Top Republicans have no comment as QAnon backer heads to House runoff in Georgia
A QAnon conspiracy theory promoter who’s been described as a “[g]ood friend to have” by a notorious white supremacist came in first in a Georgia congressional primary, and top House Republicans do not want to talk about it. Marjorie Taylor Greene is headed to a runoff, but she got 41% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, with the second-place finisher 20 points behind. Apparently affiliation with a group considered a potential domestic terrorist threat by the FBI is not a problem for northwest Georgia voters.
“None of the top three House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) or Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.), responded to questions about Greene’s candidacy and possible place within their ranks,” The Washington Post reports.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, wrote: “The NRCC does not get involved in primaries. In general elections, we focus on districts that will deliver us the majority, not R+27 safe seats,” which is to say, the seat Greene is running for.
For her part, Greene was happy to respond to the Post, though not necessarily on topic. She did show herself to be an apt student of Trumpian politics, emailing a statement saying: “The Chinese propagandists at the Washington Post are attacking me the same way they attack Donald Trump, and other conservatives,” blah blah blah Stacey Abrams blah blah Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blah blah Nancy Pelosi.
While Greene is an extremist who the Very Serious Republican Leadership doesn’t want to talk about, it’s important to understand that she is very much a part of today’s Republican Party. Another QAnon backer is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Oregon this year, but more importantly, Trump has repeatedly winked at his QAnon supporters. There’s no way Republicans can seriously disavow this, which is one more reason they don’t want to say anything.
“I’m very excited about that now there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Greene said in a 2017 QAnon-flavored video. Now she’s close to the chance to do that in Congress—though it’s looking like it might not be with the president she had in mind.
