Greene election opponents react to her "I'm miserable" trope.
Spoiler alert--there's no spoiler alert. They saw it coming.
She arrives late for campaign events and meetings with District 14 officials. When she does show up, it’s in a tricked-out SUV with dark windows. And she’s accompanied by three hunky, sunglassed bodyguards reminiscent of those Men in Black FBI recruits. The unavoidable messages: “I’m important!” (and you’re not) and “Notice me!”
Besotted followers forgive her tardiness, push to get close, and swoon in her presence, saying things like, “Isn’t she amazing?!”
Daily affirmations
But Greene’s uninformed, egocentric grilling of witnesses during Oversight hearings about “weaponizing the government” and then shouting “Liar” during the State of the Union message while dressed as Cruella DeVil lead critics and members of the “she-should-never-have-been-elected-to-Congress” school of thought to want her out of Congress—preferably—soon, or at least
some day.
And so last week’s confession she’s miserable in her job provides another reason to wonder, could she be on her way out—possibly even on her own power—or not?
Closer to home in Greene’s district, those who are not fully in her camp resent having to cool their heels when, to be technical about it, she works for them, not vice versa. And they don’t like that she’s drawiing the wrong kind of attention to the District; it seems just to bolster her name recognition and national money-raising power, anyway. She’s not using it to bolster them.
That’s why I asked three of Greene’s 2022 opponents—Republicans James Haygood and Dr. Charles Lutin, and Democrat Marcus Flowers—if the “I’m miserable” confession could make a difference. The answer is “yes,” but for another reason: she’s just not good at her job.
She’s not producing
James Haygood is a 2022 primary challenger who’s a farmer, works in the railroad industry, and has multiple friends and contacts throughout the District. As a recent primary candidate, he’s also had first-hand experience waiting for Greene to show up. Although Greene’s rudeness did not keep her from winning, it hasn’t exactly enhanced her reputation. But what’s really eating away at the Congresswoman’s constituent support is her
poor performance.
In a recent phone call with Haygood, the former candidate said the quiet part out loud: that Greene’s support is softening because she’s not delivering for the District. Delivering for the MAGA crowd writ large, yes. But for ordinary citizens there, who are hurting for a variety of reasons, no.
What Greene doesn’t seem to notice, says Haygood, is that many of the people she represents need help. And so far, for two+ years into her job as the people’s representative in Washington, Greene hasn’t responded. She’s either not inclined to be aware of those who struggle, or does notice but doesn’t care.
The problems
What’s not getting addressed while Greene arrives late at District events and angrily and often inaccurately questions witnesses at Oversight hearings?
Among a number of District 14 problems is the presence of an unattended-to opioid addiction that's been plaguing the District for years. As part of the morphine drug class, opioids are used often for pain relief and cough suppression, and so can become easily addictive.
Citing 2020 data, the Georgia Department of Health said that 67 percent of drug overdose deaths in the state were opioid-related, with 1309 in total in that year.
As with those like opioids that are related to morphine-type drugs, stimulant-related overdoses also have been increasing in the Peach State, with the number of stimulant-related overdose deaths rising 546 percent from 2010 to 2020 (https://dph.georgia.gov > stopopioi).
No Medicaid and fewer hospitals=poorer health care
The rise in drug addiction and overdoses is accompanied, not helpfully, with a lower than average access to health care made more acute by the unavailability of Medicaid (because of state policy) and an uneven economy during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. U.S. Census data describes Georgia as having about seven times more uninsured (14 percent in total) than the highest-insured state, Massachusetts, with an only 2.5 percent uninsured population (uninsured rate/census. gov.).
Crisis avoidance?
Since she’s been on the job, however, Greene has studiously avoided the health care crisis–neither talking about it regularly on the stump nor developing legislation to address it.
Nor has she spoken out in sympathy with those workers in her district–especially in the food service, retail, and manufacturing trades that have seen the biggest job fluctuations in the last three years, according to a northwest Georgia council on the pandemic’s effect on the region (https://www.nwgrc.org/wp-content/uploads/Northwest-Georgia-Economic-Recovery-Plan.pdf).
Never had to worry
Haygood traces Greene’s inaction in large part to her wealth, estimated at about $4M according to online approximations, and Greene’s evaluation of her family business at between $5-25M in campaign disclosure statements when she ran for Congress the first time in 2020. It could likely be higher in light of her recent divorce.
