Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters
“We need a national divorce,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted from her personal account on Monday.
“We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” she continued. “Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke”—well, if you’re at all familiar with Greene, you can probably guess where she was going, and you also won’t be surprised to learn she returned to the theme a few hours later on her congressional account, issuing an ultimatum: Impeach President Joe Biden or permit the split.
Greene is, objectively, a talented gadfly, and the backlash to her proposal was voracious and predictable. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) called Greene a traitor. A write-up at The New Republic branded her initial post “borderline sedition,” and Rachel Maddow Show producer Steve Benen castigated America for not being more offended. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) accused Greene of violating her oath of office, and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) labeled the proposal “evil.” Meanwhile, Twitter’s many amateur historians assiduously explained that this whole secession thing was settled, actually, back when we did the Civil War.