THE ELEPHANT SNEEZED AND FELL ON HIS KNEES

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true.”  So said Georgia’s Q Lady, Marjorie Taylor Greene.  She got a standing ovation from her Republican caucus, but those grumpy old Democrats are never satisfied.  I mean, sure, she supported murdering Democratic politicians, but what’s a few death threats among colleagues?  Whatever happened to unity and moving on.

The poor woman was “allowed to believe,” another innocent victim of the faceless bureaucrats in the Ministry of Belief Allowance.  As non-apologies go, MTG’s was more “non” than usual.   It’s not uncommon for public figures to slide into the passive voice when trying to strike just the right balance between “I am now sadder but wiser” on the one hand, and “it was mostly somebody else’s fault” on the other.  But Ms. Greene’s approach is sufficiently eccentric to suggest that she hit upon it herself.  Things were done TO her, not BY her.  Properly understood, she’s the victim here.  If there is blame, it must fall on those who allowed this reputational calamity to befall her.  She bears no responsibility for what she believes.  Got it. 

Let us stipulate, for the sake of the argument, that there were folks in MTG’s life who “allowed” her to become radicalized.  Let us further stipulate that it isn’t Ms. Greene’s fault that her favorite conspiracy theories had flaws of fact and logic that she wasn’t bright enough to notice.  Is she therefore blameless?  I think not. 

I would argue that MTG is still accountable for how she ACTED ON the untrue things she was allowed to believe.  She had the option of thinking her crazy thoughts in the privacy of her own home, harming no one but herself.  Instead, she sought out other crazy people, and helped make them crazier.  She was basically an internet troll, or in pre-internet days, the crank whose constant stream of letters to the newspaper drove the editors to distraction.  Until recently, that would have been her ceiling.

But that was before Donald Trump came along, blazing new trails in getting away with transgressive behavior.  Hey, performative outrage is fun!  Trump became a blank screen upon which his followers could project whatever fantasy they wished. 

Speaking of which, I wonder if Trump has seen the video of the campaign event in which Ms. Greene unveiled a life-size cardboard figure of Trump and ostentatiously rubbed his crotch area.  Is she auditioning to be the next Mrs. Trump, once Melania files?  Certainly, Trump and Greene are kindred spirits – trolls who love a good conspiracy theory and an opportunity for a little risk-free bullying.    

Some folks argue that Ms. Greene’s expiration date is fast approaching.  Her win was a fluke, they say, and she makes a lot of Georgia legislators nervous.  They’ll redistrict the Q Lady out of a job in 2022.  Maybe.  But people like her are the near-term future of the Republican Party.  Anyone who disagrees is obliged to explain why the House GOP caucus voted 199-11 to support her.

Whatever her career may look like in the future, MTG has played her cards pretty well so far.  At a minimum, she’s leapfrogged poseurs like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley in the hearts and minds of MAGA fans.  They know she’s one of them, and they know that Cruz and Hawley aren’t.  Congressional Republicans, including those who’d love to be on the GOP ticket in 2024, need MAGA votes.  But they also need funding from big money donors, with whom they have a natural affinity.  Appeasing the monied interests is simple.  Give them an occasional big tax cut, roll back some environmental regulations, and appoint Federalist Society judges who’ll return us to those thrilling days of 18th century jurisprudence.  But the MAGA crowd wants raw meat.  Donald Trump didn’t draw cheering crowds because he spoke eloquently about the virtues of constitutional originalism.

In MAGA World, outrage is the coin of the realm.  Truth?  Not so much.  Did rich Jewish financiers use a space laser to set wildfires in California?  You might begin to interrogate such an assertion with logic, asking why the Rothschilds would waste their time setting random wildfires when they could burn Mar-A-Lago to a crisp and do us all a favor.  But using logic on a Q Cultist is a waste of time.

As to the more basic question of whether Jewish Space Lasers even exist, the only reasonable response is, of course not, and who cares?  Certainly not Marjorie Taylor Greene.  She’ll say whatever she thinks will keep her famous.  And if it backfires, it’s not her fault.  She was allowed to believe things that weren’t true.

It’s hard to imagine a set of circumstances in which the Republican Party repudiates Trumpism, even if Trump himself is forced to spend the rest of his life fighting against criminal and civil lawsuits from various quarters.  Trump has zombified the GOP, to the point where it is less of a political party than a cult. 

Since George Washington in 1789, we’ve had 46 presidents.  I’m old enough to have been alive for the most recent 14 of them, beginning with Harry Truman.  I’ve lived through good presidents and bad ones, through depressions, recessions, and prosperity, through times of peace and times of war (hot and cold).   I thought nothing could top 1968 as the worst political year I’d ever see.  Boy, was I naïve. 

In school, I was taught that no one was above the law, not even presidents (who were generally presumed to be honest, like George Washington, who could not tell a lie, and Honest Abe).    Until recently, we took it for granted that our chief executive was supposed to obey the laws just like everyone else.  Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were called to account for sketchy decisions, and Nixon was forced to resign. 

But my favorite example of presidential submission to the rule of law happened in 1872.  Republican Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant was president.  Apparently Grant was always in a hurry, and tended to ride his horse through the national capitol at a full gallop.  D.C. Policeman William West arrested the presidential scofflaw, and wrote him a speeding ticket.  Interestingly enough, West was a former slave, who had served under Grant in the occupation of Richmond in 1865.  As a free man and a law enforcement officer seven years later, West arrested his former commanding officer. 

Did President Grant try to have West fired, or claim he was “allowed to believe” that he was exempt from speed limits?  He did not.  Grant paid his $20 fine and commended the man who arrested him. 

And Grant has gone down in history as presidential failure – a great general, but indifferent to the corruption in his administration.  When I was in school, his name appeared alongside those of James Buchanan and Warren G. Harding on the list of worst presidents in history.  A more recent contender came along a few years later, and I’d always assumed that Richard Nixon would hold the title belt in perpetuity.

For now, Donald Trump is the undisputed heavyweight champion of bad presidents.  But Marjorie Taylor Greene, or someone like her, is waiting in the wings.  Let’s not allow that to happen.