Republican Leaders Forced to Denounce Yet Another Congressional Candidate Because She is Too Racist in Public

By Esther Wang | June 18, 2020 | 2:10pm

News Politics

Republican Leaders Forced to Denounce Yet Another Congressional Candidate Because She is Too Racist in Public

Photo: (Marjorie Taylor Green’s Facebook page)

Another day, another Republican politician who is so incredibly racist on a public platform that Republican Party leaders are sadly forced to denounce them. This week, it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman with a penchant for posting videos of herself going on anti-black and Islamophobic rants, and who finished first in her primary last week for a House seat in Georgia and will be in a runoff for the Republican nomination in August with her second-place challenger.

Politico unearthed hours of Facebook videos in which Greene described black people as “slaves to the Democratic Party,” compared Black Lives Matter protesters to neo-Nazis, and denied that racism exists because “slavery is over.” She also called George Soros, who is Jewish, a Nazi; and defended Confederate monuments with the argument that if she were black, she would be “proud” to see statues of men who fought for the right to enslave people, because in Greene’s words, “I’d say, ‘Look how far I have come in this country.’”

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Greene also espoused a particular love for Islamophobia. Via Politico:

In her videos, Greene is particularly preoccupied with the increase in Muslim members of Congress. She referred to freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as “that woman out of Minnesota” who “has got to wear a head covering.” She said members should not be able to take the oath of office on a Koran: “No! You have to be sworn in on the Bible.”

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“There is an Islamic invasion into our government offices right now,” Greene said. “You saw after midterm elections what we saw so many Muslims elected. I don’t know the exact number but there were quite a few.”

She said Muslims “are not being held back in any way” because the Constitution guarantees equality. “But what you people want,” she said, “is special treatment. You want to rise above us, and that’s what we’re against.”

And in another rant, she urged adherents of Sharia to stay in their own countries and leave the U.S. alone.

“If you want Islam and Sharia law, you stay over there in the Middle East,” she said. “You stay there, and you go to Mecca and do all your thing. And, you know what, you can have a whole bunch of wives, or goats, or sheep, or whatever you want. You stay over there. But in America, see, we’ve made it this great, great country. We don’t want it messed up.”

Unfortunately for Republican leaders, who largely stayed silent as Greene mounted her run for Congress, these videos are so blatantly racist that they are now forced to distance themselves from her. I guess the fact that she was already known to be an avid believer of QAnon conspiracy theories and chummy with white supremacists and leaders of antigovernment militias wasn’t disqualifying!

“These comments are appalling, and Leader McCarthy has no tolerance for them,” Drew Florio, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, told Politico of the sentiments Greene expressed in her videos. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise also weighed in: “The comments made by Ms. Greene are disgusting and don’t reflect the values of equality and decency that make our country great,” Scalise wrote in a statement, adding that he would be supporting Greene’s opponent in the runoff. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Liz Cheney, the chair of the House Republican Conference, told the Washington Post that Cheney “opposes these offensive and bigoted comments” and in a similar statement, Tom Emmer, the chair of the National Republican Campaign Committee, “strongly condemned” Greene’s comments.

Republicans, truly making a brave and principled stand against racism here!