Haygood said many District voters perceive her as “privileged” and, by extension, “naive” to the realities of life having always lived in big, expensive homes with landscaped lawns and swimming pools, unlike a $200,000 house with a lawn cut by the owner and sizable mortgage that’s more common in the District.
“She has no concept of what the people here are going through,” Haygood said. She’s always been “rich” by District standards and doesn’t relate to people who have to struggle just to make ends meet. “Many of our people are making $22 an hour and have to decide things like whether to buy (high priced) eggs or put gas in the car,” he said.
Haygood’s observations about District struggles are backed up by a report issued in late 2022 by the Northwest Georgia Recovery Commission, a group bringing together private sector, academic, and local and state government resources to jump start an economy damaged by the pandemic.
The report describes how all industries, but especially food service; retail; and manufacturing, including the District’s famous milling industries, while hiring again, are still struggling to recoup losses from a nearly two-year stretch of uncertain pandemic-related economic pressures.
In a lengthy report, the commission made recommendations on what a wide group of stakeholders representing all aspects of the area believe should
be done.
Among a number of recommendations, the report calls for new ways to create revenue, boost employee development, and identify and invest in new leadership to meet the area’s present and future needs.
Crickets
Yet judging from a lack of focused attention on these issues by the District’s Congressional representative, Greene appears detached.
Greene’s inattention to and seemingly lackadaisical approach toward her responsibilities as a member of Congress tracks with a work history, such as it is, which didn’t demand much on her part, but paid well while other people did the work.
An article in the January/February edition of theAtlantic reports on a spotty work history even at the family construction business, her only actual work experience…except for a few years where she worked part time as a gym instructor. But these two “jobs” add up to her only exposure to the work world since graduating from the University of Georgia in 1996.
“Performance”—that word, again
The article, “Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene Like This?” by Elena Calabro in theAtlantic describes the disparity between how Greene, who has described her tenure in the family construction business as a joint venture with her husband Perry, usually didn’t show up much or perform tasks in reality.
The woman who ran against socialism and for “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” in 2020 packaged herself as a successful businesswoman. But reporting since then by theAtlantic and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the state’s major newspaper, paints a different picture—that of someone dependent on the family business for all her income and willingly expecting her husband Perry to do the work and make the decisions to run it profitably.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that from 2007 to 2011, corporate registration records listed MTG as the Chief Financial Officer, a title also featured in brochures and the company’s web site. The Atlanta newspaper writes:
“Yet for several years while she was presumably helping her husband run their construction company, she spent her days at the gym pursuing her passion for CrossFit training and traveling to participate in
national competitions.”
No time clock
Likewise, theAtlantic reported Greene was rarely at the office and routinely unreachable during the day. “And then by 2011 (MTG) was glaringly absent from the Taylor Commercial website (which by then) scarcely hinted at
Greene’s existence.”
The Atlanta newspaper added that Greene, “had no significant presence on her company’s web pages collected over the past 20 years,” the paper having gained access to the company’s archived material.
TheAtlantic’s Calabro reported that by 2011 Greene was no longer considered the CFO, leaving the job altogether less than a year after the company was hit by state and county liens levied for not paying taxes.
TheAtlantic reported that Greene later joked one day “about her lack of business acumen.” Nonetheless in 2020 she touted her business experience as uniquely qualifying her for Congress, as she compared her construction experience as similar to that of Donald Trump.
Les Miserables
Now Greene possesses the most prestigious job of her life, but it seems she’s following a similar pattern of not wanting to commit to it completely. On Feb. 2, Greene complained in a podcast interview with conservative commentator Glenn Greenwald that she’s “miserable” as a member of Congress, as she is expected to work hard without being paid as much as she was before getting the job.
Greene said:
“Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money. I made a lot more money before I got here. Since coming to Congress, I’ve lost money” (https://businessinsider.com 5 feb 2023).
Here was Marjorie Taylor Greene, master of the outrageous soundbite, sounding insensitive to the plight of many of her constituents in comparison to her own, and yet sounding strangely authentic about how she felt.
