The far-right is turning on one of the stars of their movement – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) – after she tried to distance herself from white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
“MTG is no longer an ally to America First,” said white nationalist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. “She may have claimed to be so that she could climb the political ladder, but she has shown she is all talk and zero action, unless of course the action is selling t-shirts and wine glasses.”
Greene has shown support for rightwing conspiracy theories like QAnon or those surrounding the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, making her a darling of the fringe right movement. She is a regular on Alex Jones’s Infowars and has even made up a few conspiracy theories of her own, like one where she wondered on social media if wealthy Jewish people were operating lasers in space that caused the California wildfires.
She even appeared at Fuentes’s America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in February, making her one of the only members of Congress willing to be seen in public with him.
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But Fuentes got national media attention last month when he dined with Donald Trump and Kanye West, and more mainstream Republican leaders like Mike Pence called on Trump to apologize for doing so, one of the few times party leaders have been willing to chastise the former president publicly. Greene faced scrutiny for her support for Fuentes in the past, even though he has compared Jews being killed in the Holocaust to cookies baking in an oven.
“Of course I denounce Nick Fuentes and his racists [sic] anti-semitic ideology,” Greene wrote on Twitter last month. “I can’t comprehend why the media is obsessed with him.”
She denounced him again last week on her Facebook stream, calling him a “very immature young man saying hateful things” who is “talking about people he doesn’t like by an entire people-group. Which is horrible.”
“And then saying ‘I’m not racist,'” she continued. “Yeah you are if you talk that way because that’s how you sound.”
“He knows nothing. What has he ever done in his life?”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spoke at Nick Fuentes’ AFPAC Conference, called Nick Fuentes a racist, asked why Ye would ever align with him. pic.twitter.com/mcdxwMSr0u
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) December 2, 2022
Loomer isn’t the only person on the far-right attacking Greene now.
“You are their slave Marjorie, a slave to the Democrats and the Media that you constantly talk about,” wrote Holocaust denier Vince James. “By [disavowing Fuentes] it just got to show you’re living according to the rules of their game, that they’ve completely rigged against us.”
“Here’s my take: grifters are gonna grift, and it’s just sad that we have to go through that kind of betrayal,” Dalton Clodfelter said about Greene on his podcast. Clodfelter is part of Fuentes’s “groyper” movement.
Even Fuentes has spoken out against Greene and has been calling her “Large Marge” and encouraging his followers to heckle her at events.
“She wants to be the face of Christian nationalism,” he said last weekend. “She’s divorced… and she’s like, actively an adulterer. How are you going to be the face of Christian nationalism when you’re a divorced woman girlboss? It doesn’t even make any sense. I’m so glad I don’t have to pretend to support that anymore.”
Greene has also chastised fellow far-right Republican lawmakers recently for opposing Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) candidacy for House speaker. Republicans are set to gain a narrow majority in the House next year, but some far-right Freedom Caucus members are considering challenging McCarthy for the speakership. Greene said that she thinks anything but support for McCarthy could hand the position over to Democrats since more moderate Republicans might cross party lines and vote for the Democrats’ preferred candidate.
“The danger is this, do we want to watch a challenge for speaker of the House simply because the ‘Never Kevin’ movement – just like we’ve seen a ‘Never Trump” movement – do we want to see that challenge open the door to Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel to Liz Cheney?” Greene said last month.
“Whatever Kevin has promised Marjorie Taylor Greene, I guarantee you this: At the first opportunity, he will zap her faster than you can say Jewish space laser,” Freedom Caucus Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) shot back. It’s a far cry from the close relationship he shared with Greene when the two – along with far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – attempted to break off from the Freedom Caucus and form the even further-right America First Caucus.
