They are starting to bury her already.

Are they though, really ?

They applauded her in the House and criticism is off the record from unnamed House Republicans. They seem to be burying her in the same way they've buried President Trump.

In 2022 the GOP will be reliant on the white supremacists, QAnon adherents and assorted others if they plan to retake the Senate and House. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk will be key to courting those groups.

Those groups are already courted - preaching to the converted is not a winning strategy.

Not necessarily. You have to get them to vote. If the candidate is not racist enough, they may stay home.

The GOP understands the value in having a court jester, someone who's already got something stupid to say to distract us all from any actual issue.

Yup and she's also useful in trying to move the Overton Window

I think MTG knows she is under FBI investigation for her role in Jan 6.
She is making the most of it while she still can.

It is if you combine it with voter suppression measures.

In which case we are headed for Civil War 2.

My correction. I was referring only to the GOP in Congress as being elites. As for the others, you are, of course, correct.

Given she is a GOP "public face", perhaps not so much. The Dems should really appreciate the damage she can do to the GOP if she is triggered. Friendly fire is still deadly.

This just popped up on my Reddit feed... I felt a need to share

https://www.dropbox.com/s/70830ugwcv...ine.jpeg?raw=1

I think the Dems do.
And, yeah,the problem with the MJG is a distraction theory is that she is a distrac tion that is doing damage to the GOP.

To justify what she is doing in attempting to disrupt the House procedures, she tweeted the following...

...and was immediately fact checked and owned by the Twitter community....

https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

- "You ran unopposed"

- "Imagine running unopposed and getting less than 3/4 of the vote"

- "Your opponent dropped out but yet still got 25%. I heard he was threatened - But Her Emails!!!!"

- "Let's clarify that she got 74.7% of the vote, while she ran unopposed"

- "What an accomplishment! Not everyone can win an uncontested race where their opponent drops out and still receives 25% of the vote."

- "No one ran against you and I'm pretty sure when they start questioning you all about 1/6/2021, no one will want anything to do with you."

- "A) you ran unopposed - B) you ran as a republican in an extremely red district

- "Imagine thinking that getting 75 percent of the vote in that case is a good thing."

- "You moved from #GA6 to #GA14 because you knew that Lucy McBath was going to beat you in district you lived in"

- "You moved into a new district because you couldn't win in yours "

OMG, facts can be such a pain in the ass when you are trying to deceive people by lying through your teeth!

Looks like the Guamian delegation fortunaely has a sense of humor.

Yeah let's give the GOP more rope to hang themselves because that's worked so well all the other times we tried and never once backfired.

This. It sounds a lot like the “ Oh yes please let Trump run for President. He’ll devastate the GOP!!” You heard in 2015/16.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say her bookcases are probably not straining under the weight of tomes on political theory.

Indeed.

This culture war clowning that MTG is doing might make libs mock her, but it is absolutely effective messaging for the reactionary base. The party is going to keep pushing harder on the message of grievance politics. It's all they really have left, and it's a proven winner for them.

Sparring with the libs over tedious culture wars issues is good politics for the right wing. It works very well to boost their voting base.

You are absolutely right. It has been c. 30 years since the latest of these Culture Wars have started. C. 1990 we began the latest - the so called war over PC and very swiftly attacking PC became very, very PC especially among so-called Conservatives. And this particular incarnation of culture wars has not stopped since.

The whining and belly aching from the anti-PC PCers has never stopped. Their love of portraying themselves has victims, their writhing in convulsions of hysteria over the latest PC outrage has not stopped. Their embrace of victimhood, along with them being triggered and such utter snowflakes has if anything accelerated.

Thus we get the recently the writhing in existential agony of these so-called conservatives over the "cancelation" by "woke" and "cancel culture" of certain books by the company that owns the rights to publish Dr. Seuss' books. Oh the censorship! Oh the totalitarian suppression!! Oh the crushing of free speech!!! Oh the outrage!!!! We hear the writhing in utter horror of Kevin McCarthy about this intolerable outrage! And of course now Kevin McCarthy is a-ok with Trump!

