Georgia’s deplorable Marjorie Taylor Greene was among attendees at a right-wing gathering filled to the brim with white nationalists and other guests “who applauded members of an Austrian political party founded by World War II-era German Nazi party members,” Hatewatch reporters said. Other guests at the New York Young Republicans Club event—a generous name when rotting racist Steve Bannon and Rudy Guiliani were also among attendees—included white nationalist Peter Brimelow, founder of the racist VDARE site, named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born in the Americas.
I mean, all of that should be disqualifying for an elected official. But Marjorie Taylor Greene went even more radical as only Marjorie Taylor Greene can manage to do, unabashedly claiming that if she’d been in charge of the Jan. 6 insurrection, the seditionist fucks who sought to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election would have won.
“’Then Jan. 6 happened. And next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon,’ Greene said, referring to allegations that she had led reconnaissance tours of the Capitol for soon-to-be insurrectionists in the days prior to the violence,” Hannah Gais and Michael Edison Hayden reported for Hatewatch, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“’I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won,’ she said, as attendees erupted in cheers and applause,” the report continued. “’Not to mention, it would’ve been armed’” (more on that latter claim later).
That Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to overturn legitimate election results because her preferred candidate lost isn’t new news, as one of the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying legitimate election results, and has expressed support for insurrectionists, whom she had tried to falsely portray as patriots. Greene had actually defended insurrectionists by claiming that “if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.” She even faced a trial that unsuccessfully sought to bar her from public office for her support of Jan. 6.
But her remarks at the GOP event—which she’ll no doubt try to frame a joke, because that’s what Republicans always do when cornered with their own damning words—may be her strongest endorsement yet of using violent force to overturn the legitimate will of the people. She, of course, has absolutely zero hesitation in doing it because knows she’ll face zero consequences: wannabe speaker Kevin McCarthy needs her vote in order to get the gavel, and he can’t risk losing a single vote.
In fact, McCarthy’s already promised to restore Greene to committees when Republicans take over the House, after she was stripped of the spots for endorsing assassination threats against Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Greene’s not afraid of McCarthy; McCarthy’s afraid of Greene.
Circling back to Greene’s suggestion that seditionist insurrectionists weren’t armed, that has been part of a lie pushed by Republicans in order to downplay the seriousness of Jan. 6. Insurrectionists were in fact armed, “erecting gallows, deploying pepper spray, hurling a fire extinguisher, using baseball bats to smash windows and throwing flags like spears at police officers,” Poynter fact-checked in October. Police officers died because of their actions. “Within a week of the attack, a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found,” Poynter continued. “In other words, the crowd was armed.” So there you go, Marjorie.
“Republican speakers repeatedly voiced an anti-democracy, authoritarian ideology, and extremists in the audience cheered wildly,” Hatewatch continued. “White nationalists such as the Brimelows of VDARE and leaders from extreme far-right European parties like Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), whom German officials placed under surveillance for their ties to extremism, and Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), ate and drank in the same room as newly elected Republican congresspeople, such as Long Island and Queens-based George Santos, Georgia-based Mike Collins and Florida-based Cory Mills.”
While attendees applauded Greene’s endorsement of political violence when their candidates lose fair and square, there was one notable moment where apparently the rhetoric went too far even for white nationalists. Greene during remarks complained about the availability of butt plugs and dildos at chain stores. While a hoot or two were heard, the remark was met with awkward silence and an intermittence of nervous laughter. When Greene noticed she perhaps made things very weird in overvocalizing the GOP obsession with gay sex (I mean, people of all sexual orientations enjoy butt plugs, but here it was definitely meant as an anti-gay insult), she tried to move on.
“Sorry, you may still be finishing your dessert, I apologize,” she continued. “Yeah,” a woman is heard responding in the video.
UPDATE: Like clockwork, Greene is now saying that her comments proclaiming that she along with rotting racist Steve Bannon would have led a successful Jan. 6 insurrection were all just a joke that went over the heads of Democrats. Sure, Jan.
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