Marjorie Taylor Greene Came So Close to Getting the Joke

"When Jack Abramoff dominated Washington lobbying in the 1990s and early 2000s, he observed that there were two kinds of people in town: those who "get the joke" and those who don't. Those who got the joke understood that all of the city's talk of ideas and principles was flimflam to conceal self-enrichment at the public's expense. Those who didn't-didn't."

"Greene did not get the joke. Elected to Congress in Georgia in 2020, she became one of the loudest voices in American life for crackpot conspiracy claims: Pizzagate, QAnon, 9/11 trutherism, and a fantasy that California wildfires might have been caused by space lasers controlled by Jewish bankers. She repeated 2020-election denialism and promoted Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda about his war on Ukraine."

"Of all the ridiculous things Greene believed, perhaps the single most ridiculous was that Trump, of all people on earth, was leading a heroic fight against a global network of pedophiles. Trump has a long and ample record on the sexual abuse of vulnerable people by powerful men. He's for it. "When you're a star, they let you do it," as he explained. He has been accused of sexual assault by about two dozen women."

Jack Abramoff characterized Washington insiders as those who "get the joke"—seeing public talk of principles as cover for self-enrichment—and those who do not. Accusations claim Richard Grenell, the Trump-picked Kennedy Center director, used the institution's $268 million budget to dole out favors and enrich friends; Grenell disputes the charges. Marjorie Taylor Greene promoted Pizzagate, QAnon, 9/11 trutherism, wild claims about space lasers, 2020-election denialism, and pro-Russian propaganda about Ukraine. Over time Greene recognized she had been made a fool. The account contrasts Greene's gullibility with alleged cynical enrichment by powerful figures.

Read at The Atlantic