President Donald Trump congratulated Marjorie Greene on Friday, the strong leader of the Republican primary in Georgia’s 14th district and likely to be Congress’ first open QAnon supporter.
A big winner. Congratulations! https://t.co/ZsL3YA33H8
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2020
While Greene is not the first QAnon advocate to win a primary for national office this election cycle — see Jo Rae Perkins in Oregon — she is the first who will almost certainly win a seat.
She’s headed to a runoff in August after failing to get a majority of the vote, but her Republican opponent lagged behind her by more than 20 points in initial results from this week’s primary election. If she does ultimately win the runoff, her district is so heavily Republican that it’s unlikely a Democrat would be able to beat her in the general election.
She previously worked as a businesswoman, buying a commercial construction business with her husband in the early 2000s and starting and selling a CrossFit gym.
She has posted videos on her social media accounts supporting the conspiracy theory and calling Q, the anonymous leader of the movement, a “patriot” who has been right in many of his predictions.
In one, posted to YouTube in 2017, she said that Q is “on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump.”
“I’m very excited about that now there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” she said.
In the video, Greene seems to express interest in some of the more extreme beliefs encompassed by the conspiracy theory. She voices her excitement about a coming final judgement-like event, sometimes called the “Storm” in QAnon-speak, during which prominent Democrats and figures in popular culture will be tried and executed, or possibly sent to Guantanamo Bay. She also echoes the frequent and baseless accusation of Trump’s political enemies being pedophiles and Satan worshippers.
At the heart of the conspiracy theory is a supposed secret battle between Trump and a “deep state” working to destabilize him. In the video, Greene expresses hope that then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller was just pretending to investigate Trump’s Russian interactions but really looking to take down other “elites” in Washington D.C. to “clean house.”
Greene did not respond to TPM’s request for comment. She did, though, sound off when the Washington Post reached her about her beliefs.
“The Chinese propagandists at the Washington Post are attacking me the same way they attack Donald Trump, and other conservatives,” Greene told them. “Northwest Georgians are proud, conservative America-loving patriots. … I won’t let them be bullied by the hate America leftists at the Washington Post.”
She similarly lashed out at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which inquired about a picture she took with Chester Doles, a Georgia native with ties to multiple white supremacist groups and a Q believer.
Doles called her a “friend” who’s “part of the Q movement.”
Greene called the outlet’s questions “silly and the same type of sleazy attacks the Fake News Media levels against President Trump.”
Despite the incoherence and extremism of her QAnon-aligned beliefs, Greene has found no shortage of Republicans willing to lend her their support.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) gave her a full-throated endorsement, which she posted on her Facebook page.
“Marjorie Greene is a strong conservative, political outsider, and successful businesswoman,” the post read. “She is exactly the kind of fighter needed in Washington to stand with me against the radical left.”
Jordan’s office did not respond to TPM’s questions.
She has also, per her website, been endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ).
More recently, Greene has indulged in another conspiracy theory.
In a campaign video on her Twitter page, which was removed from Facebook for violating its policy on promoting the use of firearms, she holds an AR-15 and asserts that Trump has declared antifa a terrorist organization.
ANTIFA has declared war on our country.@realDonaldTrump responded by declaring them a domestic terrorist organization.
Here’s my message to ANTIFA terrorists:
Stay the HELL out of NW Georgia.
You won’t burn our churches, loot our businesses, or destroy our homes. pic.twitter.com/kBMh87G1ap
— Marjorie Taylor Greene For Congress?? (@mtgreenee) June 2, 2020
Antifa, a frequent boogeyman on the right, is less an organization than an approach to protesting shared by those on the left who are militantly anti-fascist. It has been invoked recently by Trump, Attorney General Bill Barr and others on the right who, without evidence, claim that the group is using the Black Lives Matter protests as an excuse to come loot and destroy random towns across the country.
Some believers, mobilized by rumors on social media, have issued a call to arms to others in their remote towns, during which they stand guard for a threat that never materializes.
Still, Greene seems undeterred by the imaginary nature of the threat.
“I have a message for antifa terrorists,” she says in the video while seeming to cock the gun. “Stay the hell out of northwest Georgia. You won’t burn our churches, loot our businesses, or destroy our homes.”