And of course all of this is, apparently, a much more serious threat to freedom and democracy than the events of January 6th 2021. And of course bowing once again to the most holy and divine Trump is a-ok!! Why? Because we all "know" PC, cancel culture, woke is a vastly greater threat to democracy and freedom than Trump's campaign of lies since the November election, or his pressure on officials to find the "real" votes, or the January 6th insurrection, or the fact that because of this propaganda of lies many tens of millions of Americans now believe the election of November 2020 is fraudulent. Allied with this is the fact that much of the leadership of the Republican party is now, at least, going along with this utterly false idea and thus encouraging this false belief. And we should not forget the renewed campaign to suppress votes because the last election got the "wrong" results!

But nope we shouldn't think about the above, we should instead writhe in horror at the dangerous excesses etc., of PC, woke and cancel culture which are the "real" threats. (Along with someone deciding not to translate a book of poetry.) Obviously (snark) people should know what the "real" threat is.

The culture wars, cancel culture, PC and woke are being used to distract attention from one of the most sustained attacks on American Democracy ever.

But does it though - does it boost their voting base?

The Republican/Trump base is just that, a core base percentage of the electorate made up of people who are racists, bigots, far right extremists, Qnuts and other assorted deplorables. They are either too stupid to see through Trump, or are smart enough to see through as well as to regard him as a useful idiot, or who are people with the "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat" mentality - unshakeable R voters who vote R no matter who is on the ticket, be it anyone from Bozo the Clown to Attila the Hun.

Is there really a significant number of undecided, independent voters out there to add to the base in order to boost its numbers? Are there any at all?

I suspect it boosts their base more than droning on about flat tax, deregulation, trickle down economics, and all the other boring crap that the Republican party used to believe in.

Trump's popularity among the conservatives has shown that attitude is much more important than substance. Trump doesn't really seem to believe in anything at all beyond triggering the libs, and that's all that really matters anymore for these freaks.

All true, but it doesn't answer my question.

In order to grow a political base you either have to convince undecided people to join it, or you have to convince others to switch allegiances or you have to push moderates to become racists and bigots. These all require those people to undergo a sudden and dramatic shift of philosophy and worldview.

Is there really a big pool of people out there who are ripe to be convinced to become deplorables?

I think the importance of undecided voters is vastly overstated. It's about turnout as much as anything, and getting the rubes all frothed up with trans panic or whatever is as good as a motivator to vote as any.

There are plenty of CHUDs out there that are pure pieces of ****, through and through, that were too lazy to go vote. It's about overcoming that instinct of laziness, not changing minds.

I think it's... both sorta.

Yes there are a lot of "undecided" voters out there who are not totally happy with the Democrat or Republican Parties (and this includes the Progressives, Tea Partiers, and all the other various subgroups within those parties.)

But we have a winner take all, first past the post voting systems (nearly) universally so without a small number of "issues" that inform these voters what's the point?

Now obviously I can't cite exact numbers but surely there... *pulls combination out of thin air* people who a very pro-abortion but also very pro-gun ownership let's say. (And to be clear as using that as two random examples, they are hypothetical and the discussion is NOT ABOUT THOSE TWO TOPICS or anyone's ever so strong opinions about them)

You're a mainstream (or even extremist) Republican or Democrat politician. How do you reach out to that person? Gun control vs gun rights and abortion rights vs abortion restrictions are pillars of both parties. Reach out to this voter and you're cutting your own throat with a very, very many other voters.

That's the problem. The idea that everyone who is pro or anti this or that is also by default pro this or that other things. So basically only a relatively small number of people who all agree but most things form the solid core of the parties and that leaves a lot of people out.

And it leaves the only forces IN the parties with no real disagreement, so all the internal debate boils down to "Be more extreme about the stuff we already agree on" versus "No let's get more extreme about the stuff we already agree on."

Truss the sience. Okay?

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I AGREE

******* hilarious.

How I wish we got SNL here!

