In any other country, Marjorie Taylor Greene would have been disowned by any supposedly serious political party. But if you want idiocy coated in patriotic self-righteousness, there’s nowhere quite like the backwoods of the good ol’ US of A. This makes Greene, the 47-year-old former ‘fitness instructor’ who entered Congress after a landslide victory in a Republican-owned Northwest Georgia seat last year, the perfect culture warrior to restore the values of the conformist 1950s when everyone knew their proper place.
All the conspiratorial tropes of the Far Right jump readily off Greene’s tongue – though she has slightly reined herself in since being elected. She has promoted the white supremacist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, given credence to the true believers of QAnon (who allege cannibalistic satanic paedophiles are plotting against Trump) and once even suggested that space lasers controlled by Jews were responsible for California wildfires. She has engaged in outright denial and promoted the notion of ‘false flag’ operations being carried out to undermine gun rights. In the latter were included mass shootings at Sandy Hook, at a daycare centre in Connecticut and at an LGBTQI+ night club in Orlando.
