U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s social media history offers a window into a false, conspiracy theory-based reality — one where Donald Trump won re-election, the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings were fake, the 9/11 attack was an inside job and the 2018 California wildfires were caused by Jewish space lasers.
The Republican Party is facing mounting pressure to rein in the rookie lawmaker from Georgia, as her long history of backing debunked conspiracy theories and making extreme threats on social media continues to spill out into public view.
Greene has dismissed mass shootings as “false flags,” mocked the child victims of gun violence, called for Democrats to be executed and denounced the Nov. 3 election as a fraud, even though it put her in power. She has also described the fantastical QAnon hoax as something “worth listening to,” and she repeatedly embraced the most outlandish and demonstrably false beliefs of the movement.
Greene’s past and present beliefs have made her a target for fear, ridicule and concern in Congress, especially given her calls for some of her new colleagues to be killed.
The latest outcry involves one of Greene’s Facebook posts from 2018, in which she peddled the bizarre claim that a wealthy Jewish family used a supervillain satellite to start California’s devastating Camp Fire.
The post was first reported by Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group that combed through Greene’s Facebook and Twitter history. The post has since been deleted, but the website captured a screenshot for its report.
The post shows Greene trying to tie the wildfires to a power company, a rail project, a satellite and the Rothschilds — a wealthy Jewish family that has been the target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories for more than two centuries.
“There are too many coincidences to ignore,” she wrote in the post, which makes several massive leaps in logic to connect all the dots. She also claimed that people saw “lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires,” in what might have been a reference to a rare firenado.
Social media users ridiculed Greene for the hoax this week, with one writer quipping: “Why are they calling it Jewish Space Laser when Death Star of David is right there?”
The Republican Jewish Coalition rebuked Greene for the conspiracy theory in a statement on Friday. “We are offended and appalled by her comments and her actions,” the RJC said. “She is far outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, and the RJC is working closely with the House Republican leadership regarding next steps in this matter.”
But space lasers are just the tip of the iceberg with Greene, who was elected to represent Georgia’s 14th district last November. Greene was an active far-right conspiracy theorist before her election, and she has continued to push many of those beliefs, including the QAnon hoax.
QAnon is an extremist conspiracy theory that believes Donald Trump was a warrior for God who was secretly working to ferret out a cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles inside the U.S. government, Hollywood and the Democratic Party. The group was well-represented at the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, and had expected Trump to remain in office for a second term. The FBI had also labelled the group a domestic terror threat.
Nevertheless, Greene has backed many Q-related beliefs since her election, including the false claim that Trump lost because of election fraud. She was briefly suspended from Twitter earlier in the month for pushing such views in a video clip.
Greene has also supported several “truther” conspiracy theories that sought to discredit past mass shootings, including the 2017 Las Vegas massacre and the school shootings in Parkland, Fla., and Newtown, Conn.
One video of Greene’s antics shows her hounding David Hogg, a Parkland shooting survivor, in an attempt to prove her conspiracy theories about the shooting. The video was shot in March 2019 and later posted to Greene’s own YouTube page.
Democrats and several survivors of those school shootings were outraged this week, after Republicans assigned Greene to the education committee in Congress.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called Greene’s assignment “absolutely appalling.”
“Assigning her to the education committee, when she has mocked the killing of little children” at those schools, “what could they be thinking, or is thinking too generous a word for what they might be doing?” Pelosi said of Republican leaders.
Pelosi also cited Greene’s history of promoting violence against Democrats on social media.
Greene called for Pelosi to get a “bullet to the head” in a 2019 comment that CNN unearthed this week. CNN also found an online conversation where Greene appeared to encourage someone who wanted to hang former president Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“Stage is being set,” she wrote in the April 2018 post. “Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”
Greene attacked CNN in a tweet about the story, but did not deny her past comments. Instead, she highlighted that the posts had been made before she ran for office — though only one or two years before. She also claimed that she’s had “teams of people” running her social media pages.
“Many posts have been liked,” she wrote. “Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views.”
Greene kicked a reporter out of a public town hall in Georgia on Wednesday night for trying to ask about her social media posts. A spokesperson for Greene’s office said in a statement: “This was a town hall for constituents. Not a press conference.”
In a statement to Axios, a spokesman for House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called Greene’s posts “deeply disturbing” and said McCarthy “plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them.”
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called the posts “disgusting,” adding that they have “no place in our party” and “should be looked into.”
McDaniel also spoke out against QAnon in general.
“I think it’s really important, after what’s just happened in our country, that we have some self-reflection on the violence that’s continuing to erupt,” McDaniel told The Associated Press.
“I think QAnon is beyond fringe. I think it’s dangerous. We should be looking at that and making sure we don’t mince words and when we say that we can’t support groups that are initiating violence.”
Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat, also accused Greene on Friday of bullying and harassing her in the halls of the Capitol. Greene fired back, calling Bush “the leader of the St. Louis Black Lives Matter terrorist mob,” and claiming that Bush was the aggressor in their interaction.
Bush said she would support a move by Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, to expel Greene from Congress based on her social media activity.
Greene’s social media accounts appear to have been purged of nearly everything prior to her run for office, according to reports.
—With files from The Associated Press