The Clairvoyant Marjorie Taylor Greene 

MAGA is going through a rough period. The bitter breakup between President Donald Trump and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is roiling the far right, forcing movement conservatives to make uncomfortable choices in the political divorce.  

Trump should, in theory, have a clear advantage. The president commands a loyal army of supporters and the authority of the Oval Office. He has used the executive branch to persecute his opponents and reward his friends. Until now, those who have opposed him in intra-Republican battles have not typically fared well. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene announced her resignation from Congress effective January 5, following a barrage of threats. But it is far too soon to suggest that Trump has won the battle with Greene: indeed, Greene and her allies forced Trump to backpedal on the Epstein files. The House and Senate have both voted for their release, and now the focus shifts to whether and how the Trump administration will meddle with or obstruct the release. 

It also seems more likely than not that Greene is distancing herself from Trump and his allies and waiting for him to fall before making her next move, perhaps in 2028. Indeed, it is shocking that more Republicans have not publicly broken with Trump and taken their chances on better surviving a post-Trump future. 

Never has an American president been embroiled in such a lurid scandal as the Epstein business. Trump was among the best friends of the world’s most notorious convicted pedophile. His name appears more than 1,500 times in the Epstein documents being released, including multiple stories of him ogling young women and girls at Epstein’s residence. In one email, Epstein offered to serve as an intermediary between Trump and Russian government agents. Trump allegedly wrote a salacious and suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, joking that they shared secret interests that “never age,” crudely written over the outline of a female figure that appears less than fully adult, with his signature on the figure’s lower area.  

No other politician would survive this. To be sure, Trump has a Teflon-like aura. His strange combination of shamelessness and scoundrel’s luck has allowed him to squeeze out of every impossible situation. But this? 

Remember, too, that the Epstein story didn’t come out of nowhere, nor was the obsession with it exclusive to the left. It was QAnon and far-right conspiracies about supposed child sexual abuse connections to Democrats that animated much of the Republican base. Trump promised to release the Epstein files; Attorney General Pam Bondi said they were “on her desk” and then made a big show of giving binders of Epstein documents to MAGA influencers, only for them to find they contained publicly available information. Trump’s followers have been primed for years (often by Trump himself) to demand the Epstein files. Now, Trump is flip-flopping: first cajoling members of Congress in the Situation Room to stop them from voting to release the files, then encouraging them to vote to release the files once he knew he had lost that fight, then directing Bondi to open an investigation—but only of Democrats—in a partisan abuse of power. Now it seems the “investigation” may become an excuse to withhold the files, or to release them selectively. 

Which brings us back to Greene, one of Trump’s earliest supporters. She was in the MAGA vanguard, a believer in rightwing conspiracy theories from contrails to Jewish space lasers. Whatever she may lack in critical thinking skills, she makes up for in raw savvy with a particular kind of voter central to MAGA’s rise. And she has long been demanding the release of the Epstein files. 

Is she committing political suicide, or is she again one step ahead of where the MAGA voter is going? 

Trump’s power comes from two sources: first, the presidency; and second, Republicans have a difficult time winning when he’s not on the ballot. The reason Steve Bannon is so keen on finagling a Trump third term as president is that MAGA has no credible, electable heir who can turn out the marginal and unexpected voters that Trump the showman can. 

But Trump’s approval rating has crashed to all-time lows, Democrats just routed Republicans in off-year elections, and his credibility on every issue from the economy to immigration is underwater. He cannot constitutionally appear on the ballot again despite Bannon’s fantasizing; even if he could, he would be in his 80s, older than Joe Biden was in 2024, and showing physical and mental deterioration. Greene understands that the post-Trump era is in the offing, and that even before the fight over the Epstein release, the president did nothing to support her gubernatorial, senatorial, or even presidential ambitions.  

With no chance of being his designated heir, she knows challenging Trump is risky. Still, it’s far more dangerous to shield Epstein associates, perhaps including the president, from their long-overdue consequences. The party got behind her in the lonely crusade to release the files, and a few oft-derided allies, like Representatives Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Thomas Massie, joined her. Eventually, congressional Republicans fell in line, and Trump had to feign at least joining the parade. And having joined the Democratic left in labeling Israel’s war with Hamas as “genocide” and supporting some extension of Obamacare subsidies, she’s shown a kind of ideological shapeshifting that’s positively Trumpian, perfect for today’s GOP and tomorrow’s. 

Democrats are eager for Republicans to launch a full-throated critique of the president. But Republicans, too, may be wise to join with those, like Greene, already looking ahead to a future that doesn’t revolve around Trump.