I don’t know why a man who will throw anyone under the bus would protect anyone but himself. But I do know bad faith can take many forms. If anyone is a master of bad faith, it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Greene spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. She defended the January 6 insurrection. She suggested support for executing Democrats. She once stalked a survivor of a shooting massacre to accuse him of being a fraud. Am I supposed to believe she’s had a change of heart?
Still, her break from Trump is politically significant. It suggests his hold on the Republican Party has limits. It also suggests that true believers are thinking about and preparing for a future without him. (Greene is resigning next month but appears to be positioning herself nonetheless.) MAGA might die or evolve into something new. Either way is an opportunity for the Democrats and liberal reformers generally.
I don’t think Greene is key to reviving the liberal tradition in America, as The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last suggested, but I do think, as he does, that she will play some kind of role in getting the Republicans to behave. Greene embodies MAGA's id. She appears to feel betrayed. If those feelings are real, and can be turned against the GOP, so be it.
In this second of a two-part interview with me, political historian Claire Potter, publisher of Political Junkie, touches on the meaning and importance of Greene’s “naivete,” the unlikelihood of accountability for Trump, and why the reaction to “the Epstein files” is more likely a reaction to authoritarians who fail to deliver on promises.
“The multiple fumbles and lies about the Epstein files have given some Republicans a valid reason to declare their independence,” Claire told me.
“Creating air between themselves and Trump will be critical to any Republican who wants a political career once maga starts to swirl the drain next year. We are seeing tremendous swings in districts Trump won in double digits, and that it is the Republicans’ failure to deliver that will, in the end, lead to their defeat, not just in 2026, but in 2028.”
JS: What do you make of recent news about Greene? Principled pariah or craven opportunist? What's the right reaction from Democrats?
CP: I think Greene is using the word "naive" not in the usual sense of a person being innocent and expecting the best of others, but in the sense that she had no idea about what being a politician required and that her devotion to Trump, which initially served her, turned out to be wildly misplaced. Back in 2020, a New Yorker profile described Greene as a kind of seeker who reincarnated herself periodically: as a wife and mother, as a businesswoman, as a QAnon devotee, as a charismatic Christian, and finally, as a MAGA true believer.
Remember, she ran for Congress having zero background as a politician, but a quite successful career in the construction industry — not unlike Trump. She inherited a family business, she did well with it, and then pivoted out of her marriage and into the CrossFit community, which she was also very successful at, both as a participant and as an entrepreneur. She had enough money to self-fund her own campaign, and once elected, realized that her media talents were ideally suited to the political world Trump made.
I think conspiracy theorists are idealists in a way. They see a world they don't like, and they want to know, specifically, who is responsible for it. In MAGA world, that can be Jews, pedophiles, trans people, the deep state or Nancy Pelosi, but the perpetrators of injustice are real, and they walk the earth.
I think Greene saw going to Washington as a way to be a warrior, to get to the bottom of things in the second Trump administration. What she didn't understand — and this is where the naivete comes in, I think — was that politics is a profession, she didn't know how to do it, and that only Trump can get away with pretending he knows how to do a job.
To the extent that Greene's Republican colleagues were willing to draft on her outrageousness and fundraising ability, which should have been a route to influence in Congress, she understood by the end of her first term that there was a Trumpian front stage and a more conventional backstage where Republicans who said they were MAGA functioned more or less conventionally. Trump was not only out of office, but disgraced, in 2021. Most elected Republicans did not see a way back for him after January 6, and were eager to move on. Greene acted as though the rudeness and brashness of MAGA could just continue, and her own party collaborated in putting her on the shelf for her whole first term.
There's an old saw about Trump: take him seriously, but not literally. Greene took Trump's language about loyalty both seriously and literally. She believed that his vows to release the Epstein files and get to the bottom of the conspiracy to protect Epstein were real, and she believed that he cared viscerally about white working people. Neither of these things were true, and combined with the lack of respect from her colleagues, and MIke Johnson stonewalling legislation, I think Greene began to see politics as a pointless and cynical exercise.
Andrew Tate, who has been accused child-sex crimes and is a leading figure in the so-called manosphere, was shamed in the boxing ring recently. An amateur beat and bloodied him. The Trump regime saved him from prosecution. Is public humiliation all the justice we can expect when criminals like Tate have powerful allies?
Let me start by saying that it was a real joy to see someone beat the c--- out of that monster of a man, and as I understand it, Tate and his brother are still facing charges in England. The Tates are also an interesting case, because as I understand it their real friends in the White House are Don Jr. and Barron Trump, and that the pardon really jolted Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, whose horrible traits do not happen to include sex crimes and battering women.
And while it is easy to imagine people like Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio simply turning away from this kind of thing while Trump is president, I don’t think they will forever. Here, I think, we will see another rift widening up in the Republican Party, one that intersects with the revulsion many in the MAGA movement have harbored for Bill Clinton for 35 years, and more recently, for Jeffrey Epstein. You don’t have to be a QAnon adherent to see the rot in the party when it comes to gross male sexual behavior.
But I get your point. It seems almost impossible to imagine accounting for this period in our nation’s history — the crimes against immigrants, women, trans people and the poor, to name a few — without a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Forget that our justice system is not functioning to rein in gross malfeasance, and that it seems designed to permit endless appeals and deferrals even when it does work.
It’s hard to imagine bringing Donald Trump, and the network of people activated by Donald Trump, to justice without bringing the rest of the government to a complete stop. It makes me understand why other countries just put their dictators on a plane to some warm, neutral country and tell them to just keep the money.
Perhaps no one pushed the story of "the Epstein files" as hard as former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Now that he has been exposed as one of Epstein's pals, will it make a difference to followers?
Well, one of my favorite comments on Epstein was when Dan Bongino was asked why he took completely different positions on Epstein as a podcaster and as a top FBI official, he answered — as if it was perfectly obvious — that these were two different jobs with two different realities. I could practically hear J. Edgar Hoover spinning in his grave.
I think on some level, except for the very hardcore conspiracy types, MAGA people know the whole system is a fraud. Think of all the people who go to Disney World over and over again because it fulfills a fantasy about returning to childhood. They see someone in a Snow White suit who is in reality about to vomit from the heat and treat that person as if she is really Snow White.
Similarly, I suspect that Steve Bannon is not a real person to most MAGA adherents, and neither is Donald Trump. Bannon and Trump are characters in an entertainment called “politics,” and like reality shows or multiplayer games, the story evolves to accommodate contradictions. I would predict that if you follow the right subreddits, or Gab threads, you will see people promoting theories that Bannon was there spying on Epstein, or that he was sent by Q to rescue the girls, or whatever.
Honestly, I think none of this matters to actual voters in the end, although I do think the multiple fumbles and lies about the Epstein files have given some Republicans a valid reason to declare their independence. Creating air between themselves and Trump will be critical to any Republican who wants a political career once maga starts to swirl the drain next year. We are seeing tremendous swings in districts Trump won in double digits, and that it is the Republicans’ failure to deliver that will, in the end, lead to their defeat, not just in 2026, but in 2028. And Trump’s people — including Bannon — will have gotten what they wanted all along: to fleece the American public.
