Another MT Greene meltdown heralds a potential bipartisan border deal
This weekend, Fox News announced a bipartisan Senate border deal (note: as of this writing, unconfirmed by other sources). They were not happy — calling it a “bipartisan sellout”. Although, if it is bipartisan, you have to wonder who Fox thinks the victims of the sellout are. Joining Fox in their dismay at this second example of across-the-aisle political comity (a tentative funding deal was the first — we will have to see if it survives), M.T. Greene expressed her dismay at a functioning government.
These two thumbs-down are good news for people hoping for a reasonable compromise. If Fox and Greene hate it, there is a chance it is a sensible agreement. However, if it is too sensible the Republican House leadership will have a gun to the head of the few sane GOP representatives the Democrats will need to pass the Senate bill.
Greene was her usual stuck-pig, squealing self as she embraced the all-caps, multi-exclamation point style favored by easily angered, limited thinkers. She expressed her opinion in a tweet:
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
This is NOT a border deal!
This is a border SURRENDER!!
Any elected U.S. politician that supports this doesn’t represent Americans, they represent the rest of the world!
Don’t bring it to the floor, put it through a paper shredder!
Unsurprisingly, the intellectual uncurious Greene does not know how the American government works. Take her contention, “Any elected U.S. politician that supports this doesn’t represent Americans.” How wrong can she be? That is precisely what they do. You can even find their job description in their title: “US Representative.”
You may not like what they do — in every congressional district, some voters want someone other than the winner — but for better or worse, the winner represents the Americans in their constituency. And if enough people object to their representation, every two years they will have the opportunity to pick someone else.
Also, the Constitution has no provision for a Senate version of a bill to be dismissed by the House (put through a paper shredder) because one Representative has their underwear in a bunch.
Greene is like the pet rock that inspired a six-month fad in 1975. It was an object that went from ubiquity to obscurity — and left everyone bemused how such a pointless product had become the must-have item for so many.
I am sure psychology PhDs can give the layperson chapter and verse on the mental defects that promote such nonsense. However, whatever the cause, the rest of us can only hope the insanity is short-lived. Unfortunately, under the American system, candidates in safe districts have little to worry about from the general election voter. Instead, they have to appeal to the overrepresented lunatic fringe in the party primaries. Those nutters love themselves a slice of Greene-style, loud-mouth insanity.
What is Greene’s shelf life? I do not know. It could be a long time. It took 18 years for the zealots in Iowa’s 4th district to give Steve King the heave-ho. And that was only after he finally lost his committee assignments following a career of vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric marinated in a sewer of white nationalism and racist bigotry.
Worse, even if the GOP primary voters of Georgia 14 decide the miasmic Greene has overstayed her welcome, the odds are they will select someone not quite so patently unqualified, but still on the extreme — who will still be beholden to a GOP leadership under Trump’s thumb.
It is time for ranked choice voting in primaries and general elections. It is what spared us from Sarah Palin redux and gave Alaska a Democratic Representative, Mary Peltola.