Just saw Greene had posted some fiery stuff about being marginalized by Republican men. “I’m not going back in the kitchen”, etc.
For all the world, it literally and truly seems like she’s waking up to the fact of sexism (now that it’s happened to her).
To be clear, I’ll never forgive her for anything she’s ever done or said, but although there’s a rich leopards-eating-faces irony threaded through this, I just can’t cheer for a woman being marginalized by men. If it leads to some kind of true awakening, I’ll cheer for that, but I don’t feel right gloating about a woman getting fucked over by a bunch of conservative men.
This is a woman who pushed the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag operation, she’s praised Putin, she’s transphobic and anti-gay, and her general behavior as a “legislator” has contributed to the political cesspool Washington finds itself mired in. I don’t know if I want to gloat, but she’s certainly reaping what she sowed.
I disagree. Of what she sowed, she’s not reaping any of that. Of the things she’s reaping, none of it is what she sowed. Misogyny and sexism existed before she was born.
I realize that polarizing figures like MTG invite a Manichean analysis that permits no nuance. I’m not saying she has to be forgiven for even one thing she’s ever done, but personally I cannot simply look at a woman who has been sidelined in the workplace by a bunch of men and brush it off by saying “she was asking for it.” That kind of feminism isn’t a principle, it’s a position of convenience, and I personally am not comfortable with it.
Greene had no problem in 2020 when Trump tried to disenfranchise Georgia voters, no problem with Trump’s order to Texas to gerrymander to disenfranchise Texans, and she’s stood by a rapist who frequently issues misogynistic insults. MTG isn’t some poor, innocent women who happened to become the victim of misogyny. She was an active participant who helped build the clubhouse for those currently excluding her. She didn’t mind throwing other women under the bus when it suited her needs but now that she’s under the wheels it’s a different story.
Never said that she was, and this is exactly the kind of black-and-white thinking I was calling out in my post.
I’m simply saying I can’t call myself someone who opposes men marginalizing women if I gloat over someone doing it to a woman I don’t like. I’m glad she’s out of office and I don’t really care what happens to her after this. I hope she lives a life of frustration and obscurity. But I’m not going to cheer the fact that a bunch of men ganged up to push her out of the clubhouse.
If a burglar gets burglarized, you can reflect on the irony of it while despising the perpetrators of the latest crime. You can call Republicans despicable for their misogyny while also holding MTG up as an example of why you don’t join the face-eating leopards side.
Let’s not forget how strongly she has embraced and advocated for bigotry for years. Even as she was first elected, it was noted.
And it has always been a defining part of her public platform.
Is it a good thing that she’s a target of bigotry now? No. Bigotry is bad, even when the target is despicable, because nobody deserves it. It’s always wrong in every circumstance. That doesn’t mean she deserves to be pitied and it doesn’t mean she deserves our support. And it doesn’t make it wrong to point out that she absolutely reaped what she sowed. There’s no hypocrisy or shame in doing so.
I do agree with you that we shouldn’t miss how awful it is, what they’re doing to her, even though she’s not worthy of sympathy. Don’t let disgusti for her overshadow that.
I was also never comfortable with the “butch body” insult that some on the left seemed to enbrace.
Yes, but it’s like a person quitting a job after coworkers make it a hostile work environment. It’s not inaccurate to say she was driven out.
And here are a couple of articles about her claims of misogyny against her.
She cited it as part of the reason she’s quitting.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for,” Greene said.
MTG is not, has never been, and does not claim to be a legislator. She is a perpetual grievance performance artist and long time merchant in hate speech, bigotry, and conspiracy theories. To my knowledge she is right on one and only matter- the Epstein files. For that, I’ll admit that she is doing the right thing and stood up to pressure from the White House. The blind spider does catch the occasional fly. She’s likely set for life and doesn’t care too much if her pension is a meager one.
I think before November you’ll see more rats jumping off the sinking ship. Republicans know that their time in the majority will be over in a year and are likely sick of being rubber stamps wielded by a crazy old dotard.
Yes, that’s absolutely true, and the reason she was driven out had absolutely nothing to do with bigotry.
