Despite valiant efforts to appear as a unified front of conservatism in the face of unrelenting pressure from Democrats, RINOs, and shadowy cabals of child-sacrificing satanists, the MAGA movement is, in fact, rife with the sort of fractious divisions that result from the kind of cult-of-personality enterprise that is the furthest-right wing of the Republican Party today. Persistent jockeying for influence with and proximity to Donald Trump has combined with ego clashes and downright ineptitude to plague a movement that prides itself on a near-religious fervor for uniformity and compliance.
Which is all to say that reports of a major schism between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are as inevitable as they are hilarious. Because no matter how much the MAGA movement’s brightest stars (and dimmest bulbs) are paired together as congruent, interchangeable figures in the Q-infused, post-Trump GOP, the notion that they might actually hate each other — and I mean really hate each other — is an incredibly plausible one.
I’m speaking, of course, about a just-published Politico exposé on the GOP’s hard-right Freedom Caucus. In it, relations between Marj and Lauren are described as having deteriorated so far that the two nearly came to blows at a caucus event last month. In fact, if not for “another [Freedom Caucus] board member” who stepped between the pair just in time, witnesses who spoke to Politico say their fight would likely have gotten physical.
Ostensibly, the rift between Greene and Boebert was exacerbated by Greene’s decision to speak at a white nationalist conference in February. But given Boebert’s own penchant for antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hyper-militarization, the whole thing feels more like an debate over optics rather than a disagreement about actual beliefs. Still, no matter the semi-legitimate reasoning behind their near fisticuffs, Greene and Boebert’s apparent dislike for one another (Politico used the word “detest”) comes as the GOP is increasingly positioning itself in a circular firing squad over everything from whether or not it’s okay to do coups to how it should treat blabbermouth freshmen who may have committed some light insider trading.
Ah well! Sure hope they get it all figured out.
