Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene lead the GOP

Back in 2016, Trump specifically disavowed racist anti-semites like David Duke:

Donald Trump issued a crystal clear disavowal Thursday of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke after stumbling last weekend over a question about the hate group leader on CNN.

“David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Today, Trump raves about racist anti-semites like Marjorie Taylor Greene:

I’m not sure if people have processed the fact that today’s Trump is not like the Trump of 2016, he’s far worse. You might believe that the leaders of the GOP denounce Greene:

The candidate, Marjorie Taylor Greene, suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party”; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War. . . .

“These comments are appalling, and Leader McCarthy has no tolerance for them,” said Drew Florio, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) went further, throwing his weight behind Greene’s opponent.

“The comments made by Ms. Greene are disgusting and don’t reflect the values of equality and decency that make our country great,” Scalise said in a statement. “I will be supporting Dr. Cowan.”

But people like McCarthy and Scalise are not the leaders of the GOP. Trump is the real leader of the GOP, and close ally Greene is one of his favorite people.

Here’s Wikipedia:

Greene has promoted numerous far-right, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theories including the white genocide conspiracy theory,[7][8] QAnon, and Pizzagate,[9][10] as well as other disproven conspiracy theories such as false flag mass shootings, the Clinton body count, and those related to 9/11.[11][12] Before running for Congress, she advocated for executing prominent Democratic politicians.[13] As a congresswoman, she equated the Democratic Party with Nazis[14][15] and compared COVID-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.[16] She apologized for the latter comparison.[17]

A supporter of Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Greene has repeatedly and falsely claimed that Trump won the election in a landslide victory that was stolen from him.[18] She called for Georgia’s election results to be decertified[19] and was among a group of Republican legislators who unsuccessfully challenged votes for Biden during the Electoral College vote count, even though federal agencies and courts overseeing the election found no evidence of electoral fraud.[20] Greene filed articles of impeachment against Biden the day after his inauguration, alleging abuse of power.[21][22]

What a lovely lady.


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29 Responses to “Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene lead the GOP”

  1. Gravatar of David S David S
    22. August 2021 at 15:26

    I wish I could say that Greene doesn’t stand much chance of being re-elected, or advancing to the Senate…..but your home state has Ron Johnson proudly serving for them. The midterms will be a disaster for Democrats, and 2024 will probably result in a 2nd term for Trump.

  2. Gravatar of steve steve
    22. August 2021 at 18:06

    A part of me cant get too upset about Greene. Her theory about Jewish space lasers causing the California wildfires gave us one of the all time great twitter responses.

    “The Secret Jewish Space Laser is guarded by Hanukkah Solo and his sidekick Jewbacca.”

    Anyway, she will be re-elected. Bet on it.

    Steve

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    22. August 2021 at 19:14

    David, Yup.

    Steve, Yup.

    And to think that I used to laugh when I read articles about politics in the Philippines. Little did I know . . .

  4. Gravatar of henry henry
    23. August 2021 at 00:56

    Marjorie Taylor Greene is not an intellectual leader in the conservative movement. That is like saying the moron Cortez, the bartender with a worthless economics degree from BU, is the leader of the democratic party. Both are buffoons.

    But again, you misrepresent and propagate foolish, uneducated, and intellectually dishonest information. You call yourself an academic, yet you quote Wikipedia.

    Wikipedia is not written by experts. It’s written by everyone, and the citations are predomintely “YouTube videos” and “partisan articles” written by biased journalists. Marketing firms make big money by creating narratives to destroy competitor reputations on wikipages. They write negative articles under a shell company, or sponsor a blogger to do so, and then they cite their funded or written articles. The founder of wikipedia has discussed this “threat” on a number of occasions.

    The very fact that you quote wikipedia shows how ridiculous you are. You don’t have any capacity to conduct real research, which is precisely why you spent the majority of your time teaching at an unknown school in the northeast called Bentley. Whatever that is??

    After the University of Chicago, you had very few options. Your research thesis was substandard.

    But this is the real problem isn’t it. You have a tendency to rush into a conclusion without evaluating the inputs. You are incapable of conducting apolitical work, and your bias and arrogance leads to the wrong conclusion – time and again.

  5. Gravatar of jayne jayne
    23. August 2021 at 01:24

    Henry, he won’t understand. You have to explain it to him like you would to a third grader.

    1. If you disagree with a liberal, you are a deemed a racist. Even Thomas Sowell, Larry elder, Ted Cruz are “racists” according to the liberal media.

    2. Some liberal journalist, or blogger, writes article saying Marjorie Taylor Green and Donald Trump are a racist.
    3. Someone, somewhere, writes she’s a racist on the wikipage and uses the citation from the article or blog.

    Let’s try to explain it in another way:

    1. I can very easily write an article tomorrow that Sumner is a racist.
    2. Someone else edits Sumner’s wikipage saying he’s a racist and they use my article as a citation.

    Is that true? Is Sumner a racist? Probably not. But if I have a citation, especially multiple citations from multiple blogs/articles, many of which I could write myself under different names, then it doesn’t matter. It will be a part of your page forever.

    I don’t know much about Marjorie Taylor Greene, but I doubt she’ a racist.

  6. Gravatar of rinat rinat
    23. August 2021 at 04:44

    Sumner always loses his mind when a politician stands up for American interests against the globalist cabal.

    Let’s review Sumner’s credibility shall we:

    He’s a Vietnam era draft dodger who turned out to be a Bolton “hawk”.

    He supports the debasement of the U.S. currency, and redistributing wealth from America to developing nations.

    He is a proponent of outsourcing America’s jobs to the lowest bidder.

    He likes the idea of vaccine passports, coercion, and if necessary, forced vaccinations.

    He believes that people should be able to vote without ID’s, because he doesn’t think black people are intelligent enough to get free state ID’s. This was his rationale for rejecting Georgia’s recent revisions requiring common sense policies like presenting an ID when you vote (an ID that Georgia is providing for free).

    Based on the comments above, and from others, it appears he was a substandard academic student who was not highly sought after by Universities nationwide.

    His wife either works for, or has worked for Big Pharma. Does the wife receive grant money from Big Pharma? Does Sumner’s advocacy for Pfizer, a company who has historically paid out hundreds of millions in lawsuits for violations of law, come with a nice kickback?

    He praises China’s dystopian state at least once a week.

    He advocates for the consolidation and centralization of government actors, and would like to see the destruction of nation states – and individualism – in favor of a world government run by “philosopher kings”: i.e., highly arrogant, collectivists.

    Does he have illusions of grandeur, in which he is at the top of this hierarchy.

  7. Gravatar of postkey postkey
    23. August 2021 at 05:49

    “Sumner always loses his mind when a politician stands up for American interests against the globalist cabal.”

    ‘These’ ‘American interests’?

    “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. “
    https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1537592714001595

  8. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    23. August 2021 at 07:48

    @ssumner:

    Don’t despair, your track record on predicting elections is as flawed as the rest of us. I very much doubt Trump runs again and if he does I doubt he gets the nomination again and if he does I doubt he wins again. Yes that was how many of us felt in 2015 but things do change.

    The Reps are going to win the House back in 2022 though, that was always pretty much a lock due to the usual off year swing against the president’s party, and the very narrow Dem lead there. The Senate is less sure to flip.

  9. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    23. August 2021 at 08:03

    Msgkings, Yes, and add on the gerrymandering as a factor in the House races.

  10. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    23. August 2021 at 08:24

    @ssumner:

    And in 2023 the Rep House will surely be voting to impeach Biden. That’s just how we do it now in Banana America.

  11. Gravatar of foosion foosion
    23. August 2021 at 11:37

    ssumner & msgkings,

    Gerrymandering and changes to election laws that target those viewed as unlikely to vote for the GOP. Plus, don’t forget the design of the Senate that overweights the power of small states.

  12. Gravatar of nick nick
    23. August 2021 at 21:01

    every time you attack Trump, and use ad hominem attacks against his supporters, you are attacking the views of a large majority of American citizens.

    And you might not care. But you should! Because history has shown that rural voters – whether in Afhganistan, Appalachia, Scottish Highlands, or Mountain Contra’s, will never permit centralized mandates that seek to erode their values, traditions, and freedoms.

