Marjorie Taylor Greene Compared Black Lives Matter to the KKK

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has a new favorite line: comparing Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan. 

The freshman Congresswoman who was booted off her committees earlier this year—for, among other things, backing the execution of prominent Democrats and spreading bigoted, insane conspiracy theories—said in an interview Wednesday that Black Lives Matter “has become the most powerful domestic terrorist organization inside the United States.”

Greene made the comments in an interview streamed on Periscope with right-wing commentator David Harris, and expressed her bitter disappointment that Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd earlier this week. (The Washington Post first reported on the contents of the interview.)  

Following the verdict, Greene claimed—without evidence—that “people stayed in and were scared to go out because of fear of riots” and that Black Lives Matter “is the strongest terrorist threat in our country.” 

“I got called a racist nonstop,” she complained to Harris, claiming Rep. Maxine Waters “threatened the jury” last weekend at a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, when she encouraged protesters to “get more confrontational” if a guilty verdict was not returned. Greene introduced a resolution to expel Waters, a California Democrat, from the House; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy moved to censure her but it failed on a party-line vote. 

“I personally believe, and this is what I tweeted, that there was no way that we could see anything but a guilty verdict,” Greene said. “There was so much pressure it was unreal.” 

“This is mob rule. This is not law. This is not court. This is not justice, so to speak,” she added. “And I’m not even talking about the verdict. I’m just talking about the fact that BLM has become the most powerful domestic terrorist organization [in] the United States, and they are fully supported all the way in the Congress and the White House.”

She later added: “It was, you know, it’s basically the same tactics that the Ku Klux Klan used to use. They used to go and take to the streets with their torches and their, you know, uniforms, and go out there like some sort of army.” 

Unlike the decentralized Black Lives Matter movement, the Klan actually was a terrorist group, one whose various iterations were responsible for murders, lynchings, and helping to reassert and solidify white supremacy across America from the post-Reconstruction period well into the 21st century. Its members were not just backwoods racists fueled by mob justice; they were also powerful members of society in business, medicine, and law, as well as law enforcement and politicians in both parties. 

In addition, 93 percent of Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of Floyd’s death last year were peaceful, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found last year—while using a definition of “violent” that included toppling Confederate monuments. 

There’s also the small matter that the memorandum circulated in support of an “America First” caucus Greene reportedly tried to form this month mirrored the “Anglo-Saxon” language used by the Ku Klux Klan in its own materials. (Greene has distanced herself from the effort, which flopped, and blamed it on her staff.)

It appears, however, that Greene has already moved on to the next source of conservative outrage. After Greene and other figures on the right criticized NBA star LeBron James after he called for accountability in the police shooting death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant before it had been investigated, Greene waded into the discourse herself, also before any sort of investigation had been completed. 

“What happened in Columbus, Ohio, is a tragedy,” Greene said. “The police officer is a hero.”