(May 2) It’s bad enough for elected officials to look the other way rather than confront an entirely disreputable person in their midst. It’s worse for them to embrace that person as a martyr for their cause.
That’s what the campaign arm of the House Freedom Caucus, an influential group of the most right-wing members of Congress, is doing by sending solicitations for campaign funds for putative Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Despite Greene’s ever-growing list of ethically degenerate statements and actions, the House Freedom Fund last weekend sent an email solicitation saying Greene is among “the toughest, grittiest, most principled fighters” in Washington. The missive says that “100% of your contribution” will go to help Greene win.
It also says you can “donate directly to her campaign through the House Freedom Fund,” which, by definition, is not true. First, if the money goes through the fund, it obviously does not go directly to Greene’s campaign. Second, there is a $5,000 limit on what a political action committee can donate directly to a candidate’s campaign, so if this solicitation raises more than that, obviously some of the help for Greene will be still more indirect (or illegal).
What’s worse than the solicitation’s dishonesty is its choice of Greene as a beneficiary and, in effect, as a martyr. Granted, its verbiage technically is aimed against legally ludicrous attempts to disqualify Greene from the ballot altogether, but if that were really the purpose of the fundraiser, the money would go to a legal defense fund for the congresswoman, not to her campaign…..
Greene is anything but a true conservative. She is instead a radical’s radical who doesn’t defend American culture but poisons it. By now, every member of the Freedom Caucus surely knows the vast litany of Greene’s hateful behavior.
To start with, Greene is at least an enthusiastic fellow traveler with vociferously antisemitic white supremacists…. [The full column is here.]
