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Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene must not be given a pass, by the GOP or by the media
Newly elected GOP House representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was suspended Sunday night from Twitter for promoting the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Greene had posted tweets, including a video, in which she promoted claims that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, that there was massive voter fraud, that Dominion machines were breached and just about every other lie that has been pushed by Trump and conspiracy theorists.
Twitter suspended her for 12 hours, demanding she remove the tweets, which she did. But once she was back on Twitter she began attacking the social media company for “silencing” conservatives, claiming this was a “free speech” issue, just like Trump and many other supporters claimed when he and thousands of Qanon-spreading and white supremacist accounts were banned a week and half ago.
The argument is ridiculous as Twitter is a private company that can decide what the rules are regarding its free service. No one has a “right” to use Twitter — or Facebook or any other social media company — and your speech isn’t hindered in any way if you’re banned for not following rules: You can send out a press release, or go yell on a street corner if you like.
And regarding Green, Twitter should go further and ban her, just as it banned Trump and thousands of other accounts. She, like newly-elected GOP Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, is a promoter of the Qanon conspiracy, which claims a cabal in the government, largely made up of Democrats and others in the “deep state” are Satanists and pedophiles, and that Trump is on a secret crusade to stop them. This insane conspiracy dove-tails with the election fraud conspiracy and well, it’s complicated — but actually, not, because it’s all nonsense, and dangerous.
Both Greene and Boebert built their followings, and their support in their deep red Trumpist districts, promoting conspiracy theories. Boebert has vilified immigrants, promoted open carry laws — she and her husband own a restaurant called Shooters Grill, where the servers are armed — and, like Greene, defiantly violated coronavirus restrictions and mask mandates. Greene has promoted racist, Islamaphobic, and anti-semitic lies, and, like Boebert, demonizes Democrats as the baby-killing socialist party.
While they’ve both promoted Qanon and “Q,” the unknown person behind the message board account who created the conspiracy, they have tried — failing dismally — to now separate themselves from the cult:
While Greene has walked back her support and said the QAnon candidate label “doesn’t represent me,” she has praised “Q” as a patriot and spread baseless conspiracy theories linked to the movement. And though Boebert has claimed she’s not a follower and worked to distance herself from the conspiracy theorists, she has said of QAnon, “I hope that this is real.”
There’s no question that both House members, who voted to overturn the election results at the Electoral College certification, spurred on the Capitol terror mob, which included well-known Qanon personalities and many followers.
Boebert, who ran an ad in which she vowed to carry a Glock handgun while in Congress, was in what she called a “standoff” last week with the House Sargent-at-Arms, refusing to let her bag be searched after she set off newly installed metal detectors at the entrance to the House chamber — though carrying a gun onto the House floor is prohibited. She barged through the metal detectors, calling the security measures an “atrocity.” It was unclear if her bag was searched.
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