I watch it on Youtube. Maybe it won't be blocked for you. For whatever reason there weren't any new episodes this Sat or last but usually around the time it normally airs I can find clips one at a time. Or I just wait until Sunday. Watching it one clip at a time the whole show is available.

Like this from 2 weeks ago:

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I AGREE

"Video Unavailable
The uploader has not made this video available in your country"


Time to get a VPN methinks!!

Here's the thing--you don't have to get undecided to vote for you, you just have to make lots of them so cynical they stay home, so that the base you're riling up is a greater portion of the votes. This can be done by the same behavior that galvanizes the core voters, especially since you can often count on your opponents to help you make the undecideds disgusted with everyone.

More sience from Marj. :rolleyes:

Here was a good comeback posted to Marj's account.

That is a good thing considering how close their island is to a tipping point.

Whataboutism. Fail.

I think that was a reference, and thus a joke, over the comment of Guam tipping over into the ocean.

Indeed it was. A metaphor being used as a literal. But because it was a Democrat involved, our B-friend was making it a whataboutism.

Reference to Hank Johnson (D-Ga) citing ecological concerns from an EPA report in a slightly awkward manner. "Tipping point" of course is a widely used ecological concept.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0797-2

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/fu...-102511-084654

https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.ed...-warning-signs

But the conservative echo chamber in its infinite wisdom decided that Johnson must have been speaking about the island of Guam literally tipping over. Not exactly a brilliant ploy - trying to distract from Greene's idiocy with general conservative idiocy instead.

You misspelled "collective stupidity"

There's probably something else at work here too -- this comment was made ten years ago -- and that 'something else' is, Mr. Johnson is, y'know. ;)

A moron who thinks islands tip over?

Fact check: True.

The psycho-partisans of the right cling to any such comment like Gollum and the One Ring. Their idols can make openly cruel statements or completely wrong claims (how many authoritarian righties have claimed that a woman's reproductive system shuts down when being raped?) at a constant flow and its all resolved in their liquified brainpans 'cause "Obummer sed der was 57 states one time, over twelve years ago. hurr, hurr hurr,".

You're not even clever.

.. or that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured with therapy.

The stupid is strong on the right of the political spectrum, and the righter, the stupider - dumb breeze-blocks abound.

He's playing to an audience of one.

You're not wrong there. I used to be castigated for saying that. Take a look at this reporter interviewing Boise, OK residents who refuse to get Covid 19 vaccinations. Among them, one says he gets the flu when he gets a flu shot (which is impossible); when the reporter asks him if he think he'll get the coronavirus if he get the vaccine, he says, "probably". The others say they "don't trust the government" or "Biden" or even that "liberal New Yorker Trump". You can't fix stupid and, man, are they stupid.

https://madison.com/video/cnn/health...a864223df.html

While I'm amused by Little Miss Trumptrash's assertion she was ambushed (having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan I do know a bit about ambushes and my impression is that they don't involve cookies) I'm uncomfortable by the use of the Guard troops in a political stunt. Politics and our military should never mix in such an obviously partisan way.

Agreed. Our military should never be used like that. I saw the Guam rep's sad attempt to justify it today on CNN and it just didn't wash.

I found a tweet by Marj which I am inserting below. Next to it is a response.

To make sense of this, I read an analysis not specific to Marjorie Taylor Greene, but to the crop of incoming Republican legislators. That some are trying to use media -- especially social media -- to build their 'brand.' They hope to be successful the way trump was, though most don't expect to achieve the same level of notoriety as trump. Most will settle for being well-known in their local area or region. Some of the incoming Republicans have frankly admitted, they have little interest in lawmaking or government service. One new congressman revealed, instead of legislative aides, he's hired communication specialists.

Viewed in this sense, what Greene is doing has a certain twisted logic. It's not about serving her district and their needs in Congress. It's about creating a brand for herself that she will be able to cash in on for a long time.

I think the response got it about right.

I notice that, apart from stupid stunts like this, MTG has just about disappeared from the news radar now. Her career so far has been meteoric - downwards.

I'm looking forward to her final face plant when it happens. Some people should not be in government.