Please Don’t Fall for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Convenient Rebrand

Doing the bare minimum isn’t proof of rehabilitation

By Carron J. Phillips

Marjorie Taylor Greene hasn’t gone “woke;” she’s just sleepwalking.

The Congresswoman from Georgia, who once served—and arguably still does—as a walking billboard for MAGA ideology, has been in the news for pushing back against some of her party’s antics.

“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics; it’s very bad for our country,” she said. “It’s been something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.”

For those keeping track: it took the death of a man who said all the things that Kirk said, in addition to President Donald Trump publicly pulling his support from her, for Greene to arrive at this moment of clarity. And for some odd reason, people have begun to soften on her.

“I’m sitting here just stumped. You know, because you are a very different person than I thought you were,” said The View’s Sonny Hostin about Greene on her recent appearance.

“It’s like you’re on the left now,” Hostin declared.

There’s a sucker born every minute.

From lying about his connections to Project 2025 to rejecting election results, and to being caught on tape saying what he likes doing to women’s private parts—how many times have we seen Trump say one thing while doing another when it suits him? It’s reasonable to be skeptical of Greene, given her long-standing loyalty to a man who’s capable of these things. That’s why it feels as if she’s following a script from his playbook, especially since she still wants to be the president’s BFF.

“I certainly hope that we can make up,” she said on CNN about her feud with Trump. “And, you know, again, I can only speak for myself. I’m a Christian and one of the most important parts of our faith is forgiveness. And that’s something I’m committed to.”

With the Epstein files, the government shutdown, and the controversial way Trump chooses to navigate relationships with allies during his nightmare of a second term, it was only a matter of time before some Republican Party members began distancing themselves from this administration. However, none have been as unapologetic and confrontational as Greene. Her Wikipedia page paints a clear picture of her past actions. And while the internet’s “favorite encyclopedia” isn’t necessarily the best place you might think to go under these circumstances, it doesn’t appear that anyone from her team has contested the claims on a site where volunteers edit the material:

“Greene has promoted anti-Semitic and white supremacist views, including the white genocide conspiracy theory, QAnon, and Pizzagate. She has amplified conspiracy theories that allege government involvement in mass shootings in the United States, implicate the Clinton family in murder, and suggest the attacks of 9/11 were a hoax. Before running for Congress, Greene supported calls to execute prominent Democratic Party politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As a congresswoman, she equated the Democratic Party with Nazis and compared COVID-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, later apologizing for this comparison. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Greene promoted Russian propaganda and praised its president, Vladimir Putin. Greene identifies as a Christian nationalist.”

As a member of the group of women who voted for Trump in three consecutive presidential elections, there’s no reason to believe that Greene can help fix the toxicity of her party and politics in general, when she’s been such an active participant in the problem. Her decision to moderately criticize some of the actions of her colleagues, which led to her receiving threats, doesn’t make her a martyr — it means that accountability is taking place, especially given her past.

What we’re witnessing from Greene is a similar move to what Jon Stewart tried to pull last month when he went with the “why can’t we just all get along?” messaging . His white privilege was on display when he expressed that he’s in mourning over how America has “lost the ability to love.”

“I love a good argument. I love differing points of view in all facets of things,” he told The New Yorker’s David Remnick. “But I also love grace. I’ve got people in my family that are to the right of Attila the Hun. And when people tell me, like, ‘How can you platform that person on your show?’ I go, ‘I platform my uncle every fuc*ing Thanksgiving.’”

“And, by the way, I love him,” he continued. “He’s a three-dimensional human being who has qualities that I really admire — things about him. And we’ve lost that. We’ve lost the ability to love people because we litmus-test at every point, in every single moment.”

White people have a long history of tolerating other white people because they so rarely have to deal with the consequences of whiteness. And if Greene and Stewart have a desire to be viewed as moderates, then they should be aware that we warned about how dangerous they can be over 60 years ago.

“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1963 in his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.”

For many, myself included, our introduction to who and what Marjorie Taylor Greene is came when she repeatedly interrupted one of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union addresses, in a clown-like performance that would have made Bozo jealous. That moment will forever stand out as a reflection of a woman whose behavior matched her voting record and the dangerous rhetoric she’s expressed, which puts the lives of people who look like me in constant jeopardy.

A few sensible remarks and a new sullen tone do not suffice to suggest that Greene’s actions reflect any genuine progress. And for those who are willing to give her a chance and/or hope she’s “seen the light,” it’s probably because you were never one of her targets and have nothing to lose if she reneges.

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Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University.