A disaster named Greene

What is this lunatic doing in Congress? No, seriously. It’s a real question. There comes a time when the diplomatic niceties of political discourse must give way to bluntly spoken truth. When a sitting member of Congress repeatedly displays classic symptoms of psychosis — that is, a literal, psychological break with reality — it must be addressed head-on.

We refer to (who else?) U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

For anyone who has lost track of Greene’s latest descent into madness (it’s easy to do), she has suggested that last week’s East Coast earthquake was God’s warning to America to “repent.” Also: The eclipse!

“God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” Greene wrote on X on Friday. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

“Repent” for what? She didn’t say. We’re guessing it’s not for the congressional dysfunction that actually should require repentance — dysfunction for which Greene herself has been largely responsible.

Disturbingly enough, this is nowhere near the most unmoored rhetoric from Greene since she babbled and heckled her way onto the national stage. That distinction would probably go to her suggestion that California wildfires were caused by a space-based laser controlled by Jewish investors.

When Democrats controlled the House, they removed Greene from her committee assignments (with the help of almost a dozen Republican votes) for espousing political violence.

But when the GOP took over last year, not only was this cultural arsonist invited back into the fold, she was elevated to key committee posts during Kevin McCarthy’s brief stint as House speaker.

McCarthy needed Greene to shore up his tissue-thin margin of support for his speakership. As we wrote back then, he endangered his own caucus and the very functionality of the House by inviting her back in from exile.

In flailing desperately to attain and keep his speakership last year, McCarthy agreed to a process that allows any member of the Republican caucus to call for a vote to oust the speaker. That was ultimately McCarthy’s undoing.

Now Greene is using that provision to threaten current House Speaker Mike Johnson. His offense? Working with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown and potentially moving ahead with crucial aid to Ukraine in its fight for survival against Russia.

Democrats, too, have their fringy extremists. St. Louis is home to one of them, Rep. Cori Bush, whose loopier pronouncements have included suggesting that Israel’s war with Hamas is somehow an expression of “white supremacy.” (Again: Huh?)

Here’s the difference: Bush is part of a hard-left sideshow that distracts the mainstream of the Democratic Party from its leadership responsibilities now and then, but which remains (appropriately) on the outside of the core of party power.

Greene and her fellow right-wing extremists, conversely, are a core of party power for the GOP. In real ways, they are running the Republican table.