Marjorie Taylor Greene auditions for The View

Last week, in anticipation of her appearance on The View this morning (or afternoon, depending on your local listings), Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted out an image of her perfect “100 A Liberty Score,” given out by Conservative Review and Blaze Media. “Nothing has changed about me, I’m 1,000,000% America ONLY,” she wrote. “Sorry I’m not sorry. I don’t obey Republican men’s demands that I, as a woman, don’t remain seen but not heard.”

Well, there’s no chance of us not hearing Rep. Greene. As I’ve pointed out before, it rings a little hollow to cry “sexist Republican” when you a) are a Republican and b) the thoroughly Republican-dominated government includes a Justice Department and a Department of Homeland Security run by women and a female White House Chief of Staff. But there MTG was today, on The View, crying sexism. 

MTG molded into the all-female panel very well. Whoopi Goldberg bemoaned high soybean prices and the Argentina bailout, two topics on which I’m sure she has substantial expertise. “What is going on?” she asked MTG. 

“I don’t know,” Greene said. “I’m so America First. I feel like I live it and breathe it.” People in her district, she said, “are so tired of their hard-earned tax dollars being sent overseas to foreign wars, and foreign aid and foreign causes, while life in America just becomes more and more unaffordable.” 

This is what she campaigned on, she said. “Everyone is saying Marjorie Taylor Greene has changed. Oh no. Nothing has changed about me.” Manufacturing in her district is crumbling, she said. Small businesses, shuttered during COVID, cannot reopen. People are suffering in Georgia, which is why it’s fortunate that their representative is in New York City chit-chatting with Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines. “I’ll do anything I can to save this country,” she said. 

“Maybe you should become a Democrat, Marjorie,” Joy Behar said to  her, in all seriousness. 

“I’m not a Democrat,” she said. “I think both parties have failed.” 

“So you don’t believe in the Q-Anon conspiracies anymore?” Hostin asked her. 

“Oh, I went over that a long time ago,” said Taylor Greene, who recently commented to Bill Maher that she thinks UFOs may actually be “fallen angels.” 

“So you’ve changed,” Hostin said, hopefully. 

“No, I haven’t. I was a victim – just like you were – of media lies and stuff you read on social media. You all have attacked me on this show many times.” 

“We have.” 

“Because of things you’ve read about me that weren’t true.”

“Or clips we’ve seen.”

“Or clips that took me out of context.” 

At another moment, Behar said, “you’re slamming Republicans too much. You’re taking my job.” 

Maybe that’s the point. Taylor Greene laughed, as unwitting victims of social media conspiracy theories are wont to do.  

“You’re slamming Republicans a lot on topics like healthcare, and the Epstein Files,” Behar said. “I know Truman’s still your favorite president. I mean, Truman is mine.” 

Behar was referring to Harry S. Truman, who died long before MTG was born, but the comment brought to mind a different, somewhat more contemporary Truman. The whole world is now Taylor Greene’s Truman Show. She made a lot of new friends today on that glistening set. 

“There’s a lot of paid social media influencers,” she said, to a chorus of “mmm hmms.” 

“And I found it very interesting that they were the MAGA accounts” – with ‘MAGA’ in air quotes – “but they were all paid, and they all attacked me when I announced I was coming to join you ladies on The View. And I think that was very weak and pathetic. But when I talk about weak Republican men, I’m pretty much talking about the leadership in the House and the Senate. They’re not getting our agenda done.” 

There’s more than a shred of authentic critique in what Taylor Greene is saying. But we’ve all had someone ring our doorbells, trying to sell us something that we don’t want, or that we don’t need. And I’m pretty sure that today on The View, the house megaphone for clueless, entitled liberalism, MTG wasn’t trying to sell America First. The only product on offer was herself.