Kelly Hawes column: QAnon congresswoman divides Republicans | Opinion | heraldbulletin.com

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy sees unity in his caucus.

“Two years from now, we’re going to win the majority,” he told reporters. “That’s because this conference is more united. We’ve got the right leadership team behind it.”

I’m not so sure.

When 61 members of the conference vote to remove Liz Cheney from her leadership position because she supported Donald Trump’s impeachment, does that represent unity?

And what about the 11 Republicans who voted to strip fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments? Is that unity, too?

Among the 11 Republicans who joined that second vote was Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a critic of McCarthy’s leadership.

“He needs to stand for truth, and he needs to recognize this party, the future, is not going down to Mar-a-Lago and being with Donald Trump,” Kinzinger told CNN the day after a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus.

Kinzinger expressed disappointment with what happened when Greene spoke during that meeting.

“I don’t like to reveal a ton of conference details, but she stood up and kind of gave a bit of contriteness, but then it pivoted to ‘they’re coming after you next,’” he said. “Obviously, I had a huge problem with all of that, but the ‘they,’ being the Democrats, I think if you’re not buying into Jewish space lasers and false flag operations and QAnon stuff, to think that they’re just going to come after you next, I think is way a bridge too far.”

Not everyone shared his concern. Some actually stood and applauded her remarks, a fact Kinzinger described as “disappointing by a factor of 1,000.”

For the record, McCarthy did condemn Greene’s past positions, suggesting she needed to steer clear of them as a member of the House of Representatives.

“I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward,” he said.

Both McCarthy and Greene suggested her wacky positions were ancient history.

“I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign,” Greene said on the House floor. “I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress. These were words of the past and these things do not represent me.”

To be honest, she doesn’t seem all that contrite.

“Today’s the day I could be removed from committees, or worse, expelled from Congress,” she wrote on social media that same day. “Why? Because I stood up for President Trump. I stand for America First. I filed Articles of Impeachment against Joe Biden, and I speak the truth.”

How should her supporters respond? Well, contribute to her campaign, of course.

As for how she got elected in the first place, you can blame it on a district that is so tilted in favor of Republicans the election was effectively over in the primary.

Back in the day when the Democratic Party had a stranglehold on the South, political observers coined the phrase “Yellow Dog Democrats.” These were Democrats who would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican.

Now voters in some of those same states have switched their allegiance, and those yellow dogs are showing up on the Republican side of the ballot.

No Democrat has ever held the seat Greene now occupies. The district first had an election in 2012, the year Georgia added a 14th congressional seat thanks to the 2010 Census.

In 2017, the Cook Political Report ranked the district 10th in the country for its concentration of Republican voters. This district is deep red, and it’s likely to remain that way.

In other words, the only candidate that could deprive Greene of her seat would be another Republican. Do you suppose McCarthy will campaign for her?

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