President Donald Trump wasted little time congratulating Marjorie Greene, the Republican candidate in Georgia’s 14th district who is bound to be Congress’ first open QAnon supporter.
Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2020
He had also congratulated her for winning the first round of the Republican primary, in which she trounced neurosurgeon John Cowan by nearly 20 points but failed to surpass the 50 percent threshold.
Greene clinched the second round decisively, beating Cowan back with 57 percent of the vote to his 43. Georgia’s 14th district is deeply red, making it almost certain that she’ll win the seat officially in November.
Greene celebrated early, before the Associated Press had called the race. If observers expected any tone modulation from the likely newest member of Congress, they were mistaken.
“She’s a hypocrite. She’s anti-American,” Greene told her raucous supporters of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “And we’re going to kick that bitch out of Congress.”
Greene’s victory is likely to be the start of a years-long headache for national Republicans. Unlike other QAnon-curious candidates, Greene does more than cheekily wink at the conspiracy theory with hashtags or retweets. Based on her social media presence, she fully embraces many of the more extreme beliefs it ecnompasses.
“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 a 2017 YouTube video.
And that’s to say nothing of her other beliefs. The race was temporarily rocked when Politico unearthed some highlights from her prodigious social media activity vile enough to prompt disavowals from top Republicans.
In the Facebook videos, she called Black people “slaves to the Democratic party” and “lazy,” labeled the diverse freshman class of congress members voted in during the 2018 midterms “an Islamic invasion of our government” and compared Black Lives Matter protesters to the neo-Nazis who marched at Charlottesville.
She also accused George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, of being a Nazi.
Though national Republicans including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) denounced the comments, they largely let the race play out without their intervention (Scalise did hold one fundraiser for Cowan in July). By the end of the race, McCarthy was saying that he was on good terms with both candidates.
Her plans and priorities when she gets to Congress will remain a mystery for now. Bragging in a tweet about kicking reporters out of her victory party, she declared a full media blackout.
“Tell your ‘reporter’ buddies not to waste time calling me, since I won’t be taking their calls,” she crowed. “Truly the enemy of the people.”
