The easy explanation for the resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) is that President Donald Trump remains fully in control of the Republican Party. In reality, it’s the most significant sign yet that the MAGA coalition, centered around one uniquely charismatic man, is showing cracks. The party has three years to figure out a more coherent message.
Greene’s resignation comes after she crossed Trump on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and he threatened to endorse a primary challenger against her next year. The president celebrated his erstwhile ally’s departure as “great news for the country” after Greene said “my self-worth is not defined by a man” in an 11-minute video.
She predicts Republicans will lose control of the House in the midterms and doesn’t want to stick around for Trump’s lame-duck era, running interference as Democrats impeach him again. Is that fair to voters in Georgia’s 14th District? They picked Greene to represent them for two years, and she is voluntarily walking away after one.
While Epstein caused the rupture, Greene had shown flashes of independence for months. She broke with her party and supportedextending Obamacare subsidies during the shutdown. Greene is skeptical of artificial intelligence and opposes the administration’s efforts to preempt the patchwork of state laws that regulate the technology. She’s been hostile to Israel, Ukraine and H-1B visas. She is also strongly antiabortion and didn’t like Trump’s equivocation after Roe was overturned.
Trump won last year on the strength of his personality and the weakness of President Joe Biden’s record. A year later, the pursuit of a self-destructive economic agenda, including tariffs and mass deportations, has made life less affordable. Trump’s struggles to stay on message often make him his own worst enemy.
The MAGA crack-up is playing out on several fronts. The business community loves tax cuts but is horrified by Trump’s shakedowns. Farmers clamor for a bailout because they have fewer markets to sell their crops. It’s slowly dawning on unions that backed Trump because they wanted tariffs that raising taxes on imports hurts workers more than it helps. Some previously august conservative institutions are allowing radical voices to crowd out the center. Trump’s instinct-first, transactional foreign policy has left every faction skeptical.
Trump’s fickle governing style in his second term reflects the competing interests in his party. He cuts taxes but slaps on tariffs. He touts mass deportations but issues temporary exemptions for critical workers. At any given moment, Trump is appeasing one segment of his base while upsetting another.
Greene’s resignation follows an equally unexpected apology tour in recent days. Last weekend, she apologized for making politics more toxic. It says something about the state of American politics that Greene has turned away from the noxious style that has characterized her political career — just as it’s ending.
Or is it? The 51-year-old is not ruling out a future in politics, and she could launch a longshot bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028. If the economy stagnates, she could position herself as the outsider against Vice President JD Vance. Her resignation video watches like a protean stump speech.
Greene is waiting to formally resign until Jan. 5. That’s two days after she crosses the five-year threshold requiredto qualify for a lifetime congressional pension, which comes with generous health care benefits. Maybe she’s not so different from the politicians she detests. At least she won’t have to worry about paying higher insurance premiums.
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