Greene added that, although she’s miserable, she’ll stay committed because she “believes in it”-- “it” being the job, or the work it requires? Hard to tell…
Another opponent weighs in
Dr. Charles Lutin, a former hospital physician and Air Force officer who saw tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, ran against Greene in the 2022 primary. When asked for a response to Greene’s “My job makes me miserable” statement, Lutin expressed no sympathy for a person who won while pledging to work for her constituents. But now Greene finds the job burdensome, and with only paltry pay, no less.
Lutin said:
“I am doing my best to ignore whatever remarks MTG makes and I think the country would be better off if everyone else did, also. (With Greene’s) having raised $7 million+ in campaign contributions, I can see why a salary of $174,000 annually does not seem sufficient to Marjorie.
“On the other hand, her only source of income before running for Congress was taking profits from the prosperous business that her father founded and her former husband operated.”
Lutin added that Greene represents a larger problem within the GOP, which has become “the party of George Santos, Lauren Boebert and MTG. All one has to do to raise funds, say outrageous things, and appear with Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump.”
Greene’s Democratic opponent also weighs in
Similarly, Democrat Marcus Flowers, who was Greene’s general election opponent, expressed “disappointment, but not surprise” at Greene’s “I’m tired” sentiments, “having seen her in action” while running for office.
Like Lutin, Flowers also served in the U.S. military during overseas conflicts. And he uses a military perspective in blaming Greene’s fatigue on a “lack of leadership” and mindset focused more on her needs, rather than on those of the people she’s supposed to support.
“She’s never been about servant leadership,” said Flowers, referencing an administrative style prominent in military and corporate circles that stresses supporting team members, rather than demanding abject loyalty based solely
on position.
The idea is, by working in team fashion and attending to the needs of the group rather than putting yourself above it, the group accomplishes more than if the leader stands apart and either simply looks on or tells them what to do. And the end product is better, having the participation and buy-in of the team.
Greene’s “team” appears to be MAGA followers more than either the bulk of American midterm voters or those in her district. A list of Greene’s legislative priorities do not protect democracy, support women’s rights to choose, or produce tangible benefits for the American people as 2022 results proved were most important to the widest swath of the American electorate.
Neither do they address the needs of a district struggling with health-related and economic woes.
For example, according to Georgia Health News, women in Greene’s state are medically uninsured at a rate that’s just under twice the national average, with 20.2 percent of Georgia women being uninsured compared to 12.4 percent nationally. Relatedly, the Georgia Political Review reports the state’s medical problems are exacerbated by the number of rural hospitals going under, with seven having closed in the last 13 years.
Instead, Greene’s priorities are grievance-based, cultural, and focused on trying to make Democrats look bad for the 2024 election.
Of the more than 17 House bills Greene has sponsored or co-sponsored, none address these problems, and instead focus on grievance issues and culture wars in the absence of any ideas to address social and economic difficulties with sound policy.
Such replacement issues for the ones voters are most concerned about include: a continued demonization of Covid vaccines; exacting payback to Democrats for prosecuting Trump for Jan. 6 and the attempted Ukraine extortion; expanding the rights of gun owners instead of curbing the ongoing rise in gun violence; tightening restrictions on women’s reproductive health options; widening the wealth gap in lieu of developing practical policies to address Americans’ economic needs; alienating and punishing gay and transgender students; and inflating cultural divisions as represented by attacks on so-called “Critical Race Theory;”
As such, the following bills listed on Greene’s governmental web site, include:
H.R. 790: Repeals the firearms transfer tax (making it easier and more lucrative for gun owners to sell firearms)
H.R. 646: Removes short-barreled rifles and shotguns from the firearms list of the National Firearms Act (enacted by Congress in 1934 to regulate the sale and transportation of firearms)
H.R. 570: Prohibits federal funds from elementary, secondary, or institutions of higher education from “promoting race-based theories” and makes it illegal for educators to teach “race-based theories” (GOP code for an upfront approach to teaching black history)
H.R. 497: Eliminates Covid-19 vaccine mandates on health providers in care facilities supported by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal funds
H.R. 185: Terminates America’s relationship with the World Health Organization
H.R. 407: Prohibits the federal government from protecting women’s reproductive rights against state restrictions
H.R. 25: Replaces the personal income tax with a national sales tax on all goods and services, beginning at the rate of 23 percent in 2025.
(Economists have described the scheme as a regressive, as opposed to progressive, tax because it places a greater burden on the poor than the rich, as there is an “inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer’s ability to pay”-- forbes 21 jan 2023).
