Editors at National Review Online focus on a controversial congressional Republican’s recent actions.
We never thought we’d hear Marjorie Taylor Greene sound like the late Beltway graybeard David Gergen, but here we are.
On CNN over the weekend, the Georgia congresswoman rued how the tone of our politics has gotten so nasty and bitter, when her rise to prominence has largely been based on, shall we say, her lack of nuance.
Greene has been perhaps the most unlikely beneficiary of strange new respect in the history of Washington, D.C., going from a conspiracy theorist disdained by the legacy media to a conspiracy theorist given a respectful hearing by the legacy media, based on her criticisms of her fellow Republicans and her feud with Donald Trump.
The proximate cause of the break-up is MTG’s support for a House vote to release the Epstein files. She is winning at least a tactical victory on this issue, as Trump has done an audacious about-face and endorsed releasing the files (for now). …
… More broadly, Greene is a Tucker Carlson–style isolationist who believes Trump has betrayed MAGA and working Americans by being so engaged around the world. She styles herself as “America First, America Only.” It is in the nation’s interest to lead internationally, though. No one in the U.S. has been harmed by, say, Trump’s strike against Iran nuclear facilities or his peace deal in Gaza. The president’s foreign policy agenda isn’t above reproach, and the tariffs in particular have been strategically and economically counterproductive, but MTG wants a 1930s foreign policy for a 21st-century world.
Greene has complained that Trump has called her “traitor,” arguing that it puts her life at risk. It was indeed wrong of Trump to say this — both factually untrue and unworthy of his office — but MTG hasn’t found fault in Trump lobbing such rhetorical grenades in the past. What do they say about being able to dish it out, but not take it?
