Democrats attempting to keep a slim majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections are looking to paint Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a right-wing conspiracy theorist who has not been punished by her colleagues despite her controversial comments, The Hill reported on Monday.
One Democratic strategist working on down-ballot races told the news outlet, “I think that what makes this an effective line of attack is that this is not a big step away, this is just a continuation really of where Trump took them and where [Greene] and other right-wing extremists are trying to take the party.”
“She’s just picking up the baton from Donald Trump,” the person added.
The Georgia representative over the weekend equated mask mandates to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, leading Democratic pollster Molly Murphy to say that, “All she stands for and represents is a walking depiction of where this Republican Party is going. And I think Democrats would be wise to invoke her and where she is trying to take that party.”
Murphy stressed that Greene is “providing a huge opportunity in the absence of [former President Donald] Trump to be a sticking point and a foil for Democrats in campaigns,” especially since Republicans have been reluctant to issue any kind of formal punishment against her in Congress.
The controversy over Greene comes as Democrats face a disadvantage of a redistricting process that is expected to give Republicans an edge and a historical trend in which the party leading the White House loses seats in the first midterm of a new administration.
Murphy predicted that Democrats will feature Greene prominently in the campaign as a way to knock other top Republicans.
One top House aide said, “with Greene specifically, you see someone like [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy just being unwilling and unable to rein her in or to stop her from consuming their caucus or really becoming a leader in it, which really does more to disqualify McCarthy and Republican leadership more than anything else.”
Greene earlier this year was voted off her committees over past remarks that she supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and advocated for violence against Democrats.
She has also been a consistent proponent of the theory that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Trump.
Greene has defended herself by saying that attempts by Democrats “to shame, ostracize, and brand Americans who choose not to get vaccinated or wear a mask are reminiscent of the great tyrants of history who did the same to those who would not comply. I’m sorry some of my words make people uncomfortable, but this is what the American left is all about.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee also tried to deflect criticism of her, saying Democrats are trying to “do and say anything to distract” from a “socialist agenda.”
But a second Democratic strategist working on House races insists that Greene is harming her fellow Republicans, because “she’s distracting them from what an opposition party is normally trying to do. She absolutely cuts both ways in terms of generating fundraising and keeping the Democratic base riled up, but then also preventing the guys on her side from mounting a coherent argument against [President] Joe Biden.