    And they always win! You cannot win a war in Appalachia anymore than you can win a war in the mountains of Nicaragua, or the caves of Afghanistan. They will hunt you down, and put a bullet in your head.

    And I’m not suggesting that one should engage in violence. I’m not threatening you in any way. I’m simply stating fact. Historically, centralized actors & city dwellers have lost to rural farmers.

    The reasons for that are many, both in terms of geography and politics. But I can assure you that any civil war in America will result in the defeat of the globalist class. And people like you will be in prison, or dead. It’s just a fact. It’s almost a law of nature. We’ve seen this play out over 3000 years now.

    To avoid a war, the radical liberal class should spend more time trying to reach out to those with different views – and finding compromise, instead of attempting to mandate their views upon others, or belittling those people. Because that strategy is NOT going to end well for you.

  13. Gravatar of Student Student
    24. August 2021 at 05:37

    No fan of liberals myself, but as I recall, it didn’t end well for the rural south last time those urban northern radicals imposed their view that human beings were not personal property on those peaceful rural southerners…

  14. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    24. August 2021 at 07:07

    I think that blaming Trump is inaccurate, as I suspect that root causes go much deeper and further back in time. I don’t know who to blame, but it seems to me that at some point in time people in the US stopped believing in electoral democracy as providing legitimacy to the rulers of the nation, and everything else is just fallout from that. Certainly the view that elections do not lead to legitimate authority was prevalent in the Bush II era.

  15. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    24. August 2021 at 07:19

    @Lizard Man:

    Maybe, maybe not. But what is an undeniable fact is Trump is the first president to refuse to accept an election loss. Welcome to Brazil.

  16. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    24. August 2021 at 19:21

    @msgkings

    I don’t know if Brazil or Argentina is the better comparison.

    If Trump died tomorrow, I don’t know how much that would change anything.

    Additionally, Democrats tried to impeach Trump at least twice, with the full knowledge that actually doing so would be perceived by much of the country as a sort of coup and an overturning of the results of the 2016 elections. So far as I can tell, partisanship in the US is at the point that people only believe that elections are legitimate if their side wins. This is what I mean when I say that elections no longer have power to grant legitimacy in the US anymore. I know that this goes back at least to Newt Gingrich and the impeachment of Bill Clinton, but I don’t know if it predates that. Certainly the talk of a “moral majority” sounds like a departure from a belief in democracy as providing legitimacy.

  17. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    25. August 2021 at 05:32

    Let’s see, we have Afghanistan, we have a seemingly very ill president, we have every political commenter in the world forecasting inflation now and forever, we have a Democrat congresswoman from Minneapolis who married her brother and committed immigration fraud, we have a massive overreaction building due to Delta, we have a recall in Scott’s home state, Cuomo commuted life sentences of true insurrectionists, the Jan 6 “investigation” is dying on the vine, China, according to our CIA, is covering up something on Covid with “100”% certainty—-they just do not know what it is—-and Trump is still not president anymore.

    However, Scott is obviously concerned that he might become President again—-or why is he writing about him? Because of Marjorie Greene? She is a nobody. What he should be concerned about is the 2022 election—-have not seen him right about that. He should also be concerned about who the next Fed Chair will be.

    But he loves to hate Trump——it energizes him.

  18. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. August 2021 at 14:28

    Nick, You said:

    “you are attacking the views of a large majority of American citizens.”

    This is only true if you define “citizens” as white people. But then many Trumpistas are white nationalists, and when they drive through non-white areas they say “it doesn’t look like America.” So for them the Trump vote really is a majority.

    And check out Student’s comment.

    Lizard, You said:

    “Additionally, Democrats tried to impeach Trump at least twice, with the full knowledge that actually doing so would be perceived by much of the country as a sort of coup and an overturning of the results of the 2016 elections.”

    Are you serious? Seven Republican senators voted to convict. In all of the rest of American history, not a single senator of the opposition party had voted to convict. Are we to believe these 7 were participating in a coup attempt? Really? And was the impeachment of Clinton also a coup attempt? How about the attempt to impeach Nixon?

