‘It’s Embarrassing’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Tests
the Limits of Some Voters
In her Georgia district, voters saw Ms. Greene as a
conservative voice that would be impossible to ignore. Now the revelation of
past social media posts has unsettled some who backed her.
By Rick
Rojas
Feb. 4,
2021
Updated
8:42 a.m. ET
SUMMERVILLE,
Ga. — Billy Martin does not care much for politicians. But the retired teacher
and coach liked what he heard from Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promised to
arrive in Washington as a defiant force, intent on rattling the establishment.
For his
community in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, which he believed had
long been overlooked, Ms. Greene had a voice that was impossible to ignore.
But in
recent weeks, it has also been impossible to ignore the torrent of troubling
social media posts and videos in which Ms. Greene had endorsed violent
behavior, including executing Democratic leaders, and spread an array of
conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the
Pentagon and the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Fla., were hoaxes.
“Sometimes
people say things they regret, speak before they think,” Mr. Martin said as he
got in his pickup in downtown Summerville, a town of 4,300 people represented
by Ms. Greene, a Republican who was elected to Congress in November in an
unopposed race that drew national attention because of her promotion of the
pro-Trump movement QAnon.
He found
her posts and statements puzzling. Still, he added, he was not sure what to
believe. “I don’t think they treat you fairly anymore,” Mr. Martin said,
referring to the news media and Democratic politicians.
As Democrats
push to strip Ms. Greene of committee assignments and as some Republicans
condemn her statements, she has argued that the resistance confronting her only
“strengthens my base of support at home and across the country.”
To some
degree, that was true, as her most fervent supporters saw in the treatment of
Ms. Greene a reminder of all that they loathed about Washington. But in a
congressional district proud of its ranking as one of the most conservative in
the country, voters drawn to her unapologetic intensity were now also brushing
the limits of their support.
“It’s
embarrassing,” Ashley Shelton, a stay-at-home mother who voted for Ms. Greene,
said of the controversy. She thought former President Donald J. Trump would
serve another term and saw Ms. Greene as “a backup, a comfort.”
“I think
she’s kind of a loose cannon,” Ms. Shelton said before paraphrasing a line from
the Old Testament: “The wise are the quiet ones,” she said. “The more she opens
her mouth, the less evidence of her wisdom.”
Georgia has
been gripped by a political tug of war, as the once reliably Republican state
was won by President Biden in November, the first Democrat to do so in nearly
three decades. And last month, the state’s two Republican senators were
replaced by Democrats, tilting control of the Senate to that party.
Ms.
Greene’s district represents the other end of the rope — a largely white and
rural corner of the state dominated by Republicans. Sprawled across a dozen
counties, the 14th Congressional District reaches from the outer suburbs of
Atlanta to the outskirts of Chattanooga.
Despite her
promotion of conspiracy theories during the tightly contested primary and
runoff, Republicans said Ms. Greene gained traction by hewing to core
conservative themes — defending gun rights, opposing immigration and supporting
Mr. Trump. She covered a lot of ground, too, sometimes attending as many as
five campaign events in a day.
“A lot of
people here feel like they really know her,” said Luke Martin, a local
prosecutor and chairman of the Republican Party in Floyd County, which is in
her district. “They’ve met her. They’ve spoken with her. She never talked about
that stuff. It’s kind of confusing to a lot of people. The person they think
they know is not this person.”
The recent
cascade of past social media posts, which also included a conspiracy theory
that a space laser controlled by Jewish financiers started a California
wildfire, Luke Martin said, has weakened her support. “You can’t justify it,”
he said of her statements and social media activity. “It’s indefensible.”
But local
Democrats contend that Republicans should not have been surprised. Some have
written letters to the editor of newspapers in the district calling for her to
step down.
“I didn’t
think she was fit for office back then,” John Lugthart, who wrote one of the
letters published in The Daily Citizen-News in Dalton, said of his opinions of
Ms. Greene during the election. “More and more has come out, and my hope is
that many others in our district now realize she’s not the one to represent
us.”
Others,
having long been resigned to the minority position held by Democrats in the
region, said they hoped an infusion of energy in the party could bolster its
chances in the next election.
But emotion
filled Teresa Rich’s voice as she stood outside the radiator shop she owns with
her husband, bemoaning the way Ms. Greene has been treated and the failure of
other Republicans to adequately defend her.
“I love
her,” she said of Ms. Greene, describing her as a fighter taking on the
political establishment. “She fought them. If the party was like it was
supposed to be, she wouldn’t be in a corner by herself.”
Rick Rojas
is a national correspondent covering the American South. He has been a staff
reporter for The Times since 2014. @RaR
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