Greene Draws Fire For Comparing Health Workers To 'Brown Shirts'

GEORGIA — Just weeks after apologizing for comparing COVID-19 precautions to Nazi oppression, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did it again, this time labeling public-health officials promoting vaccination as “medical brown shirts.”

Despite repeated controversial statements, Greene enjoys tremendous financial support from campaign donors who seem to approve of and subsequently reward her behavior. Her most ardent financial support, however, comes from outside of Georgia.

Greene’s Tuesday tweet was a response to President Joe Biden’s remarks the same day, urging local officials to call on unvaccinated residents in person if that’s what it took to stem the spread of COVID-19.

"We need to go community-by-community, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and oft-times door-to-door,” Biden said Tuesday, “literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people to protect them from the virus.”

Greene answered quickly via Twitter.

“People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” Greene tweeted. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.”

Biden pushing a vaccine that is NOT FDA approved shows covid is a political tool used to control people.

People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations.

You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment. https://t.co/S8qlstuSqL
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) July 6, 2021

“Brownshirts” was the informal name for the Nazi party’s paramilitary guard, so called because they wore brown shirts and ties. Adolf Hitler used Brownshirts for security at rallies and to intimidate perceived enemies, particularly Jews. The Brownshirts eventually were outlawed after Germany was defeated in World War II.

Critics shot back at Greene almost immediately.

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) continues to prove that there is no limit to her brutal trivialization of the Holocaust for her own personal political power,” Joel Rubin, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, said in a statement posted Tuesday. “The Holocaust and Jewish suffering is not a prop for her delusional views comparing efforts to save lives through vaccines with the most heinous, systematic state-sponsored slaughter of millions of innocent victims."

Rep. @mtgreenee continues to prove that there is no limit to her brutal trivialization of the Holocaust for her own personal political power.

With antisemitism rising to levels unseen in decades, we call on all Members of Congress to denounce Rep. Greene.https://t.co/sB9fjO1Vbo
— American Jewish Congress (@AJCongress) July 7, 2021

This is not the first time Greene has used a Nazi trope to describe COVID-19 precautions such as masks and vaccinations. In May, Greene compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mask mandate to Jews being “taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany.”

Greene later visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, then publicly apologized, saying she “made a mistake.” However, she said nothing about the apology on her social media channels targeting her most ardent supporters.

Greene raises more than $3.2 million from donors

Those supporters have been very good to Greene. According to reports made by the Federal Election Commission, Greene raised more than $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, an extraordinary amount of money for a freshman representative.

For comparison, the next largest amount of money raised by a freshman representative seated at the beginning of the session was about a third of that, roughly $1.05 million for Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.

Most freshman representatives had smaller bank accounts, generally under half a million dollars and in some cases far less than that. In Georgia, for example, Greene’s first-quarter haul was more than four times as big as that of her nearest rival, Democrat Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.

These are the amounts comprising total receipts by Georgia freshman representatives for the first quarter of 2021, as reported to the Federal Election Commission:

1. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) — $3,219,754.05
2. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D) — $683,922.61
3. Rep. Nikema Williams (D) — $60,026.06
4. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) — $53,717.80

Among more than 4,400 individual contributions made to Greene in the first quarter, Georgians ranked only fourth with $56,580. The most money came from Florida with $88,348.08, followed closely by Texas with $83,079.85 and California with $74,367.

Even within Georgia, more money came to Greene from outside her 14th district than from inside it. Although identifying which donors are in Greene’s district based on federal statistics isn’t always easy, Greene appears to have raised only between $5,500 and $6,300 from people who can actually vote for her, with about $1,500 coming from Rome alone. That’s less than 1 percent of her total haul.

Equally as striking is the number of retirees who donated to Greene during the first quarter of 2021. According to the FEC, about 46 percent of the money Greene raised in Georgia came from donors who identified themselves as retired. Nationwide, the percentage of money donated by retirees — about 30 percent — was smaller but still notable.

'Shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers'

While Greene is popular with a vocal base of voters, not everybody is impressed. In fact, a prominent political action committee that supports GOP women in Congress has made a point of not giving a penny to Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, another big fundraiser who also draws negative press from the mainstream media.

“While we rightfully celebrate the number of GOP women serving in the House, I’ve always professed quality over quantity," said Julie Conway, executive director of the Value In Electing Women (VIEW) Political Action Committee. Business Insider reported Conway’s comments on Thursday.

“The work of Congress is not a joke or reality show," Conway told Business Insider via email. "Our women have fought too hard for too long to be respected and taken seriously as legislators, policymakers and thought leaders. We cannot let this work be erased by individuals who chose to be shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers."

According to Conway, VIEW has distributed more than $20 million to female Republican House and Senate candidates since 2010. Spokespeople for Greene and Boebert had not responded by Thursday to a request for comment by Business Insider.

Read the VIEW story from Business Insider.

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