Republicans face increasing pressure to strip Georgia Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene of her post on the House Education Committee. Greene was elected in November 2020 and is a far-right conspiracy theorist who has promoted QAnon, supported the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and claimed the school shootings in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, were staged — as was the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. She also has a history of racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic comments. Bee Nguyen, a Democratic state representative in Georgia, recently joined other lawmakers in signing a resolution that calls on Greene to resign. “The congresswoman has proven to be dangerous, not just to our state, but to our country,” says Nguyen. We also speak with Michael Edison Hayden, senior reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center, who says media discussions of QAnon and other far-right conspiracy theories tend to focus on how outlandish they are rather than on their hateful content. “While some of these ideas are crazy-sounding to people, I think it’s very, very helpful to start reframing it in your mind as something that is part of this drift toward anti-democratic, hard-right, authoritarian tendencies in the Republican Party,” says Hayden.
Is Far-Right QAnon Conspiracy Theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene the New Face of the GOP?
Republicans face increasing pressure to strip Georgia Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene of her post on the House Education Committee. Greene was elected in November 2020 and is a far-right conspiracy theorist who has promoted QAnon, supported the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and claimed the school shootings in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, were staged — as was the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. She also has a history of racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic comments. Bee Nguyen, a Democratic state representative in Georgia, recently joined other lawmakers in signing a resolution that calls on Greene to resign. “The congresswoman has proven to be dangerous, not just to our state, but to our country,” says Nguyen. We also speak with Michael Edison Hayden, senior reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center, who says media discussions of QAnon and other far-right conspiracy theories tend to focus on how outlandish they are rather than on their hateful content. “While some of these ideas are crazy-sounding to people, I think it’s very, very helpful to start reframing it in your mind as something that is part of this drift toward anti-democratic, hard-right, authoritarian tendencies in the Republican Party,” says Hayden.