Faces of grievance
Along with promoting legislation from the MAGA playbook, Greene has also essentially become the face of the Republican score-settling against-Democrats strategy by voicing, along with fellow Republican Lauren Boebert (R-CO), the kind of grudges that showed up in the GOP-led Oversight Committee hearings last week.
For example, in the session focusing on Twitter and its alleged collusion with the left, Greene and Boebert railed at former Twitter executives for banning them from the platform, for violating its requirements for truth (Greene asserted bizarre claims Covid vaccines were responsible for an uptick in deaths, which they were not) and civility (Boebert Tweeted below-the-belt insults about Hillary Clinton). Boebert asserted angrily that the Tweets were “just a joke!”
Another embarrassment
Earlier in the week, Greene also may have embarrassed herself by bizarrely claiming during testimony by the General Accounting Office Comptroller Gene Dodaro that the federal government had issued a check for $5.1B to one Illinois elementary school for developing a “Critical Race Theory” curriculum.
Apparently, Greene didn’t do her homework sufficiently to understand the $51B was allocated to Illinois for its share of post-pandemic assistance, and that the money would be spread among the state’s 850 school districts to provide assistance for school improvements, tutoring, special education, summer school programs, and the like, with all curriculum decisions left to local school authorities. (Oops.)
So with a string of embarrassments behind Greene just in the first few weeks of the new Congress, will District 14 voters eventually follow through on their threats to exchange MTG for a candidate less interested in self-promotion and more in helping them?
James Haygood believes that’s possible, based on listening to those District residents who say they aren’t enthusiastic about Greene, but gave her a second chance in the midterm anyway in hopes she’d prove herself to be more productive this time. If Greene shows no improvement by 2024, they’re open to someone else, Haygood said.
Could Democrats ever win in northwest Georgia?
Greene defeated Marcus Flowers last year by 30 points. But Flowers takes solace in that the loss was less than other districts that voted for Trump in 2020 and chose a Republican Congressional candidate in 2022. And in 2020, Greene’s margin of victory was 74.6 percent of the vote.
National political reporting may also bear out Flowers’ silver lining assessment.
The Washington Post points to Democratic gains in northwest Georgia as a potential harbinger of future Democratic successes there–not right away, perhaps, but some day.
Blue arrow
In a Jan. 26 article Washington Post article by Aaron Blake titled, “The big risk in legitimizing Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Blake writes:
“Compared to 2020 presidential results in the same districts in all Congressional races, a Democrat versus a Republican in normal (not ranked choice) format, Greene’s performance was the third worst among Republicans.
“While Trump carried her district by more than 37 points, she won by less than 32. Her district also ranked in the top 10 when it comes to a move toward Democrats. And this is despite her coming from a red district in the South…”
Referring to a graphic accompanying the story of a Georgia map with red and blue arrows showing significant gains in areas by either of the two parties, Blake added: “Her district is the one with the blue arrow in the northwest corner of Georgia, and it’s surrounded by red arrows.”
My Take
Will Greene’s unwillingness to bring legislative help for the district—all while inspiring late night comedians to make her and, by extension, District 14, a laughing stock over her lies, histrionics, and misstatements—finally inspire voters to oust Greene in the next election cycle. Or ever?
Two weeks ago, I would have said no. But, after Greene’s “miserable” confession, I got to thinking. It’s hard to be miserable in a job and stick with it, especially when you’ve never worked hard at much of anything in
your life.
Plus it’s usually not a good idea to tell the people who just hired you that you want more money, especially when you’re a lot richer than they are.
That describes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s newly self-inflicted wound,
and dilemma.
So, stay tuned.
–trg
The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) has fixed three errors that appeared in previous editions 1) the typo "ecocentric" in the third paragraph for "egocentric 2) an extra vowel in Dr. Charles Lutin's name (5th paragraph), and 3) mis-typing Dr. Lutin's's primary candidacy as occurring in 2020 instead of 2022. A bad cold might be blamed for my inability to spot them earlier. But I regret them, nonetheless. Thank you for your patience. --trg
TRG, thank you for bringing into focus the facts surrounding Marjorie Taylor Greene. Shameful, lazy and ill-informed, she shows no interest in the needs of her constituents.