Pipe the Fuck Down With Your Bullshit, Marjorie Taylor Greene
When I moved from Chicago to Atlanta in 2015 after spending my entire life in the Midwest, I went from living in a one-party city so dominated by Democrats that Donald Trump would happily set the whole thing on fire if he could to the Conservative South.
My dad is even more of an of inveterate Midwesterner than I am. In his mind I wasn’t moving to the biggest, most progressive and continental city in the South but rather a hillbilly backwater where the moonshine flowed, cousins married cousins and every closet contained a Ku Klux Klan robe and/or giant Confederate flag.
I knew that my father’s conception of the contemporary South as the Dukes of Hazzard but with more racism was more than a little ridiculous but I couldn’t deny that Georgia was definitely less progressive than the city where I had spent most of my life.
That has begun to change over the past few years. When people think of Georgia politics these days, they’re more likely to think about black women like Stacey Abrams or Keisha Lance Bottoms than sausage-fingered, beat-red white Conservatives.
Georgia was the white hot epicenter of American politics in 2020 precisely because it was no longer solidly Conservative but rather a city in a profound state of flux that was moving strongly leftward with the whole world watching.
To the abject horror of Donald Trump, Georgia went Democratic in the 2020 elections. Trump tried his damnedest to personally bully and pressure Republican officials who supported him and his candidacy to abuse their power to deliver the state to him and failed miserably and publicly.
Even more devastatingly for Republicans, in run-off elections, Democrats Jon Ossoff (a handsome young Jewish man) and African-American Reverend Raphael Warnock defeated rich-ass, white-ass, Christian Conservatives David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler respectively.
Just when I was getting ready to be proud of Georgia’s politics Marjorie Taylor Greene happened. Greene is a figure out of my father’s paranoid imagination, dumb as a bag of rocks, mean as the day is long and a total rube who famously bought into QAnon conspiracy theories until public pressure forced her to concede that she was, in fact, wrong in her belief that Nancy Pelosi eats babies with top Hollywood celebrities for the sweet, sweet Adrenochrome hit it provides.
Greene’s rise was embarrassing for Georgia Republicans. It was embarrassing for Republicans in general. Her ascent reflected terribly on the American political system as a whole, and the United States as a country.
I’m not just ashamed to be from the same state as Greene: I’m ashamed to be part of the same species as her as well.
Greene isn’t aggressive the way ambitious politicians are aggressive: she’s aggressive the way desperate, unethical rappers and professional wrestlers are desperate.
Greene was stripped of all her committee assignments due to her uniquely toxic, embarrassing combination of crazy, stupid and evil. That gave her plenty of free time to chase headlines and with a series of carny-style stunts.
Most recently Greene has sought the national attention she desperately craves yet has done nothing to deserve by very loudly challenging AOC to a public debate.
In Hip Hop and professional wrestling, the way a hungry young upstart makes a name for themselves is by calling out the hottest guy in the league as a phony that they could absolutely destroy if given half a chance.
AOC is the hottest politician in D.C right now. She’s beloved by Democrats and Progressives and despised with a white-hot passion by Conservatives like Greene. She’s a brilliant politician and communicator who has mastered social media by being pithy and witty and relevant.
AOC is perpetually playing the proverbial 7th dimensional chess while Greene is turning over the Checkers board and screeching that the rules are just too damn hard, and biased against patriotic Christian white ladies like herself.
Greene’s angry demand that AOC debate her or be considered an intellectual lightweight unwilling and unable to step into the ring against a smarter, stronger competitor doesn’t even have the advantage of being original.
It’s little more than a warmed-over version of Ben Shapiro’s ten thousand dollar offer to debate AOC. The progressive icon responded to the diminutive provocateur’s challenge perfectly, explaining, “Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions. And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one.”
AOC doesn’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from women with bad intentions either. She owes Greene less than nothing. AOC has nothing to gain from lowering herself to a debate with the Joe Exotic of American politics.
Greene, on the other hand, has much to gain from the obnoxious, crowd-pleasing theater of continually challenging her intellectual superior to a war of words and ideas. She knows damn well that AOC will never take her up on her challenge.
That allows her and her base to pretend that she’s intimidated by Greene rather than just annoyed by her, that AOC is motivated by fear of Greene’s debating skills.
So sit the fuck down with your bullshit, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Stops talking and try listening for once in your life. Hell, you might even learn something, and boy oh boy, sister, do you ever have a lot to learn.
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