The GOP struggles to make the Marjorie Taylor Greene problem go away
Republican Dr. John Cowan lost the Republican primary against Marjorie Taylor Greene after receiving 42.9% in August, 2020. Incumbent Republican Tom Graves received 76.5% of the votes in 2016 and resigned in October, 2020. This district is reliably Republican. Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal decided to end his campaign due to a personal crisis and he had to move to Indiana in October, 2020. So the last person standing on election day was Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Kevin McCarthy going to Mar-A-Lago might have been a wasted trip – Trump is not a strong conservative, and he is no political mastermind. Ms. Greene may be just a QAnon fan who got elected. She has increased her baggage since her election and she is still not sorry about her behavior.
Predictably, Lindsey Graham is hedging his bets. He publicly asks if her posts are actually her posts, and if the video of her chasing people to confront a student from Parkland was accurate.
Mitch McConnell’s statements about Ms. Greene indicate that Trump’s influence is waning with the voters. McConnell wants McCarthy to mete out some punishment to Ms. Greene so that Republicans can show that Republicans took action against her. McConnell didn’t say anything up to this point about Trump’s loony statements. McConnell thought it more advantageous to be quiet before. But now, McConnell thinks the Trump stock in trade is waning due to coronavirus missteps, due to trump’s more frequent incendiary language and missteps about the election. McConnell is starting to face the possibility that some trumpsters won’t vote in elections, no matter what Republicans do, and that Trump does not control all Republican voters nor candidates.
Marjorie Taylor Greene cannot be controlled and is just another loose cannon in the Republican party, as Trump has been. Maybe she is the straw that broke the Republican coalition.
