Don’t stain conservatism by making common cause with conspiracy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

To some extent, this is understandable. Whether we like it or not, Greene is going to be a congresswoman. Achieving real change in politics always requires uncomfortable and ideologically flexible coalition-forming. To that point, it’s worth noting that Greene seems to be a strong conservative vote on many issues, from protecting Second Amendment rights to lowering taxes to respecting the constitutional right to privacy.

But Republicans shouldn’t be so quick to forget that Greene was for years an avid QAnon adherent.

For the uninitiated, QAnon is a fringe, baseless, far-right conspiracy theory. As defined by the Wall Street Journal, the theory posits that “a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles — mainly consisting of what they see as elitist Democrats, politicians, journalists, entertainment moguls and other institutional figures — have long controlled much of the so-called ‘deep state’ government, which they say seeks to undermine President Trump, mostly with aid of media and entertainment outlets.” It is based on the mysterious figure of “Q,” supposedly an insider within the government who posts cryptic messages and hints online.

Greene has called “Q” a “patriot” and said he is “worth listening to.” She posted lengthy Facebook videos discussing and sharing the conspiracy but has since scrubbed them from her social media feeds. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” she said of President Trump in one of the videos.

The theory is absurd to the point of hilarity, but it’s actually no laughing matter. The FBI has identified QAnon followers as potentially dangerous and worries it might inspire far-right figures to violence (like a similar theory did in 2016).

In fairness, Greene has somewhat distanced herself from the theory since running for Congress.

“I was just one of those people, just like millions of other Americans, that just started looking at other information,” Greene said in an interview with Fox News. “And so, yeah, there was a time there for a while that I had read about Q, posted about it, talked about it, which is some of these videos you’ve seen come out. But once I started finding misinformation, I decided that I would choose another path.”

However, she has hardly offered a thorough repudiation of the conspiracy or adequately apologized for her former stances. In fact, she used an innocuous-sounding but deeply rooted QAnon conspiracy hashtag #SaveTheChildren as recently as Nov. 23 on Twitter. At the very least, she continues to wink at the conspiracy and dog-whistle to the QAnon base.

Also, QAnon is not the only conspiracy the congresswoman-elect has dabbled in. Greene once gave a speech in which she cast doubt on whether a plane actually hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Thankfully, she has since admitted her error.

She has falsely claimed that former President Barack Obama is a Muslim and echoed the false conspiracy accusing his administration of murdering former DNC staffer Seth Rich. Greene also repeatedly suggested that the sending of pipe bombs to various Trump enemies in 2018 was a hoax. These posts and comments are still up.

She has also accused Hillary Clinton of murder, and, in 2018, Greene described the election of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a socialist-leaning Minnesota Democrat, as an “Islamic invasion” while belittling her religious head covering.

Ultimately, Greene clearly does not have the superior judgment required of grown adults (let alone members of Congress) that allows us to discern fact from fiction. It is not acceptable to overlook the congresswoman-elect’s conspiratorial and bigoted history because she might provide a vote for sound conservative policy. The short-term boost in the vote count is not worth staining public perception of conservative ideas with such a fringe and distasteful figure.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast. The views expressed in this article are his own and not those of his employers.