Marjorie Taylor Greene faces angry backlash after Islamophobic tweet: ‘Islam is not a religion of peace’

Far-right Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is embroiled in yet another social media furore over a tweet in which she insisted Islam is “not a religion of peace”.

The GOP congresswoman, who has previously been sanctioned by the House of Representatives over her long history of racist, incendiary and sometimes violent statements, offered her thoughts on the implications of the withdrawal from Afghanistan in an typically unambiguous post.

“Pray for American missionaries in Afghanistan,” she tweeted. “There are reports that some families may have been killed. Islam is not a religion of peace.”

While many of Ms Greene’s supporters and ideological fellow travellers backed up her claims, many on the other side were enraged and disturbed.

“Every time you think she can’t say something worse, she does,” wrote one user. One hit back by drawing a parallel between conservative Christians and conservative Muslims, while another pointed out: “Yea, the Taliban totally represents all of Islam. That’s why there are Muslims hanging off of planes trying to escape their rule”.

It is unlikely Ms Greene will face any formal consequences for her tweet, whether from Twitter or in Congress. She has repeatedly indulged in racist conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric directed not just at Muslims but at Jews, as well as her myriad political opponents, but she remains in office.

Ms Greene has been leading calls for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and “everyone involved” to resign over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, even introducing articles of impeachment. Paradoxically, removing the president and vice president would elevate the congresswoman’s sworn enemy Nancy Pelosi to the Oval Office.

Ms Greene also recently had her Twitter account locked for a week for disseminating disinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines designed to fight it, in particular a post in which she falsely claimed the vaccines are “failing”.

Inaccurate broadsides against public health measures have become part of her stock-in-trade since she was elected, and she has more than once laced them with threatening anti-government rhetoric.

In a recent appearance in Alabama, a state whose low vaccination rate has contributed to a spike in cases and hospitalisations, she suggested that if her audience were visited by government door-knockers promoting the vaccine, they should frighten them away with guns.