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I was as shocked as anybody when Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she was resigning from Congress. For about half a second, I almost gave her credit—finally doing something instead of just running her mouth about opposing MAGA. But the more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off.
She had no problem being deep in the MAGA cult—pushing conspiracy theories, attacking people, doing Trump’s bidding—when it served her. When the movement was hot, she was all in. But now? The economy’s tanking, Trump’s radioactive because of the Epstein files, the corruption, the nonstop scandals—and suddenly she’s “out.”
This is the most politically convenient thing she could’ve done. She’s quitting Congress just days after her Congressional pension vests. She doesn’t have to waste another second in Mike Johnson’s do-nothing House. No more voting on legislation that might force her to pick a side. And just when she could actually show up and serve her constituents—the ones she swore to represent for a full term—she bails.
She’s not leaving to do anything productive. She’s not staying to take real votes or stand up to Trump. What she is going to do is either run for something bigger—Senate, governor, hell, maybe even president—or just cash in. Book deal. Media tour. Podcast. God help us, she’ll probably have a Substack before the end of the year. And not a damn bit of that is brave.
There are people like my buddy Joe Walsh who’ve stood up to Trump and actually paid a price. Left the party. Lost elections. Lost careers. Marjorie Taylor Greene hasn’t lost shit. She secured a pension for life. She’s lined up multiple income streams just by existing. She’ll get more attention, more platforms, a fresh audience. And she’s free to run for president whenever she wants.
We’ve seen how that goes. You don’t need me to tell you that running for president has become a grift for a certain breed of political bottom-feeder. It’s a money-making scheme. A spotlight grab. And that’s exactly what this is. There is nothing noble about it.
And here’s the thing: if we don’t demand accountability now, we’re basically telling every future politician that the exit ramp is always open. That you can torch democracy, undermine institutions, rile up mobs, and then—poof—walk away the minute it stops paying dividends. That’s the new model. That’s the lesson she wants everyone to absorb. And if we shrug while she does it, that’s on us.
She’s a textbook DC swamp monster. She rode the QAnon conspiracy wave all the way to power, and now, watching the movement she helped build collapse under its own weight, she’s jumping ship to reinvent herself.
And we cannot let her get away with it. Same shit Candace Owens is pulling. She carried water for Trump for years, but now that it’s no longer good for her brand, she’s pivoting. Suddenly she’s anti-MAGA, anti-White House—whatever her audience demands. Because it’s never been about values—it’s always been about the grift. About access. About power. Never about actually helping anyone.
These people aren’t offering solutions. They’re not here to help you afford groceries, send your kids to college, retire with dignity, or take a damn vacation once in a while. There’s no substance—just political theater and theft.
And now Marjorie gets to play the high-road card. She’ll lob bombs from the sidelines with zero skin in the game. No votes. No legislation. No pressure. Just cable hits and hot takes. She’ll brand herself as an anti-Trump voice—right up until she runs in the GOP primary. Then she’ll build her own Frankenstein movement alongside Tucker Carlson and whoever else is reinventing themselves this election cycle.
What she’s banking on—what every one of these suddenly “independent” truth-tellers is banking on—is that voters have the attention spans of goldfish. That six months from now, the story won’t be “MAGA firebrand who torched American politics,” but “principled outsider who bravely broke with her party.” She’s counting on amnesia. Counting on the chaos. Counting on us to be too exhausted to push back.
And the media? Don’t expect them to do a damn thing about it. They’re going to help her pull off this rebrand. They’ll bring her on the Sunday shows, treat her like some serious thinker with “hard truths” to share. They’ll skip right past the damage she did and give her a clean slate because it makes for good TV and clickbait. She knows that. She’s counting on it.
So no, Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning is not bold. It’s not admirable. It’s everything that’s broken in American politics. The idea that you can say or do anything, and then flip the script like a pro wrestler. One day the hero, the next the villain. No accountability. No shame.
It’s craven, empty bullshit. And I’m not giving her a single ounce of credit for it. Eyes on the ball, folks.
Mike Nellis is a Democratic strategist and entrepreneur who has raised over $1 billion for Democratic campaigns and causes. He’s the founder of Authentic.org, an award-winning fundraising and advertising agency, and a former Senior Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris. This Substack is where he writes with endless urgency about the issues of the day—and how we can save the Democratic Party and our democracy.
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