Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a bit of a controversial figure in American politics. In a lot of ways, she’s viewed as the right’s version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s relatively new, lacking significant power, but since she says controversial things, she gets a lot of attention she wouldn’t otherwise get.
I can’t say that’s completely off-base, either.
And to be clear, Greene has said plenty I disagree with during her time in Congress. However, her comments to David Hogg are being blatantly misrepresented by a biased media.
“Please explain to me how my classmates’ rights including the second amendment were not infringed upon when they were killed in their classrooms,” Hogg wrote. “If you are killed because of our unregulated militia you lose all of your rights including 2A- death is the ultimate infringement.”
Greene fired back with a series of tweets suggesting that Hogg could have protected himself and his fellow students if he had a gun.
Well, if Greene did that, it’s pretty tasteless. After all, it wasn’t really the students’ call to be disarmed.
Only, she didn’t.
The closest it got was this:
“Tragically because of senseless gun free zone laws, many people have been killed by bad guys with guns who are willingly breaking many laws to commit murder and they don’t care about gun free zones, while law abiding innocent people are unable to defend themselves with guns,” Greene said. “Just be clear, if a bad guy is trying to kill me or my family, I will gladly use my 2A rights to defend myself and others with whatever gun I choose and with as many and as much ammunition I choose to fire.”
Except, saying that she–a legal adult who isn’t in school-would do something is far from the same thing as blaming school kids because they couldn’t.
Greene saying what she would do while addressing Hogg’s comments–most of which were far more insane than anything Greene said–is far different than saying, “Why didn’t you have a gun so you could shoot him?”
Look, Greene isn’t off-limits from criticism. She’s an elected official who takes stands on controversial topics. Of course she’s fair game for criticism.
But that criticism has to contain some degree of truth to it. It needs to be based on the actual words said and not what the voices in someone’s head tell them they mean.
Greene’s criticism of Hogg’s comments wasn’t a case of victim-blaming or anything of the sort. She simply pointed out what form her own actions would take in that instance. But because she is who she is and because Hogg is somehow untouchable because he went to a school where something awful happened, she’s not allowed to address his insane arguments?
Then again, it’s not like any of us expect the media to be fair.
Look, I’m biased as hell and I don’t hide it, but I don’t try to blatantly misrepresent someone’s arguments in an effort to make an opponent look bad.
