You can’t afford to ignore Taylor Greene

Patricia Murphy, Tribune News Service

It took less than 60 seconds for the backlash against “60 Minutes” to start after the flagship CBS program announced it would feature US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on last Sunday’s show.

The network shouldn’t give her a platform, critics said. They’d only be elevating her.

But as anyone who has been paying attention to Greene for the last three years knows, Greene already has a platform called the Internet. And she’s already been elevated, not by Leslie Stahl and “60 Minutes,” but by former President Donald Trump, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the entire Republican establishment.

And that’s not to mention Greene’s own voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, who reelected her in 2022 with more than 65% of the vote. With high-profile spots on Congressional committees and the crucial understanding that the greatest commodity in politics is loyalty, Greene has leveraged her relationships with McCarthy and Trump to rocket from, in Stahl’s words, the fringe to the front row.

More accurately, Greene has brought the fringe to the front row. Along with her committee assignments, she was also a top donor to the National Republican Campaign Committee in the 2022 cycle. And she speaks frequently in Georgia, everywhere from local GOP events to the floor of the state Senate. What she says is deeply offensive to Democrats and often untrue. But the influence she has is undeniable —  and growing. Watch Greene carefully, and you won’t see a future running mate for Trump, you’ll see a future Trump.

Greene was with the former president last week for a rally in Waco, Texas, where she walked up a literal red carpet to the stage, pumping her fists and blowing kisses to the crowd, before chants of “MTG!” fired up.

She said the New York charges against Trump are, “election interference and we refuse to look at it any other way.” And she wrongly insisted, again, that Trump won the elections in both 2016 and 2020. Pleased with what he heard, Trump praised Greene from the stage.

“They’ve got to get tougher, these Washington Republicans,” he said. ”…They’ve got to get like M-T-G.”

On Tuesday, Greene and fabulist Congressman George Santos were the only two members of Congress on hand in New York to stand up for Trump as he became the first former president ever to be charged with a crime, or in this case, 34 crimes.

In a park across from the Manhattan courthouse where Trump was arraigned, Greene held a made-for-Twitter show of support for the former president at a rally she’d announced on social media the day before.

Wearing Ray Bans and tennis shoes, she made her way through the crush of mostly journalists to get to a small platform where a bullhorn was waiting for her. “We are the party of peace!” she shouted. “Democrats are the communists! Democrats are the communists!”

Greene’s remarks were over as quickly as they began, drowned out by the scream of whistles that a Trump supporter had been apparently handing out, along with shouts of “Go back to Georgia!” from counter-protesters.

But the content of her speech Tuesday was beside the point. By going to New York and standing up for Trump, she continued to cement her role as both the chief cheerleader for, and heir apparent to, the former president.

You’ve heard time and again that “Trumpism” didn’t start with Trump and it won’t end with him, either. The former president’s arraignment Tuesday was just the latest reminder that whether through jail, defeat, or plain old age, Trump won’t be around to fuel Trumpism forever.

What’s becoming more and more clear is that the most likely vessel for its second life is MTG. When she appears at Trump rallies to speak for him, the cheers for her are second only to his. Her ability to raise cash keeps her near the top of the Washington fundraising ranks.

The dynamics that gave rise to anger in middle America in some ways have only intensified as social media has driven divisions deeper. Greene has ridden that wave and heightened it. She is now only figure on the right who matches Trump’s combination of ignorance, grievance, and pizzazz. Unless the fever breaks, Marjorie Taylor Greene is here to stay.

Moments after her New York park appearance, Greene was doing a live interview with Brian Glenn for Right Side Broadcasting from the backseat of an SUV driving through lower Manhattan.

She looked directly into the camera and declared that by being arrested, Trump was joining some of the most “incredible people in history.”