Greene With Envy

The editor here at The Progressive Populist tells me this is my 99th column, which means if you bet the UNDER (+/-100) on the first time I would use one of them to say something nice about retiring Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, congratulations.

Greene, as you know, announced her resignation from Congress, effective Jan. 5, 2026, citing irreconcilable differences with Donald Trump and, for that matter, the entire Republican Party. Her decision to do so has been mocked, derided, laughed at, and gutted by the Left.

Maybe we should knock it off.

You can drown in the cynicism of the move. She wants to run for governor of Georgia or, even, president of the United States. She doesn’t want to get into a pissing match with Trump, which she knows she’ll lose. She timed her announcement so her exit will come milliseconds after she’ll be vested in the congressional retirement plan.

Her motives are certainly in play.

But what if her party, the GOP, and her president, Donald Trump, in fact, were too extreme, too cruel, and too disgustingly misogynistic for her? What if Greene, who for years lovingly carried the party’s water and sludge and voiced its lies and bombast, had simply had enough?

Shouldn’t that engender at least a golf clap?

In her resignation letter, she wrote, “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for.”

Jasmine Crockett could have said the same thing.

E. Jean Carroll could have said the same thing.

You and I could have said the same thing.

Is the sentiment any less true because Greene said it?

Ever since Trump was elected in 2016, many of us have wondered what it would take for Republicans to overcome their cowardice and/or collaboration to distance themselves from Trump. His mocking of a disabled reporter didn’t do it, neither did his treatment of women and veterans, nor his cronyism, nor his fascistic loyalties, nor his strong-arming of universities, nor his politicization of the Justice Department, nor his rounding up brown people and sending them to faraway lands, nor his bigotry, nor his monetization of the White House, nor …

And here Greene — furious at her party for defending the indefensible on Trump’s involvement with Epstein and for heartlessly ending health subsidies for Americans, many in her own district — found reasons.

It’s what we wanted, isn’t it?

If not, what then was the point of all that criticism we aimed at her since she was elected in 2020? Didn’t we want her to come to her senses we weren’t convinced she had? Didn’t we want her to denounce the worst excesses of a party that reveled in cruelty and avarice and heartlessness? Or did we just do it for fun, posting all those snarky Facebook memes and Jewish-space-laser jokes?

Did it make us feel sophisticated and superior?

When Dick Cheney died, we were told that his support for gay rights (perhaps only because he had a gay daughter) and his support of Kamala Harris (perhaps only because Trump trashed him and his legacy) should not be enough to lighten his dark past, should not fundamentally change the tenor of his eulogy. But wasn’t it better than holding Trump’s hand aloft at some campaign stop? Wasn’t it better he didn’t advocate his daughter be subject to gay-conversion therapy?

Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t have to demand the Epstein files be released. She didn’t have to advocate for those in her district and across the nation who will be devastated when they no longer have health care.

Her congressional seat was safe.

She left a world she didn’t have to leave. She left a party she helped mold and disfigure. She embarrassed a party that should be embarrassed frequently.

When former Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe’s son, Perry, died in November 2023, he said, “I seem to have gotten more, or at least as many, maybe more, communications from some Democrat friends, and I’m a pretty partisan Republican.”

How can that be?

He went on to say, “You don’t change in terms of your positions, in terms of what you believe in, but you change in terms of your understanding of individuals.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene will continue to vex and horrify Democrats for years to come.

But she got this moment right.

In years of spewing the most vile of bile, there were no reports of any death threats from Democrats; less than a month after saying people should be able to afford health care and be able to eat, some in MAGA have been threatening her life.

Maybe, like Inhofe, she’ll remember who did what.

Whatever she is, whatever she will be, she’s no longer the same Marjorie Taylor Greene.

She doesn’t deserve redemption — just an acknowledgment.

And now, it seems, we on the Left are faced with something we’d rather not face: changing our opinion of her.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, comedian and Iberian correspondent for The Progressive Populist. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t 3: I’m the Father, is the third installment of a 4-part trilogy, following “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman.” and “Jack Sh*t, Volume 2: Wait For The Movie. It’s In Color,” available in paperback and Kindle. He is also author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.