The digital ghosts of Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s social media past have come back to haunt her this week, but the freshman representative says she is just the latest victim of cancel culture.
Comments and “likes” made by the Georgia congresswoman’s Facebook account prior to her election expressed support for baseless QAnon conspiracies and indicated approval for political assassinations, CNN reported.
The renewed scrutiny of Greene’s past social media activity has led to calls for her ouster in the House and objections to Republican leaders in the chamber to assign Greene to the Education Committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the decision “absolutely appalling” on Thursday.
Greene’s profile “liked” a January 2019 post that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” as a means to remove Pelosi, D-Calif., from office, according to CNN.
She also liked other comments that discussed executing FBI agents who, conspiracy theorists believe, were members of the “deep state” and against former President Donald Trump.
According to CNN, in an April 2018 Facebook post “Greene wrote conspiratorially about the Iran Deal, one of former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievements.”
“Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???,” someone commented on Greene’s post, referring to the Hilary Clinton and Obama.
“Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off,” Greene responded to the comment, CNN reported.
But the congresswoman now says she is the victim.
“Fake News CNN is writing yet another hit piece on me focused on my time before running for political office,” Greene said on Twitter this week, in response to CNN’s reporting.
The congresswoman didn’t deny CNN’s story, but floated the idea that “teams of people” have managed her Facebook page and that some posts —”especially the ones” discussed by CNN — “did not represent my views.” She added that CNN was trying “cancel me and silence my voice.”
“I will never back down to the enemy of the American people and neither should you,” Greene added, referring to “Democrats” and the “Fake News Media” as the enemy.
Greene’s previous support for violence against Democrats has inspired Congressman Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., to work on a resolution to oust Greene from her House seat, Politico reported.
“A two-thirds majority is required to expel a member from the House, meaning Gomez’s resolution is almost certain to fail in a chamber where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority,” Politico wrote. “Still, the measure is one of the starkest rebukes yet against the congresswoman, who has antagonized her peers by flouting coronavirus guidelines and has garnered national attention for engaging in the QAnon conspiracy theory.”
A news crew from WRCB Channel 3 — which covers southern Tennessee and north Georgia, Greene’s home 14th district — was escorted by law enforcement from a public town hall Wednesday evening for asking the congresswoman about the social media posts and the movement in the House to oust her.
“Greene’s office invited the media to the event, including Channel 3” reported WRCB, but after arriving “members of the media were told they would not be permitted to speak to anyone attending or ask any questions.”
WRCB’s Meredith Aldis said on Twitter that she was “threatened to be arrested” by county sheriffs who then escorted her out of public event.
The latest controversy is only the most recent uncovering of Greene’s violent imagery and conspiracy leanings which which have created problems on the internet:
- A 2019 video resurfaced this week of Greene harassing David Hogg, a gun control activist and survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Axios reported. Greene, a mother of three, is seen following then-teenager Hogg down a sidewalk while questioning him. She later calls Hogg, who appears to keep walking away from her, a “coward” with “major liberal funding.”
Greene has supported conspiracies that the Parkland school shooting and the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut were “fake and/or staged by gun-control advocates trying to drum up support for their cause,” The Washington Post reported.
At her weekly press conference Thursday, Pelosi said the idea that Republican leaders in the chamber would assign Greene to the House Education Committee “when she has mocked the killing” of school children was “absolutely appalling.”
- In September, Facebook deleted a photo posted by the then-congressional candidate Greene holding a rifle and standing next to pictures of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
The text of the Facebook post, which wasn’t removed, said “Hate America leftists want to take this country down” and that “America needs fighters who speak the truth,” according to Business Insider.
- A nearly 30-minute video posted to YouTube last summer titled “Marjorie Taylor Green — The Vid She Wants To Forget... Nov 26 2017,” shows Greene discussing and showing support for QAnon theories.
In the first few minutes if the video, she calls “Q” — the anonymous leader of the conspiracy theory organization — a “patriot” and someone who “very much loves this country, and is on the same page as us and is very pro-Trump.”
The poster of the video, a Youtube account named Glow 4, says the video is a copy of a now-deleted Facebook livestream by Greene from 2017.
“I’m not presenting them that(sic) they’re fact,” Greene says near the end video of the QAnon conspiracies. “But I am presenting them that I’m hoping they’re facts,” Greene says, smiling into the camera.