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Early voting began in Georgia on Tuesday with a historic number of early ballots cast. In the home stretch of election season, it’s safe to say campaigns are making their final pitch to voters. So it’s notable that the Trump campaign chose as its introductory speaker at Trump’s rally there ... Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
From a strictly political standpoint, it seems unwise for the Trump campaign to platform the fringe-iest of MAGA only weeks out from Election Day. Greene’s speech was chock-full of conspiracy theories, including that Covid-19 is a “man-made virus that came from Wuhan, China, that the Democrats used against you” (at 3:30 in the video below) and that FEMA has discriminated against Republicans in doling out aid following Hurricanes Helene and Milton (at 7:38).
But it was her remarks about reproductive freedom that struck me as particularly counterproductive to Trump and the MAGA movement’s electoral hopes.
A September report from The 19th suggests many Georgians have abortion on their minds as they prepare to cast ballots, and Trump and Vance have been trying, however haplessly, to woo women voters. Part of that effort has involved Vance obscuring his past anti-abortion positions and Trump downplaying his role in shaping the Supreme Court that opened the door to the abortion bans now gripping states across the country.
It’s against that background that Greene told Georgians:
Pro-life protesters — the bravest people in the country that stand in front of an abortion clinic praying for these women to save their baby — to keep their baby. To be a mother. The greatest blessing that God has bestowed on women is motherhood. And I’m here to tell you today: An abortion is not reproductive rights. It is murder, and it’s killing a baby. They lie to women — oh, they lie to women. And it’s disgusting. But these pro-life protesters are in prison today because they prayed for these women and they prayed for these babies.
It’s not clear exactly which anti-abortion activists Greene was referring to. In the past, she’s been accused of lying repeatedly about an anti-abortion activist who invaded and blockaded an abortion clinic in 2020. That activist, Lauren Handy, was discovered to have taken fetuses illegally from a clinic to keep at her home, for which she received a five-year prison sentence in May. In a separate case, four anti-abortion activists in Tennessee received varying sentences in July for their roles in a 2021 blockade of an abortion clinic.
But Greene’s closing message to Georgia voters — and to women in particular — was that motherhood is “greatest blessing that God has bestowed on women,” that abortion is always and only “murder,” and that vigilantes who take it upon themselves to stop women from exercising their reproductive freedom are “the bravest in the country.” That sure doesn’t seem like the kind of centrist messaging likely to assuage voters’ concerns about the MAGA movement’s archconservative policy goals.
While the GOP campaign has seemingly homed in on two goals — soften its image with women and appear less extreme on abortion — Greene’s extremism undermines both of those goals. I hope Georgia voters were listening.