    Michael, I prefer to write posts about man bites dog stories than boring dog bites man stories. And it’s my blog.

    You said:

    “China, according to our CIA, is covering up something on Covid with “100”% certainty—-they just do not know what it is—”

    LOL. And I’m “100% certain” the CIA is wrong about most things; I just don’t know which things they are wrong about.

  19. Gravatar of Don Don
    25. August 2021 at 20:32

    Wikipedia is tainted with partisanship. People should avoid quoting it for anything political. But that creates a dilemma. Does Prof. Sumner not know that and quotes the partisan sources out of ignorance? Or, does he quote the partisan source knowingly? Either way credibility is reduced and NGDPLT steps towards MMT 🙁

  20. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    26. August 2021 at 03:56

    My impression is that Scott’s pointing out that, as bad of a job as Democrats are doing, and I think its really bad, despite me voting Democrat in every race, the Republicans have a clown show that’s not only the worst ever seen, but nuch worse than previously imaginable in the US. It’s vastly worse.

    It’s so bad, I’d give Democrats an F so far, since taking over in Washington, as their improved, but radically suboptimal approach to the pandemic at least doesn’t deny much of the acope of the problem.

    Republicans don’t even qualify to get a grade. They’re like apes or monkeys throwing feces. They just need to be drummed out of office, as they literally have nothing of value to offer, even in terms of adult conduct, with the exception of a handful or so. As the old saying goes, they’re “not even wrong”. They’re disqualified to run the race, because they show up in clown paint on a unicycle. They’re the uninvited side show that needs to be escorted out. They’re the hecklers at a comedy show.

    This is far beyond nutcaes like Greene or Trump. McConnell is certainly more intelligent and less crazy, but has his naked realpolitik been good for America? How about McCarthy in the House? Is he competent? Do either of them operate in good faith? Are any of them even liked or respected among Republicans, outside of their own local voter bases?

  21. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    26. August 2021 at 06:18

    To Scott on CIA

    If you really believe CIA is wrong about most things (I can believe that but don’t really have a strong opinion) that is another topic of interest even if it is dog bites man—-which I would say it is not.

    Also, anti Trump stories are the ultimate dog bites man prototype story.

    And of course it’s your blog—-and I still read it—-but part of your blog is permitting me to criticize it—-what fun would it be if one couldn’t.?

  22. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    26. August 2021 at 10:46

    @ Prof. Sumner

    Perhaps I am being a bit charitable, but I would expect Democrats to be intelligent to know that the 1/3 of the country who are Trump fans would have viewed his removal from office as a coup. And it is the perception that matters, as it is the perception that makes it a coup versus the legitimate workings of constitutional government.

    The impeachment of Clinton was most certainly a coup attempt. It was transparently so. If democracy remains popular, Newt Gingrich will eventually be viewed as quite an evil person.

    As for Nixon, so far as I can tell no substantial part of the population viewed it as a coup, so it wasn’t.

  23. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    26. August 2021 at 11:22

    Don, LOL, are you denying that Greene is a racist anti-semite? Have you seen all the things she’s said over the years?

    Michael, Yeah, it’s perfectly normal for the leader of one of our two major political parties to enthusiastically support someone like Greene, even as all the other top Republicans suggest she is despicable. Nothing to see here, just move right along.

    Yeah, this dog has bitten 100 men. It gets boring. But as long as he keeps biting, I’ll keep reporting.

    Lizard, You said:

    “As for Nixon, so far as I can tell no substantial part of the population viewed it as a coup, so it wasn’t.”

    More than you might think, but less than for Trump. More importantly, people simply didn’t care as much about politics in those days. 60% vote for Johnson then 8 years later 60% voted for Nixon. People weren’t locked into their positions.

    If we are to remain a nation of laws and not men, we need to remove corrupt politicians like Trump. Doing so would not overturn the election. The GOP would still have held the presidency under Pence, who was just as conservative, if not more so. No single person should be above the law; that leads to demagogues of the sort you see in Latin America and Russia and Turkey and India. If a portion of the population doesn’t like it, that can’t be helped.

