Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, Public Domain
On Feb. 4, the House of Representatives voted to remove Republican GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments. She was removed because she publicly expressed her beliefs in unconfirmed conspiracy theories as well as her public endorsement of violence against Democrats.
The former Representative’s position deemed her a member of the budget, education and labor committees. She was voted out of these positions with a vote of 230-199 and 11 Republicans joining the Democrats for Greene’s dismissal.
I think that she should have been removed even sooner by Republican leadership. According to Yahoo News writer, Dylan Stableford, “In a fiery speech on the House floor shortly before the vote, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., excoriated Republican leadership for ignoring Greene’s incendiary rhetoric. Hoyer displayed a poster showing one of Greene’s Facebook posts that included an image of her with an AR-15 alongside Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib above a banner that read ‘Squad’s Worst Nightmare.’”
I think that this alone should have called for Greene’s removal. She has displayed her true self and how she is absurd enough to post violent images such as that. She has openly supported unfounded QAnon conspiracy theories and has a record of expressing racist thoughts. She has a history of posting videos online that contain Islamophobic, racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Greene’s Facebook account also shows images in support of conspiracy theories that are completely baseless. Salient amongst others is posts that purport Newtown, Conn. and Parkland, Fla. school massacres as staged events. She even went as far as harassing David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting and one of the founders of the March for Our Lives movement. This was a disgusting display revealing her belief in conspiracy theories.
In her floor speech prior to the vote, she stated that “These were words of the past and these things do not represent me,” and went on to blame the media for bending her views when shown to the public. She tried to pin herself as a victim of cancel culture, which is a preposterous concept. She has said things time and time again that show she has no right to hold a place in the United States government, at any level. Not surprisingly, she did not offer an apology for her past actions in this speech.
I am glad that Marjorie Taylor Greene was removed from her position. She has no place in any office because she believes in such harmful conspiracy theories and openly discusses them on her platforms. We need people who are sensible enough to know the difference between a baseless conspiracy theory and a fact, and this goes for both Republican and Democratic leaders.
agiampag@ramapo.edu
