Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Monday visited the Holocaust museum and apologized for “offensive” comments she made last month that compared policies requiring face masks during the coronavirus pandemic to the Holocaust.
This is a lose-lose for MTG: she had to “back down”, which will displease her MAGAt-loon base, but she’s avoiding censure, which will mean that she continues to say vile things–which is good for Dems.
In her “apology” yesterday, Congresswoman Greene noted that she had visited Auschwitz as a 19-year old. But somehow the magnitude of what she saw in her youth didn’t make much of an impression on her, as she made one of the grossest comparisons of apples to oranges in recent memory and did so with the authority and responsibility of her seat in Congress.
Only after her tour of the Holocaust Museum did she realize the error and inappropriateness of her earlier statements about mask-wearing? What does that tell you about someone if they can see firsthand a Nazi death camp in their formative learning years and still be able to trivialize it as an adult?
Don’t give her any oxygen through the press. Ignore her. She cannot be reasoned with and will not accept reality. She survives by making these outrageous statements for her “supporters”. She and her type will pass. Minimize her voice and exposure and continue work to politically crush her through policies that work and solve problems.
It also shows her as willfully ignorant, if she was converted by one visit. I knew that history by the time I was in middle school. And Americans were witnessing and writing about it openly since the liberation of the camps. Personally, I conclude she is telling a lie and it is nothing but pr and she has not changed one iota.
You seem to think she understood the words of “apology” she was told to utter. That she continues to equate Dems with Nazis shows she doesn’t – or doesn’t care.
On the other hand, given that a jeenyus like Jonah can invent shit like “liberal fascism,” she’s pretty much mainstreaming the sickness/evil that is all things Rethug.
I always find these nods to civility and norms to be interesting. Like why politicians mewl about XYZ rather than stating the truth about what they’re doing. I wonder who/what convinced her to do this. Surely she wouldn’t fear a censure. It would just be another fundraising tool for her.
I don’t think most observers and political analysts have teased out the real meaning of this in terms of MTG being a synecdoche for the American Right generally.
On one hand, she’s exploiting the Holocaust and invoking the fate of the Jewish people to make a crass point. This is not confined to people of her type. Bibi Netanyahu did it all the time, and it tended to be the marketing strategy of Abe Foxman.
But she combines it with virulent anti-Semitism, i.e., the Jewish space laser business.
It’s probably bound up with the whole wacko Christian Fundamentalist psychology: Jews are necessary in order to trigger the second coming so we must dogmatically support Israel, but they’ll burn in hell for being Christ killers if they don’t repent and convert.
In other words, basically anti-Semitic and totally psychotic.
I think more emphasis should be placed on the similarities between MTG and the ‘45th President’. They both have retail political skills and a certain animal cunning, while at the same time being totally nuts.
This is a noble sentiment, but I think that Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz and most key GOL pols are proof positive that this approach just doesn’t work! The rightwing media ecosystem is large and powerful enough that people like MTG can always create controversies that resonate in the MSM. Plus, given the rapidly progressing radicalization of the GOP and the ‘conservative movement’ in general, ignoring these pols could be dangerous.