Marjorie Taylor Greene: The Face of Today's GOP

There is a plethora of bad actors and insane lunatics in today's Republican Party.  Indeed, the list is long and starts with Donald Trump himself,  Among the others is Rep. Marjorie Tayor Greene - who, in my view is metally ill, like Trump - who embraces every wild conspiracy theory, justifies political violence and spreads a constant message of hate, all the while pandering to the most hideous elements of the Republican Party base.  Some GOP apologist would argue that not all Republicans are like Trum and Greene, but the reality is that when one refuses to loudly condemn hate speech and misogyny you give it tacit approval and help mainstream it and those shouting out batshit craziness and open hatred.  Greene outs out a constant message of extremism and now, with Kevin McCarthy willing to do literally anyhing necessary to secure the House speakership, Greene and others like her will likely be further empowered and have an even bigger platform to spread a nonstop message of hate and grievance.  A piece in Politico looks at how the Biden White House is belatedly aiming at hanging the likes of Greene around the GOP's neck.  Here are article excerpts:

With a fractured Republican party readying to take the reins in the House of Representatives, the White House is doing something it resisted early in office: taking on the more extreme members of the opposition party.

Over the past few months, President Joe Biden and top aides have become much more inclined to call out Republicans they consider radical by name, in hopes of tarring the GOP writ large and further dividing the party.

During Congress’ lame duck period, the West Wing has unleashed attacks on lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whom the White House has tried to turn into the poster child of the incoming House GOP majority.

[I]t was a reaction to the fringe members becoming more prominent and, in their eyes, Republican leadership ignoring the worst offenders.

“Those dangerous conspiracy theories took hold. These people got big followings. There was not enough leadership from the Republicans in charge when it came to this. And so early this year, he made a decision that was in line with why he chose to run in the first place: he had to specifically condemn this and show how false and dangerous it is,” . . . . Pretending these threats didn’t exist would only help them grow.”

The Republicans’ narrow midterms win in the House has put prominent conservatives atop major committees poised to launch an onslaught of GOP-led investigations into the administration. The third presidential candidacy of Donald Trump has also provided the White House with fodder to warn about MAGA Republican figures taking on positions of prominence.

“Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America — including at Mar-A-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said at the time. . . . they also see an opportunity to exploit what they see as the extremism of some of the Republicans coming to power.

The Republican Party has, on the whole, leaned harder to the right in the age of Trump with some of his most faithful disciples — Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), and Greene among them — becoming conservative stars.

The thin majority has given the group enormous clout for the new Congress as GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has been working to consolidate support for House speaker. Greene has offered her support . . . .

As others on conservative fringe of the party threaten to break away, many, including officials in the White House, expect McCarthy will have no choice but to offer the hardcore members prominent posts in exchange for their support. White House aides believe it will be much easier to make them the faces of the opposition, turning off voters who might find some of those views as too extreme. . . . . we need to ‘be honest with each other and with ourselves’ that ‘too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.’ And ‘we, the people, must say this is not who we are,’” Bates said in a statement.

After the Georgia Republican[Greene] repeatedly denounced a need for an assault weapons ban in the wake of the recent Colorado Springs mass shooting — saying it would not stop “a transgender from shooting up his own LGBTQ community or any other murderer already breaking laws to kill people” — White House spokesperson Andrew Bates jumped on the remarks.

“These sentiments, from a politician who has called for violence against those with whom she disagrees, are not only inherently discredited — but they prove President Biden’s point,” Bates said at the time.

Some Biden aides and allies contend that the revised approach is a matter of principle and not politics while others admit that a helpful byproduct is large swaths of voters being turned off by extremism. They point to Biden’s use of the “ultra MAGA” moniker — derided by pundits at the time — as useful rhetorical fodder during the midterm elections. . . . . it was a very effective strategy for raising for the American people the hazards of going down that path with democracy denial, with the threats of political violence to achieve political ends.”

“When you have Republicans in governing positions, it’s pretty powerful to just point a very sharp finger at what they’re doing and say, is this really the kind of America you want to live in or the kind of people you want in these positions?”