MTG – we barely knew ye
Marjorie Taylor Greene leaves Congress this week.
The former MAGA firebrand who fell out with President Donald Trump shocked the political world with her November announcement that she would give up her House seat on Jan. 5, at the halfway point of her third two-year term representing a rural Georgia constituency.
The 51-year-old began her meteoric rise on the outskirts of politics with an embrace of QAnon conspiracy mongering. She then devoted herself to Trump. She was MAGA through and through. During Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address, she shouted “liar” at the president. A year later, she again hurled insults at Biden.
She drew Democratic ire, but Trump loved it.
By late 2025, things were different. Democrats viewed Greene with newfound respect. Meanwhile, Trump scorned her, calling the congresswoman a “traitor” to the MAGA movement.
What happened? “I’ve learned Washington,” she explained to Robert Draper of the New York Times, “and I’ve come to understand the brokenness of the place. If none of us is learning lessons … and we can’t evolve and mature with our lessons, then what kind of people are we?”
According to recent national polling by Civiq, 49% of U.S. men disapprove of Trump’s second go-round in the White House. Women are far less certain of the president. They give the president a 63% disapproval rating.
Republican women are among Trump’s sharpest critics. Ex-congresswoman Lynn Cheney leads the pack. The daughter of the late vice president Dick Cheney broke with Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, which encapsulated Trump’s attempt to stay in office despite his defeat at the polls in 2020.
For Greene, the breaking point occurred when President Trump resisted attempts to open the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking files for public examination. Her hallelujah moment took place during services for Charlie Kirk, the assassinated conservative activist, at which both his widow, Erika Kirk, and President Trump spoke.
After Erika Kirk publicly forgave her husband’s killer because it was the Christian thing to do, Trump declared that unlike Charlie Kirk, he was not the forgiving type and that he hated his opponents. Watching the service on television, Greene later told Draper, “I realized I was part of this toxic [political] culture. I really started looking at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.”
She had erred, she said, when she vilified former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as traitors to the country. Her mea culpa, she continued, stemmed from her Christian faith.
Greene found herself opposite of Trump on a number of fronts. These included the war in Gaza, which she believed had tipped into a genocidal campaign directed by the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu against Palestinians; the administration’s crypto and AI policies; the president’s hearty embrace of tariffs; and his opposition to extending Obamacare subsidies for working-class Americans.
The latter three suggested to Greene that Trump had turned tail on his MAGA base. The people who elected Trump were being shoved aside in favor of a small cohort of billionaire donors, Greene said.
“I always go back to the people who showed up at [Trump] rallies,” the congresswoman told Draper, “because these are the people who should matter” to him instead of “those big crypto donors or the AI high-tech people.”
After Greene appeared at a press conference with some of Epstein’s victims, Trump called to admonish her about congressional attempts to force the release of the Epstein archives in the possession of the Department of Justice. “My friends will get hurt,” Trump bellowed into the phone, according to Greene.
Despite her breakup with Trump and a threat by the president to oust her in a Republican primary, Greene was on track to win a fourth House term. By all accounts she remains extremely popular in her district.
Press reports suggest most House Republicans are eager to see her depart Congress. The sooner the better. She’ll likely be replaced by a Trump acolyte. For that reason alone, it’s too bad she’s on her way out.
Democrats, Constitutional Republicans, and mindful independents should all regret her departure. Greene was a hopeful sign that reason and common sense are not out of reach for even the most wild-eyed Trump supporters. Her example of independence from Trump might yet be exemplary as we enter what might be the most fateful political year in recent American history.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.