Don’t empower this lady

Loath as we are to grant attention to reprehensible Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the latest head-spinning pronouncement from the Georgia Republican demands discussion—if only for what it says about the House speaker who empowered her after rescuing her from irrelevance. Greene says red states and blue states need a “national divorce.” In red states, she suggests, only “tax payers” would be allowed to vote. She would also prevent people who move from blue states to red states from voting for five years, presumably to clear their minds of blue-state ideas.

When the new Republican majority took power January, and McCarthy struggled to win the speakership against a cabal of hard-right Republicans who wanted someone else, Greene stuck with him. She has since become a kind of ambassador between the right-wing ideological fringe and McCarthy, whose only ideology is self-preservation. He has rewarded her with assignments to key committees like Oversight and Homeland Security—platforms from which she could do serious damage with her often-verbalized hatred of any Americans who don’t share her views.

That hatred was on full display in a tweet last week declaring, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states. … From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”

It’s no surprise that Greene is ignorant of the Constitution she swore to uphold, in addition to being viciously dismissive of the voting rights of anyone with whom she disagrees. She is, after all, quite possibly the single most ideologically repugnant sitting member of Congress.

But she’s not the most craven. That distinction goes to a House speaker who, in his desperate bid for power, elevates an extremist who openly fantasizes about tearing America apart.