No American has suffered from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than the one politician willing to look Americans in the eye and tell them the truth. Marjorie Taylor Greene is living a life on the rack. If you do not believe me, just ask her. On Glenn Greenwald’s podcast, she told the host,
“Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I’ve lost money since I’ve gotten here. It’s not a life that I think is like something that I enjoy because I don’t enjoy it.”
The syntax is mangled. But the message is clear. Like the great martyrs of history, Greene has sacrificed herself to serve — the cost be damned. I do not know how much she earned in civilian life as a hard-charging entrepreneur. But it must have been a lot, as she now has to scrape by on a mere $174,000 annually. I hope her generous expense account sands off some of the jagged edges of her suffering.
Greene is also troubled that her job as a member of the federal legislature requires her to travel to where her work is — the seat of the national government, Washington DC. Perhaps she thought it was going to be zoom meetings.
Or maybe she failed to ask the critical question, “if I get this job, where will my office be?”
“The nature of this job, it keeps members of Congress and senators in Washington so much of the time, too much of the time … that we don’t get to go home and spend more time with our families, our friends … or maybe just be regular people because this job is so demanding. It’s turned into practically year-round.”
She is not giving herself full credit. She does not mention that in addition to endless toil in DC, she spent weeks on the road with Matt Gaetz. In those interminable hours, she worked her fingers to the bone spreading the MAGA philosophy to crowds of tens across the nation. And she sacrificed time with family and friends to address white nationalists.
Salting her geographic wounds was the discovery that not only was the position so poorly paid, but it was also a full-time gig. Her confusion is understandable. In civilian life, her job as VP and CFO of the family construction business required so few hours she could spend plenty of time in therapeutic CrossFit sessions at the gym.
Her business history is a bit opaque. After 2011, she was no longer listed with the state as an officer of the company, and yet in 2019, she tweeted,
“As a businesswoman in the construction industry, I've spent the last two decades alongside my husband, Perry, building our company and creating in [sic] jobs.”
Craig Ivey and Justin Yway, Greene’s partners in adultery
Further complicating her auto-hagiography is that while she was supposedly up to her elbows in construction concerns, she opened her own Crossfit Gym in 2013. And despite what would have then been 14 years of business experience, she confessed in an interview that she and her business partner knew next to nothing about running a business.
Perhaps her ignorance was due to distractions. She was a lusty lady who had an alleged affair with a polyamorous tantric sex guru, Craig Ivey — before moving on to gym manager Justin Yway while working at a gym in Alpharetta in 2012.
So far, no one has denied this extra-curricular activity. Tway refused to address the issue except to say, “I have no interest in talking about anything to do with that woman. Everything with her comes to no good.”
Greene has made much of her profound Christian faith and its concomitant morality, but she has never let it stand in her way of a bit of how’s-your-father outside the bonds of matrimony. Nor did it keep her united with her husband, Perry. Her now ex-husband threw in the towel and called the marriage “irretrievably broken” as he successfully sued her for a divorce.
Enough history. Let us get back to Greene and her life in the salt mines. She has more complaints. This time with constitutionally mandated congressional terms — and the fact that she has to reapply for her job periodically.
“For those of us in the House of Representatives, we have to run for Congress every two years. So you’re practically campaigning nearly the entire time that you’re here serving as a representative.”
Greene should take advantage of the fact that she is a rare employee in America who can write many of the terms of her employment. For instance, she could convince her fellow legislators to ban money in politics. Getting rid of that legalized bribery would reduce her campaigning hours by at least 95%.
Although, I should note that a possible barrier to this scheme is the Supreme Court. Those plutocrat suck-ups would probably decide that gagging billionaires and Fortune 500 companies were things the Founders never intended. And would therefore rule that buying politicians is a constitutional right and is as American as school massacres and excess calories.
I would shed a tear for this benighted woman, howling in pain from her personal purgatory. But I am comforted that, should her anguish become unbearable, this wealthy woman could simply resign. An option not available to millions of poor Americans chained to low-paying jobs by the need to pay their bills.
