Marjorie Taylor Greene Goes on Alarming Rant Declaring Democrats ‘The Party of Pedophiles’
In the growing and alarming trend of Republicans accusing their political opponents of being pedophiles, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has led the charge.
It’s not surprising that Greene would embrace allegations of pedophilia against her political opponents. Before she was elected to congress in 2020, Greene was a proud supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that the Democrats are part of a “global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles” (her words).
In the last month, charges of pedophilia, or “grooming,” seem to be everywhere. As Jonathan Chait explains in New York magazine, two stories are driving the increasingly prominent smear:
Not long ago, the notion that American politics was oriented around a dispute over the merits of child sexual exploitation was viewed as so loopy that not even Donald Trump could take it seriously. It is now becoming the Republican Party’s most energetic idea. The two most prominent theaters of partisan combat of the moment, the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation and Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, have both seen a growing swath of conservatives embrace charges of pedophilia as their central theme.
Greene, who counts Tucker Carlson as a supporter, has embraced both enthusiastically.
On Monday, she leveled the deranged accusation that Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney are “pro-pedophile” because they said they will support Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Some Republican Senators, most notably Sen. Josh Hawley, accused Jackson during her confirmation hearings of a “pattern” of leniency when sentencing child-pornography defendants. Those allegations have been fact-checked and dismissed, but have led to charges that Jackson is “pro-pedophile,” and that her supporters are by extension also pro-pedophile.
And now, Greene has accused the entire Democratic Party of being “the party of pedophiles” because of Disney’s opposition to the Florida law banning discussions of gender and sexual orientation in classrooms.
“The Democrats are the party of pedophiles,” she said on right wing network Real America’s Voice Tuesday night. “The Democrats are the party of princess predators from Disney. The Democrats are the party of elementary school teachers trying to transition their elementary school age children and convince them they’re a different gender.”
“This is the party of their identity, and their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible thing happening in our country,” she added.
Marge Greene tonight: “The Democrats are the party of pedophiles .. the party of princess predators from Disney .. the party of teachers .. trying to transition their elementary school age children.” pic.twitter.com/MMowXlIYM9
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) April 6, 2022
The smear is also not isolated to Greene. Pro-Trump pundit Mollie Hemingway suggested this week that Romney’s support for Jackson indicated he sympathizes with pedophiles.
