When Marjorie Taylor Greene's long-simmering attempt to dethrone House Speaker Mike Johnson finally began in earnest yesterday, its immediate failure pleased those among us who find her both a figure of fun and a malign presence in public life. But there's an excremental lining on the silver cloud. She isn't failing because conservatives have had enough of her: they haven't, and she is constantly talked up by Tucker Carlson and other right-wing pundits. She's failing because Rupert Murdoch has had enough of her, and his opinion is the one that matters.
Murdoch's powerful collection of outlets not only voiced support for Johnson, but leveled scathing attacks on Greene, with the Post even going as far as to blast her as "MOSCOW MARJORIE" on its cover. … On Fox News, the vote was treated with such dismissal that it notably did not break into its regularly scheduled episode of "The Five" to cut to the House chamber to air the vote in full as CNN and MSNBC did. … The course of events could have played out far differently if Murdoch had chosen to go the other direction. If Murdoch allowed or instructed Fox News to pour gasoline on the Johnson criticism, the speaker would have had a far larger fire on his hands. Instead of it being confined to Carlson's unhinged vlogs and Bannon's podcast rants, it would have spread to the mainstream swath of the GOP and likely put his leadership in serious peril. Further, if Fox News had played up the attacks, it would have incentivized other Republicans to join in on the efforts.
Trump supposedly dislikes her too, but publicly encourages her antics.
