Harrop: Democrats should let Greene be GOP’s problem

But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped in and made the incident about her. Lacking the wit to cleanly take Greene down, the New York leftist devolved into screeching, “How dare you … !” Blah, blah, blah. Her low point was descending into street talk. “Oh, girl. Baby girl, don’t even play,” she growled in a mean girl voice right out of high school.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, denounced the whole performance as potentially uglier than “The Jerry Springer Show,” noted for its staged fights and all-around bad behavior. Of course, Ocasio-Cortez then struck back at Fetterman, accusing him of regarding “racism and misogyny” as a “both sides” issue.

Fetterman swatted down her remark as “absurd.” And so now America is debating whether mention of fake eyelashes has racist overtones. Crockett is Black.

And so Ocasio-Cortez took the spotlight off Greene and Crockett.

News for hot-headed Democrats: Greene is the Republicans’ problem, not yours. Greene is also America’s problem in her demonstrated ability to paralyze the Republican House from doing its business for weeks on end. The remedy would be replacing the Republican-run House with a Democratic-run one. Would it not?

The Wall Street Journal complained last month that Greene and her whack-job allies have “no plan for anything other than to disrupt the proceedings and use social media to raise money for their personal political brands.” GOP operative Karl Rove wrote that Greene’s efforts to remove Speaker Mike Johnson — and rantings about the Rothschilds, space lasers and such — made Republicans “look even nuttier.”

The Journal recently reported that attendees at a meeting of Republican donors are worried that Greene’s antics are “potentially disruptive to party cohesion.”

I am likening but not equating Ocasio-Cortez with Greene. Ocasio-Cortez may be an attention-freak who lacks depth on important issues, but at least she makes legislating part of her show.

It is the Democrats’ misfortune, however, that Ocasio-Cortez uses her media savvy to inflict political damage on the party mainstream and President Joe Biden. Moderate Democrats blamed Ocasio-Cortez and the other radicals for their loss of the House majority in 2022. Apparently their defund-the-police stance didn’t go over well during a crime wave.

The sad truth for Democrats, America and even Republicans is that Greene would be nothing more than a lunatic sideshow had the left flank cared more about maintaining power.

Once again, the screamers grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. Smart Democrats will let Greene be Greene.