When it hit 100, I stopped counting the number of times Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon Congresswoman from Georgia, claimed she didn’t remember something. “I don’t remember that.” “I don’t recall.” “I don’t know.” “I don’t remember saying that.” And that was with more than an hour remaining in her testimony.
Greene did what her lawyer likely told her to do: she wasn’t belligerent. She wasn’t overly loquacious. She didn’t drop any major mistakes. She kept to her script, which was to claim she didn’t remember specific events or her specific actions when given the opportunity, which is likely enough for her to keep her spot on the ballot.
This is where the Court of Common Sense conflicts with the court of law. In the Court of Common Sense, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that Greene promoted Trump fanboys to be violent. You don’t cut half a dozen ads with a weapon and think that when you say “fight” you mean it Socratically, particularly with a bunch of people who haven’t read more of the Constitution than a single amendment.
Greene stylizes herself as the revolutionary leader, only now without the revolution part. Prior to January 6th at about 5 p.m., as she realized she wasn’t in control of the domestic terrorist attacking the Capitol, she thought the US would rise up by her side and overthrown the Biden Regime that had not yet taken office. But as the mob showed its disregard for all authority–Congress, the police, even the Vice President–Marge knew she was in trouble.
Her claim about believing the attackers were BLM and antifa is simply laughable. She knew those where her boys out there, the ones who gathered at her campaign events to praise her and her tough talk.
But in her testimony, she demonstrated a few things. First, she knew the fallout from the attack would be bad, and she had to get out in front of it, so she posted a message (hours after the start of the violence) begging people to go home and be peaceful. If she thought those people were BLM and antifa, do you think she would been as cajoling in the post as she was? Hell, no, she would have posted a fire-and-brimstone speech about how evil those dang Soros-funded groups are! All her answers were lies: if she was so forgetful as a 47-year-old woman, she should be planning convalescent care, not a reelection campaign.
Unfortunately, the most likely outcome in this case is that Greene stays on the ballot. The reason is not that Greene isn’t culpable for promoting and supporting an insurrection; she clearly is from her words and actions before and after the attack. And she still believes the election should be thrown out, something that is not possible in the confines of the Constitution she is sworn to protect.
The reason she’ll be on the ballot is, the law is brutally hard to invoke unless someone literally commits violence against the state. It requires a clear intent to take down the federal government, and Greene’s amnesia, however temporary, gives her enough cover to justify dismissing the petition.
And this leads to another problem: Greene will successfully avoid responsibility for her actions again, which will make her a folk hero among MAGAts. They view this case not as constituents having a legitimate concern about the loyalties of a Congressional representative, but as one of avoiding the consequences of their actions. They do not want her to be held accountable because they, then, would have to accept accountability for their actions. Now, they don’t have to take a look at their souls, and they’ll mock the courts in the same way.
The answer to this problem in the future is to strengthen the laws to explicitly exclude anyone who not only calls for undermining the Constitution, but also for those who target others with death threats. Even in the political realm, calls for violence should not be tolerated by members of Congress. On that count alone, she should be excluded, but to Republicans, that’s just Marge bein’ Marge… and they hope the voters take the action they’re too cowardly to do themselves: vote her out of office.