For moderate Republicans, perhaps the only thing more alarming than the election of Marjorie Taylor Greene—the formerly QAnon-spouting, 9/11-truthing, Christian Nationalist-identifying congresswoman from Georgia—is the speed with which she has been able to position herself at the center of the party. Over the past year, Greene has not only managed to ingratiate herself to formerly wary House Republicans, winning over colleagues with zealotry and charm, but has antagonized some members of the far right by openly aligning herself with Kevin McCarthy, the presumed future Speaker of the House, as he struggles to win over a handful of ultra-MAGA holdouts.
In a recent House Republican conference meeting, according to a source inside the room, M.T.G. stood up and gave a speech rallying members to stand behind McCarthy in his run for speaker. “After she spoke, people were pretty amped up,” this person confided. “Even Dan Crenshaw said, Let’s give a round of applause for Marjorie.” This person was surprised, given how often Greene and Crenshaw, who’s openly opposed the most extreme elements of the MAGA agenda, have publicly feuded. “It just struck me, because anyone could have said that,” this person continued. It appeared that Greene had charmed yet another potential ally.
In two short years, M.T.G. has defied the stereotype of what a far-right, Jewish space laser-vouching extremist politician could achieve inside the hallowed halls of Congress. She is, of course, an occasionally hate-spewing obstructionist, deeply conspiratorial, and determined at every opportunity to undermine the “Washington elite” via whatever legislative nuclear options are at hand. Certainly that was how she presented herself before she entered politics, when she was just a local Georgia gym owner and budding online influencer, riding the QAnon wave to Washington. In 2018, she stalked a Parkland shooting victim with a camera on Capitol Hill, claiming that he was a crisis actor; in 2019, she live-streamed herself hurling invective outside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office in the Cannon building.
