Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene Rises to Top with Pro-Trump Platform

In a political party that has historically excluded women from party leadership, one Congressional GOP freshman has risen to the top: Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In an election that some consider a rebuke to the Trump presidency, her election served as a potent reminder that Trumpism is alive and well within the Republican party. She ran as an outspoken defender of the 45th President.

“You can see it in her campaign rhetoric. Even before January 6, she was defending everything that Trump did, and she turned Trump and the GOP into a single entity when we know that they’re not,” said political reporter Leila Barghouty.

After the January 6 insurrection, some staunch members of the GOP turned their backs on the former president. Greene was not in that camp. In her pinned tweet, Greene told her followers to “RT if you still have Donald Trump’s back!” on the following day.

Her unwavering support remained with the president, and it acted as another example of her pro-Trump platform. “She’s not citing specific policy, she’s not citing the GOP, it’s about Donald Trump,” said Barghouty.

In addition to supporting the 45th President, Marjorie Taylor Greene has adopted many of his social media tactics to grow her support and make headlines.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene has an audience of millions, if not more, who are watching her every move because it is so controversial and so often absurd. She’s using a lot of the same tactics that Trump used to his advantage. Those who oppose their politics will look at it and not take it seriously because it sounds so absurd and so different from what we believe a Washington power player should act like, but it’s effective to the other side. It’s effective to those who want to hear that messaging,” said Barghouty.

Rep. Greene scrapped the planned launch of her “America First” caucus April 18 despite announcing the launch two days before. This move bore striking resemblance to Trump, who often made policy decisions over Twitter that were later denied or corrected by his team. The congresswoman announced the caucus on social media and within 24 hours, she and her team swiftly reversed their statement.

Like the former president, she often uses her platform to pick fights with other political figures. On April 14, she challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to a debate about the Green New Deal over Twitter. Ocasio-Cortez did not respond.

In general, her social media presence has earned her notoriety and an effective platform.

”It’s this feedback loop of being loud and having a message that doesn’t have to be accurate or right or have values based in it, but it just reaches a lot of people and is effective,” said Barghouty. “Without social media, people with more extreme politics may not have moved so quickly, but i think there is something to be said about utilizing social media as a campaign tool and the strategy that goes in and out of that.”

In the 2020 election, a record 39 Republican women were elected to Congress. Barghouty says that a driving force behind this record election is that women at large are participating in politics more than ever before. When it comes to the popularity of freshman congresswomen like Representative Greene, their extreme positions are the driving force, not their identity.

“The extreme language and the extreme rhetoric that women like Greene use does position them in such a way that their gender may become secondary to the types of things that they are pushing for,” said Barghouty.

According to Barghouty, “If someone is using the right buzzwords and claiming that they really care about the things that they know their constituents care about, then of course that person is probably going to do better regardless of their identity.”

“A lot of these freshman GOP women are very staunchly pro-Trump, staunchly anti-immigration, staunchly pro-life,” said Barghouty. The Republican party historically values family values and more traditional gender roles. GOP women like Marjorie Taylor Greene often play to these gender roles and emphasize their motherhood in order to get elected. Aside from this emphasis on gender roles, the conservative congresswomen ran on similar platforms.

As the GOP has become more fractured, a large contingency has focused on Trump. One school of thought calls these congressional members “Trumpists.” Ms. Greene falls into this category. She, along with several other freshman GOP members, built off his “America First” rhetoric and won their elections with zero political experience, according to Barghouty.