WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the U.S. to be separated by red and blue states and for shrinking the federal government in a tweet on President's Day, the latest in a string of controversial statements.
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” Greene, R-Ga., said in the tweet. “Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
The U.S. fought a civil war in the 1860s after a group of southern states tried to secede to preserve the legal enslavement of Black people.
Green has been known for her controversial statements — from claims about supposed Jewish space lasers’ starting wildfires to accusations that Muslim congresswomen weren’t legitimately sworn in because they didn’t take the oath of office on the Bible. But there have been indications she has been trying to rebrand herself as someone who can bridge the divides in her party as she angles to be Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, NBC News reported last month.
Green isn’t the first Republican to call for some form of secession, and there are indications that support for secession has been growing since the 2020 elections. A June 2021 poll by Bright Line Watch and YouGov found that 66% of Southern Republicans supported leaving the U.S. and forming a new country. Support was also high among Democrats in the West, where 47% supported a division.
