Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Dangerous Political Gnat
But she’s not the first
This week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the news for comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust. A few months ago, she was making waves for talking about Jewish space lasers. Last week, she targeted fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. MTG screamed at AOC and harassed her, as the New York representative walked down the hallway.
Rep. Tim Ryan, (D-Ohio) called Greene’s actions “dangerous,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hinted that an ethics investigation may be forthcoming. (For her part, Greene denies yelling at AOC.)
This hostile interaction was not the first in Greene’s short career in Congress, nor is Greene the first political actor to make a name for herself by harassing other public officials. If anything, Greene is the latest in a long tradition of political gnats that range from annoying to dangerous and violent.
The history of intentional political irritants began almost in tandem with the nation’s founding. George Washington loved newspapers and subscribed to several publications for his entire adult life, including while serving as president. When new publications opened shop, he regularly subscribed and requested daily deliveries to the President’s House in Philadelphia. Although an early subscriber to Philip Freneau’s The National Gazette, Washington canceled his subscription in 1792 once he discovered that most of Freneau’s editorials were critical of the administration. Undeterred, Freneau continued to deliver three copies of his paper to Washington’s house every morning, often filled with critiques, outlandish claims and even outright lies. These provocations did not go unnoticed. Washington didn’t reply publicly, but he complained in a Cabinet meeting that the “rascal Freneau sent him 3 of his papers every day…he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him.”
Indeed, this example is only one of many in our history of public figures that make a name for themselves as “political gnats.”
You can read the full story and some of the other examples in the full article on THE HILL: