Marjorie Taylor Greene’s tale of two MAGAs
By Alfred P. Doblin
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the news, and I’ve been thinking about Madame Defarge, the woman knitting at the guillotine in Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. Defarge is a singular villain, consumed by revenge, retribution, and just plain hate. Her focus is on the execution of all members of the family Evrémonde. She eventually comes to a bad end, at the hands of another determined woman, Miss Pross.
The two women have a drag-down fight, but the outcome is predicted. Dickens writes, “It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had.”
It wasn’t quite so bad for Greene. On Friday, the pugnacious congresswoman from Georgia unexpectedly announced she was resigning her seat in the House, effective January 5, 2026. It was a highly unusual announcement on all fronts. Unexpected. And her exit, mid-term, absent illness or raging scandal, is not normative.
But then again, normative and Greene do not go hand in hand. What used to go hand in hand, was her relationship with President Trump. But when Greene continued to push for the release of the so-called Epstein files, hand in hand became hand to hand combat. Rock beats paper. President beats lowly member of Congress.
The president called Greene names, including “traitor,” and serious threats against her family began. After she resigned, Trump said, she “went Bad,” I guess like an egg or Veruca in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Ironically, this was the same day that Trump and our mayor-elect, Zohran Momdani, all but spoke the love that dare not speak its name.
The two men, once polar opposites, were all but singing a duet from Wicked in the Oval Office. “Who can say if I've been changed for the better? I do believe I have been changed for the better. And because I knew you, because I knew you, because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
The juxtaposition of the two stories – Trump and Greene and Trump and Momdani – are remarkable. Clearly, the president recognizes one is an imploding star, and one is a star on the ascendent. Back to Greene.
What is more disturbing than much of what she said for the past five years as a MAGA megaphone, is how quickly she crumbled when faced with the same fate she eagerly condemned others to. It might be easier to feel some remorse for her sad ending if one felt she had the courage of her convictions, but I for one, don’t even know what her convictions really were or are.
Political movements on the right and left are often more about noise than substance. But there usually are some true believers on both sides. The speed of her exit rather than face a primary she would probably lose contrasts greatly with former Rep. Liz Cheney’s willingness to stand up for what she believed to be true and right regardless if that meant losing her seat in the House.
America today offers the fallen, discarded, and/or the disgraced a second and even a third act. Greene could get a podcast. A gig on television. She could tour with George Santos in a revival of Noel Coward’s Private Lives – this is America, anything is possible.
Greene’s story is a reminder that if that is true – and it is – that people with little to offer in way of expanding the promise of America can rise to high offices and stay there until someone pushes them aside so they can take that place for themself, or someone deemed more loyal and malleable. Greene wrote on X that our current political system used citizens as “pawns in an endless game of division.” Well, yeah. That’s how she gained power.
Still, I cling to the hope that there is limoncello to be made from these lemons. Heroes appear. Sydney Carton does not have to be just a fictional Dickensian character – “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, though long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.”
It is a tale of two cities: one shining idealistically on a hill and one shining until the gold spray paint wears away.
Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene will have time on her hands. Maybe she will think about that. Maybe, she will just sit and knit.
Until next time, Alfred with P