The Appearance of MTG's Evolution

     Marjorie Taylor-Greene might as well represent Tybee Island, one of Georgia's barrier islands. It would be perfectly representative of Greene's increasing isolation from Republican politics.

     Green is an unfortunate byproduct of the vitriolic divisiveness that's become an accepted feature in American political discourse. She started as a gadfly stalking David Hogg through the streets of Washington, DC, then shouting through the mail slot of the congressional office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

     Then she decided to run for Congress out of Georgia's 14th district and she hasn't had to look back. In fact, lately, she's been looking forward, eager to shake the dust of Rome, Georgia off the soles of her gym sneakers. Since her first election, she's evolved from being a stalker to a presidential bleacher bum, making a spectacle of herself at President Joe Biden's States of the Union.

     But Biden's no longer in office and even she knows that schtick is getting old fast. After nearly five years in Congress, Greene is looking for greener pastures. She's got just enough political savvy to know that even the single issue sons of the soil in GA-14 aren't going to put up with her bomb-throwing antics in the House forever. She's in the process of reinventing herself.

     Outwardly, it appears to be sincere, at least in the costs she's had to pay for bucking the MAGA base. She's long since been kicked out of the House Freedom caucus, which historically is a roll call of the worst of the worst that the GOP can offer. She engaged in a feud with Lauren Boebert that's only lately simmered down.

     And, most notably, there's her ongoing war with Donald Trump.

     Trump obviously never respected Greene (most likely because she's long since aged out). In true Trump fashion, he used Greene for his own ends, to help him advance his fascist agenda. Pointedly, he never gave her a job in his administration after his second theft of the presidency.

     Greene is a savvy political animal with more than nominal gifts in using social media but her one big weakness is in choosing allies. Her cynical alliance with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a case in point. After going on a nation-wide fundraising tour with Matt Gaetz, she parted ways with him when Gaetz declared jihad on McCarthy, depriving Greene a powerful ally in the House.

     Then the House Freedom Caucus booted her out.

     So Greene set her sights down the road and reassessed her future. She openly mused about challenging Senator Jon Ossoff or maybe running for governor of Georgia. Generalissimo Trump couldn't have that. He wanted Greene exactly where she was. He couldn't have one of his loyal foot soldiers nursing aspirations of being an officer in her own right.

     He essentially told her he wouldn't support her in either race and that he wanted her to represent GA-14 forever. Putting her in her place didn't sit very well with Greene so she began opposing Trump's policies one by one.

     There was the plight of Gazans. Advocating for the 77,000 in her district who were about to lose their SNAP benefits. Then, of course, there was the release of the Epstein files. Greene was only one of four Republicans who'd signed the discharge petition paving the way for the 427-1 House vote that sent the bill to the Senate.

     Now, let's be clear about one thing- Just because Greene is suddenly making sense and finding herself on the right side of issues doesn't mean she's miraculously found her inner sane person. She texted Trump to release the flight logs of the Lolita Express so he could go after Democrats like Bill Clinton, Larry Summers and Reid Hoffman.

     Trump flew into a rage because he knew his name is all over those flight logs and, typically, he began calling Greene names and calling her things like a "ranting lunatic".

     When Adelita Grijalva was about to get sworn in, a clearly rattled Trump summoned Green and Boebert into the Situation Room and tried to pressure both women to take their names off the discharge petition and failed with both women. The guy who piously swears by "transparency" was making a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep those files from being released. 

     Again, in her crude, limited, Appalachian way, Greene is savvy enough to read the tea leaves. She knows how to make sense when it suits her. She knows that each day Trump slouches and slumbers his way through the White House brings him a day closer to irrelevance. In short, the 51 year-old Greene quickly realized she has a much longer and more viable political future than the nearly 80 year-old Trump.

     Greene separating herself from Trump and his legacy is based on nothing more than resentment over how Trump has treated her. He basically told her, "You will never get my endorsement for the Senate or the governorship of Georgia and that I want you to stay right where you are."

     Of course, Trump had no right saying that to her and she knows it. Marjorie Taylor-Greene has every right to run for whatever office she pleases. But let's not be fooled by Greene's sudden ascent into the land that makes sense. Say what you want about Greene but she doesn't like being told what she can or can't do and that has to get some grudging respect even among her fiercest detractors.

     But Greene is not going to turn into any liberal superhero anytime soon or ever. She's a die-hard MAGAt through and through, even after the movement had abandoned her. Right now, Greene is a latter-day version of the Scandinavian outcast pushed off on an ice floe. Look what they did to Liz Cheney. Green shouldn't be surprised it's happened to her, too.