Flash in the Pan or the Future of MAGA?

When the news broke Friday evening that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia would resign her seat in the House of Representatives at the beginning of next year and ride off into the weather-modified sunset, my mind immediately went to another member of Congress from Georgia: Cynthia McKinney.

McKinney, a Democrat and the state's first black congresswoman, had a congressional tenure more than twice as long as Greene's. She served in the House for 12 nonconsecutive years total in the 1990s and 2000s. Superficially, the two Georgians had a lot in common. They were both highly critical of the foreign policy of their own party, they both publicly entertained conspiracy theories, they have both played footsie (or worse) with antisemitism, and they even suggested foul play changed the outcome of a presidential election—McKinney with the 2000 election, Greene with the 2020 election.