It was a weekend of horrors at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, where the extreme far right, otherwise known as Republicans, gathered for the Turning Point Action conference. It might have gotten a little awkward for the Freedom Caucus members in attendance when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who they recently booted from the group, showed up to give her little speech. It will be no less awkward when President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign ends up lifting clips from her speech for his ads.
Greene was attempting to scare the crowd by comparing President Biden to Lyndon B. Johnson and even Franklin Delano Roosevelt in this snippet, tweeted by @acyn. Biden and LBJ are both “Democrat Socialist,” she said, which is not a thing. LBJ, she explained in her third grade-level history lecture, created the Great Society program, including “education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and big labor and labor unions.”
Why, yes. Yes he did! He lifted millions of people out of poverty. But that’s not all, Greene warned. Because like LBJ's Great Society, Biden has Build Back Better, “the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs.” What’s even worse, she said, is “that is actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on, and Joe Biden is attempting to complete.”
Greene is clearly no scholar, probably having gotten most of her history from Wikipedia, but she is hilariously and cluelessly making a very good case for reelecting Biden and Democrats. Putting Biden in league with LBJ and FDR—correctly, if he can actually complete his agenda—is all the motivation we need.
By the way, Greene wasn’t so opposed to government handouts when it came to getting a Paycheck Protection Program loan during the pandemic, and asking for the forgiveness that came with it; $183,504 in total. Which could look like a socialist handout if you squinted at it from the right angle.
(Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan. The only thing any of us have in common with MTG.)