Marjorie Taylor Greene’s presidential aspirations are delusional

Buckle up, nerds, she’s running for president.

That was my first thought upon reading Annie Karni’s glowing profile of conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in the New York Times last Sunday. Even as Karni allowed that Greene has a reputation of being “something of a joke” who is “known for making bigoted remarks and amplifying QAnon,” she mostly sticks to the protocols for portraying Greene as the next big thing in national politics. There was a lengthy interview with the subject herself, replete with quotes meant to amplify her image as an iconoclast and a force to be reckoned with. There were supplementary interviews with her boyfriend Brian Glenn, who serves as White House reporter for the right-wing Real America’s Voice, and cheerleaders like MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon. There were even the requisite quotes from political opponents offering grudging respect. 

But perhaps most importantly, the story was held together by a theme any politician with presidential aspirations seeks to cultivate from a profiler: The subject as a vehicle for America to make a decisive break with an unsatisfactory past.

Portraying yourself as a fresh start is a crucial part of any aspiring presidential candidate’s opening gambit. But it’s especially resonant right now, when voters across the spectrum are increasingly fed up with the country’s existing leadership. Greene is “a powerful free agent with considerable self-regard and a big chip on her shoulder,” Karni wrote, adding she “appears to feel no obligation to anyone in Washington.”

Voters of both parties loathe most of their leadership right now, with one glaring exception: Republicans still love Donald Trump. But, at least on an actuarial level, the odds are not in his favor; it’s unclear if he will be viable beyond his current term. The president enjoys talking about making an illegal run for a third term — and displaying (and selling) Trump 2028 caps — and it would be naive to believe the conservative Supreme Court majority would uphold the 22nd Amendment to stop him. But Trump is increasingly showing his age these days and, remarkably for someone so addled with narcissism, seems to even understand that he, too, will die one day.

So it’s no surprise, then, that ambitious younger MAGA figures are beginning to position themselves as possibilities to inherit Trump’s mantle. One traditional way for this? Signaling and cultivating wealthy donors by cooperating with lengthy profiles in mainstream media publications like the New York Times.

On paper, Greene has a lot going for her a Trump’s heir apparent, and she likely will get checkbooks flinging open. But there’s one big, glaring reason she’s delusional if she really thinks she can secure the Republican nomination.

Yes, it’s the obvious one: She’s a woman. MAGA will never accept a woman as their leader.

But before we confront the gender elephant in the room, it’s necessary to explore why Greene is actually doing a lot of smart things. She recognizes that Trump built his following by presenting himself as a break from tired Republican politics. Granted, he did it mostly through lying, by claiming he wasn’t going to take away people’s health care or government benefits, when in fact that was his plan all along.

In recent months, Greene has staked out several high-profile issues where she rejects Republican orthodoxy — including the cultish devotion to Trump — and presents herself as a free thinker to voters. And gosh, they all happen to be issues where the GOP stance is unpopular, even with some of their base. Greene wants to release the Epstein files, which doesn’t just carry the benefit of aligning with the majority of Americans; it also makes her look like she’s willing to stand up to Trump. She opposes Israel’s war in Gaza, bluntly describing it as a “genocide.” She even hates AI. All three of these positions pit her against her own party, but in line with Republican-leaning independents, especially younger ones. These are also the issues where you might hear the infamous “podcast bros,” who helped push Trump over the top in 2024, now disagree with him.

In other words, Bannon was right to tell the New York Times that Greene is “going where the puck is going.” But her idiosyncratic policy views are, by design, inseparable from her larger brand as a hair-on-fire nutcase of the most rancid sort. Her views on Israel, for instance, are entwined with her long record of flirtations with antisemitic conspiracy theories, and it’s the same story with her willingness to release the Epstein files. Greene appears to be so deep in the world of QAnon it hasn’t occurred to her that the main reason Trump doesn’t want them released is because he’s in them. Even when she lands on the right outcome, there’s a poisonous aspect to it.

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That may not seem like a big deal: Trump is himself a conspiracy theorist who believes stuff that’s just as wacky as Greene spouting off about Jewish space lasers. Recently, he even posted a QAnon claim that he would soon release “med beds,” a mythical technology that fully heals people and apparently restores their youth. Which is doubly bonkers since he seemed to fall for a hoax video that showed him giving a speech he didn’t give. Since there appears to be no limit to the nonsense Republican voters will accept from Trump, why can’t Greene be just as out there?

Well, it really is as simple as gender. White men get away with this stuff because they enjoy a presumption of intelligence and authority that isn’t extended to women. When Trump says crazy stuff, his apologists claim he’s joking, or they reframe it as a super-genius idea that was too advanced for those (read: everyone) with smaller brains. The possibility that the man is simply stupid doesn’t register — because he’s a man. In MAGA’s simplistic notions of race and gender, white men are smart by birth (unless they are Democrats). Even the mainstream press gets into it, all too often seeing strategic thinking from Trump when he’s just acting on primal impulse.

When Greene makes outlandish claims and statements, since she is a woman, people recognize it for what it is. Women aren’t afforded the presumption of intelligence. If anything, it’s the opposite: Women’s intelligence tends to be underestimated, especially by conservatives. This double standard is reflected in Georgia’s polling. Internal Republican polling shows that, in a hypothetical match-up between Greene and the state’s incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, she would lose statewide by 18 points. That matches polling by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that shows her losing by 17 points. In 2024, Trump won Georgia by a little over 50% of the vote.

Karni wrote that Greene described these polls as “fake” and “an attack by an all-male G.O.P. establishment that has tried to sideline her.” This underscores how much Greene doesn’t understand her own electorate. The only thing Republicans love more than being sexist is taking umbrage over anyone who calls them sexist. The New York Times profile has Glenn jokingly calling his girlfriend Greene a “feminist,” but sentiments like those she expressed will only make GOP voters suspect, or even believe, that it’s true.

Republicans, of course, aren’t entirely averse to female leadership, especially in safely red districts like Greene’s. Plenty of Republican politicians and pundits have a lot of power while also being female. But most of them understand they only get that perch by flattering right-wing views that a woman’s place is really in the kitchen. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, for instance, talks about her job as if it’s a hobby she pursues in between making sandwiches for her kids. Candace Owens routinely makes videos decrying feminists for thinking women can be men’s equals. Social media’s entire “tradwife” genre is about professional content creators pretending to be submissive housewives to sell advertising. For conservative women, keeping their job means never piercing the illusion that their job isn’t really their job.

The dilemma Greene will eventually confront is that there’s no way to cast the presidency as a housewife’s hobby to be enjoyed in the downtime between dropping kids off at school and cleaning the stove. Even the right’s mightiest powers of denial can’t hide that a woman who wants the Oval Office is ambitious, an unacceptable quality for a proper MAGA lady. Greene has a lot of qualities Republican voters apparently like. She’s entitled and loud, and she can be mean. But that’s what they want from men. They still think it’s unseemly in a woman.