We can say she reaped what she sowed as far as being a horrible person who got treated horribly by others, and it’s technically accurate. I just feel like that is an emotionally-satisfying but simplistic analysis of what’s actually being reported.
I feel it’s important to be conscious of the fact that she’s been shut out of the workplace by a bunch of men who decided it was to their advantage to cut her loose (if that’s what really happened). If you’re cheering for that, you’re cheering for sexist and misogynist Republican men. It undercuts the whole “leopards eating faces” thing in my book.
We can be glad she left her job in disgrace, we can be glad she’s less influential now, without celebrating the sexism and misogyny that drove her out. That’s important not just because Democrats are supposed to be against that, but also because it might not actually true. She might be lying. They may have just cut her out because she’s an unpopular and ineffective kook. If she’s lying then you shouldn’t be helping give legs to her ego-soothing public narrative.
I highly doubt it. There was a number noted earlier in the thread, IIRC it’s 2 or 3, for the number of Republican representatives that would need to resign for the House to flip Democratic. That is enough pressure to keep something that has never happened before from happening now. AFAIK neither the House or Senate has ever flipped due to legislators resigning for political reasons*. It’s not about to happen now.
*. As opposed to reasons like poor health, scandal, or even switching parties.
No, I’m not saying before the election, I just believe that the Republicans know that they’ll lose the House after the November elections (and January 2026 swearing in) and that they have no interest in being the minority power, much less one beholding to a senile moron in the White House.
Yes, the House will likely flip. But even including retirements due to an incumbent not wanting to be in the minority, do you think it will make that much of a difference? There aren’t very many purple districts left, meaning retirements will be mostly from red districts and we’ll just be trading an old veteran incumbent R for an up and coming, ambitious; freshman R who knows they have to start somewhere, even if it’s in the minority in the House.
I’m not persuaded that MtG was “driven out” due to her status as a woman. Not denying that Trump is a misogynist. But I would imagine any similarly situated man with her track record would have experienced a similar fate.
I think it unfortunate when nasty persons reflexively claim discrimination against themelves when they experience some undesired action.
While they were building their clubhouse, MTG handed them the hammer, nails, and made sure they had all the lumber they needed. I’m not cheering because she was marginalized by MAGA for being a woman, I’m cheering because she was hoisted by her own petard. What the hell did she think was going to happen?
I also question the narrative that she was driven out for being a woman. I think Trump would have been quite happy to have her remain a representative from Georgia. At least he was happy until she wouldn’t shut up about the Epstein files.
I think what is happening can be explained by the changing of the guard from Sean Hannity as the main mouthpiece of the Republican Party’s base to Tucker Carlson being that figure.
In simple terms this is the changing of the guard of a form of conservatism being led by people who supported free market capitalism, small government and global alliances (at least in theory) starting with Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush to what is now a form of national socialism.
Hannity obviously is a big Trump supporter but he’s a Republican partisan first and foremost. His primary focus is keeping the Democrats out. Hannity believes the Democrats use the power of government to interfere with the private sector in order to socially engineer America hence you must vote Republican to stop it.
Tucker Carlson agrees that Democrats use private business to socially engineer. But he doesn’t disagree with the principle. He supports wielding the power of big government over businesses as tool to advance social engineering goals too, just for the policies he wants. Marjorie Taylor Greene agrees. JD Vance agrees. They will use rhetoric similar to Bernie Sanders about how the government should do much more oversight into corporate America rather than let the free market regulate itself. But where they differ is Sanders focuses on the wage gap between CEO and workers whereas Carlson focuses on CEOs either being diversity hires or pushing diversity policies. It’s the same principle: that government should get involved in how the private sector operates, but for vastly different reasons. Similarly they believe the US should become more isolationist but where Sanders argues from the view that money spent on military alliances and a stronger military can be used for domestic programs instead, Carlson says it from the view that when the US gets involved overseas it means the gate is open for people from overseas to enter the US and that changes demographics. Again, same principle but different motivation.
I think the breakup therefore is happening because people like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are seeing now that Trump is in fact motivated by self-interest first rather than ideology and that means he doesn’t move fast enough when he says what they want to hear but conversely he can be placated by opponents of Carlson’s ideology because his ego comes first. To them Trump now appears like a man who is more interested with building a ballroom rather than building a wall.