Outbursts like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s House committee clash with Democrats Jasmine Crockett and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tarnish the image of U.S. democracy by making Congress a clown show, top political scientists told Newsweek.
Thursday’s confrontation began after Greene hit out at Texas rep. Crockett, commenting: “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up your reading.” New York rep. Ocasio Cortez hit back branding Greene’s remark “absolutely unacceptable,” prompting the Republican firebrand to respond: “Are your feelings hurt? Aw.”
The incident has attracted criticism in the U.S., but it is also raising eyebrows abroad.
Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, who runs the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, commented: “By any reasonable standard, Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s recent behavior confirms what most Americans already know: Capitol Hill is a clown show. Making a spectacle, rather than governing, seems to be the main objective for many House members.
“It’s one reason why only 8 percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of trust in Congress. The only vexing question is: who are those 8 percent, and what are they thinking?”
A similar point was made by Mark Shanahan, an associate professor in politics at the University of Surrey in the UK. He told Newsweek: “When the legislature dissolves into trading personal insults, it loses all authority in the eyes of the public.
“In a rare evening session, always set to be debated purely on hyperpartisan lines, MTG dragged Congressional etiquette through the chamber, out the door and into the dumpster.
“Sadly, the Democrats followed her. But the Georgian Republican has once again embarrassed her party, her Office and the Institution whose rule she has sworn to uphold. In legislative terms, she achieved nothing other than to further devalue Congress.”
The confrontation took place as the House Oversight Committee discussed a resolution calling for Attorney General Merrick Garland to be held in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena.
Since her election in 2020 Greene has established a reputation as one of the most outspoken House Republicans, and the Trump loyalist has clashed repeatedly with other members of Congress, including some from her own party.
Chairman James Corner, a Kentucky Republican, branded Greene’s remarks “un-decorous” and she agreed the comment could be struck from the record but refused to apologize. Later, in an apparently thinly veiled attack on Greene, Crockett said: “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
But the House has never been perfect, added Gift, saying: “Congress was never a paragon of etiquette. In 1856, a member of the U.S. House, Preston Brooks of South Carolina, caned a senator, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, until he lost consciousness.”
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Newsweek contacted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for comment by email outside of usual business hours.
In March 2022 Greene, along with Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, attracted widespread attention after repeatedly heckling President Biden during his State of the Union address.
The two Republicans later fell out badly, with The Daily Beast reporting Greene called Boebert “a little b****” on the House floor after claiming she’d copied articles of impeachment she was preparing against Biden.
Greene heckled Biden again during his 2024 State of the Union address on March 8 whilst drawing attention to the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed the previous month. A Venezuelan migrant, who was in the U.S. illegally, has been arrested and charged with her murder.
Earlier this month Greene was booed by Republican colleagues after bring forward a motion to vacate targeted at Speaker Mike Johnson which the House then voted overwhelmingly to table.
The Georgia rep. made the move after Johnson backed a $95 billion foreign aid package including funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.