  24. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    26. August 2021 at 19:37

    “A nation of laws and not men”. So, like a nation of Androids?

    Sorry, I couldn’t pass that one up.

    Anyway, I think that the US is between a rock and a hard place in terms of the rule of law. I think that we should remove politicians and officials from office when they break the law. But a material proportion of the country will see that action not as a legitimate operation of the constitutional order, but rather will view it as a dirty, underhanded trick and simply an attempt to wrest power and influence away from their side. Their response will be to demand that their politicians are fighters who are willing to disregard tradition and even the law.

    It is a Catch-22 situation. I think that the best that the US can hope for is a slow down in the process of the degeneration of the US into some kind of illiberal democracy. Hopefully if we can buy enough time, the world changes and the political battle lines are redrawn in a way where people don’t lose their mind over politics.

  25. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    27. August 2021 at 09:02

    Lizard, Some Trumpistas seem to feel that they are being picked on. I wonder if they ever think about the fact that Jimmy Carter was not a troll. Reagan was not a troll. Neither Bush was a troll. Clinton and Obama were not trolls. These presidents had lots of bad qualities, but they didn’t go around acting like they relished the fact that regions that hadn’t voted for them the were suffering. They didn’t talk like regions that didn’t vote for them were not even part of America. (Obama is famous for one insult, of the sort Trump does every single day.)

    They could have nominated Jeb Bush. If they feel they need to go to war with the enemy within, that’s their choice. Maybe they feel they need to destroy liberal power centers to take back their country. Asymmetric warfare. But then they shouldn’t cry like babies when the other side fights back. Unfair tactics? What the heck was Trump doing for the previous 4 years? Was it fair when he said Obama was not born in America? When he tried to bribe the Ukrainians to smear Biden?

    (BTW, FDR, Truman and Nixon were a bit trollish, but nothing like Trump.)

  26. Gravatar of TGGP TGGP
    27. August 2021 at 15:37

    David Duke was Grand Wizard of the KKK. I don’t think MJT could manage to be leader of anything. Accusing her political opponents of being Nazis actually does make her relatively normal in these sorry times though.

  27. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    28. August 2021 at 01:59

    Some of the persecution complex that Trump supporters have is due to being religious fanatics and understanding that they’re increasingly seen as a weird minority, even if a rather large one. Not all Trump supporters are religious fanatics, but most American religious fanatics are probably Trump supporters.

    Another part of it is just having the same persecution complex that most Americans share today, including those on the left. There’s a sort of narcissistic hyper-sensitivity that interprets any bit of resistance or inconvenience as very personal persecution. In that sense, Trump very much fits our times, as the most extreme narcissist I’ve ever seen.

    We are a nation of crybabies, with religious fanatics being the worst of the bunch, followed by the rest of the identity politics crowd, many of whom are on the fringe left. But, it also includes the parents across the spectrum that can never accept that their children are sometimes problems at school or on social media, or that their NIMBY interests are bad for society.

  28. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    28. August 2021 at 02:25

    By the way, by “religious fanatics”, I mean people with very literal interpretations of religious texts. In the US, these are primarily Christians, along with some fundamenalists in the Jewish faith. Around the world, it includes Muslims, Hindus, and even Buddhists.

    They understand, in ways many of the rest of us do not, that as science and technology progress, modernity itself is increasingly their enemy. This is a large part of the reason even enlightenment beliefs are under attack from the right, even in developed countries.

    The modern world is increasingly at odds with the sort of people who can believe the entire world was once destroyed in a great flood, for example, particularly as economic growth increasingly relies on data collection and analytics.

  29. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    30. August 2021 at 20:52

    TGGP, You said: “David Duke was Grand Wizard of the KKK. I don’t think MJT could manage to be leader of anything. Accusing her political opponents of being Nazis actually does make her relatively normal in these sorry times though.”

    You think the only objection to MJT is that she accuses people of being Nazis? I wonder if some Republicans prefer to just stick their heads in the sand and not learn about how evil their party has become. You can easily do that if you confine yourself to Fox News.

    Michael, Trump supporters are a minority, but they were also a minority in 2016 when he was elected, and he could easily be elected again in 2024.

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