Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘National Divorce’ Would Strip Millions of Voting Rights
So, yeah, Marjorie’s at it again. If you’d rather scoop your brain out your nose than listen to more of her ranting, that’s understandable—but her latest ploy for attention points to some of the most dangerous elements of the far right’s ideology.
Earlier this week, Greene published a long Twitter screed claiming that red states and blue states should go through a “national divorce.” Greene explains that in a national divorce, Republican-leaning states in the South and Midwest wouldn’t secede from the union completely. Rather, Americans would all agree to let Democrats govern blue states, while Republicans governed red states.
The idea is infantile on its face—gifting entire regions to political parties just isn’t how any democracy works—but it reveals some key aspects of the Republican agenda. As Greene explains in over a dozen long-form tweets (aren’t you glad Elon did away with the character limit?), red state Republicans would be given free rein to violently oppress queer people, ramp up fossil fuel usage instead of mitigating climate change, reverse equity and diversity initiatives, and abandon the First Amendment by requiring prayer in schools. The tweets are steeped in racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, blaming “Mexican cartels” and George Soros for America’s ills. The thread is a wishlist of all of the GOP’s most depraved, bigoted fantasies.
Tellingly, part of the “national divorce” includes stripping marginalized people in red states of their voting rights. Greene writes:
In red states, they would likely pursue one day elections with paper ballots and require voter ID with only the red state citizens or even red state tax payers voting. Red states would not allow illegal aliens to vote, ballot harvesting, or mass mail in ballots ripe for fraud, and could ban election machines all together if they wanted to.
And blue states would be free to allow illegal aliens from all over the world to vote freely and frequently in their elections like the DC city council wants. Dead people could still vote. Criminals in jail could vote that is if blue states even have jails or prisons anymore. Maybe blue states would let kids vote too. I mean why not, if the left says children can chop off their genitals or breasts, surely the left would let them make permanent important adult decisions like voting.
It’s well-documented that the purpose of voter ID and in-person voting laws is to make voting as hard as possible for marginalized people. Republicans engage in tactics like purging voter rolls and shuttering polling places in order to discourage voting in marginalized communities. Georgia made it illegal to give water to someone waiting in the sun to vote.
Then there’s a revealing statement Greene made on The Charlie Kirk Show, a conservative talk show. Greene said that if anyone moves from a blue state to a red state, they should be denied the right to vote for five years.
Greene’s views don’t make any logical sense, but anyone can read between the lines: she’s pushing for authoritarian rule.
Why a “national divorce” is anything but
Greene frames the idea of a national divorce as a conflict between states populated entirely by Republicans, and states populated entirely by Democrats. Post-divorce, everyone gets to do their own thing, like former spouses moving into separate households. If this were true, though, Republicans in red states wouldn’t be cracking down on immigrants, people of color, and queer people in the first place. Everyone in those states would already be living happily in their Christian nationalist utopias, untroubled by riffraff like us.
In reality, all states are diverse, and the only reason Republicans hold power in the “red” ones is because of the voting restrictions mentioned above—along with a hefty dose of gerrymandering, of course. Greene may pretend that the issue is two sides who can’t agree, but in reality, it’s a naked, desperate power grab from a party that knows its only leverage is hate and fear.
Plus, we know from experience that even if Republicans did gain total control over red state populations, they wouldn’t stop there. After Roe v Wade was overturned last year, senator Lindsey Graham promptly introduced a bill for a federal 15-week abortion ban. A national divorce, and anything resembling it, would be a method of solidifying right-wing power in order to expand it nationwide.
Will Greene get what she wants? Probably not. As with everything that comes out of her mouth (or fingertips), these tweets don’t represent any cohesive policy idea or attempt at legislation. They’re the unfiltered brain vomit of an arrogant, bigoted narcissist. Greene’s position in the House isn’t a job, it’s a full-time stunt.
But make no mistake—Greene’s bigoted, extremist views are very much mainstream in today’s Republican party, and even her most outrageous nonsense reflects real Republican goals.
(featured image: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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