greene from running again based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Passed in the wake of the War Between the States, the provision they cite prohibits anyone who, “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
This group claims that Greene’s public rhetoric leading up to the Capitol riot and in its aftermath was tantamount to engaging in insurrection.
For example, she repeatedly asserted that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election. And Greene texted with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 17, 2021, saying: “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
This is pretty shabby evidence, even for the Impeachment Party, but a judge will decide the case this week.
This author lives in Greene’s district, and our district has been better served in the past by Republicans interested in doing things, not only in making people angry. There’s a difference between being an anti-establishment populist thorn in the side of the powerful and being a nuisance. Greene leans toward the latter.
Democrats wrongly and hypocritically stripped her of all committee assignments a month after she entered Congress, but she so quickly made trouble for Republicans that few stood up for her — some even voted with Democrats. Her service to her constituents is thus greatly limited. Seemingly the only notable piece of legislation to her name is articles of impeachment against Joe Biden that she introduced less than 24 hours after he took the oath of office (and again later last year). Retribution for the Democrats’ two frivolous impeachment efforts against Trump might get a few cheers of “atta girl” back home, but her action was even more frivolous than what she was protesting.
Her schtick is a bit too close to that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of “The Squad.” She seems more interested in the populist bomb-throwing show than in conservative substance and the hard work of governing. That’s why she faces a Republican primary challenge from Jennifer Strahan.
Nevertheless, tossing Greene off the ballot is absurd, whatever you think of her approach to the office. Besides, as Obi-Wan told Darth Vader just before his former apprentice killed him, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Greene is well funded, and the more Democrats make these ridiculous attacks on her, the more some of her northwest Georgia constituents love her. She’s “fighting” for them and making all the “right enemies.” Will she be able to keep the gig, or will she find new fame as Martyr Taylor Greene?
Update: State Administrative Law Judge Charles Beaudrot ruled that Greene can remain on the Georgia ballot.