Marjorie Taylor Greene can’t stay in Congress. She’s out of choices | Opinion
The Kansas City Star ran a commentary this week urging Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene not to resign from Congress, arguing that she shouldn’t let Donald Trump bully her out of her seat. It was a thoughtful piece and made a fair point: A president shouldn’t intimidate any member of Congress, and women in power shouldn’t be treated the way Trump has treated them.
But I disagree with the column’s larger premise.
Greene isn’t leaving because of pressure alone. She’s leaving because she finally realized two things at once: She couldn’t accomplish anything more in Congress, and her family mattered more than another year of political combat. And underneath all that is a deeper, older lesson she is now learning the hard way — no one rides a tiger and decides when to get off.
The Star’s columnist framed Greene’s resignation as the story of a woman mistreated by Trump, almost like an “abusive husband,” as Greene herself put it. That analogy is clumsy, even offensive, but it does expose something important: Greene assumed she could align herself fully with Trumpism and still keep control of her own political destiny.
She couldn’t.
No one can.
For years, Greene built her brand around Trump. She embraced his rhetoric, defended his scandals, amplified his conspiracies and rode the MAGA wave to national prominence. The tiger carried her — until it didn’t. The moment Trump decided she was no longer useful, he turned on her with the same ruthlessness he has shown toward Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Mark Esper and nearly every other ally who dared to show independence.
The Star columnist wants Greene to stay and fight. I understand the sentiment. But Greene’s own resignation statement hints at a different reality. She admitted she could not advance her bills, could not move leadership and could not influence the agenda. She sounded exhausted — not scared, not bullied, but simply burned out. That happens in Washington more often than people realize.
But the real trigger was Trump’s abandonment. She embraced a political movement built around a single man, and movements like that always end the same way. History is full of examples: Juan Perón’s Argentina, Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, even Julius Caesar’s inner circle. Once you give your political oxygen to one leader, you no longer control how your story ends.
The Star column suggested Greene should stand up to Trump. Maybe. But the truth is simpler and less heroic. She’s not stepping down out of courage or defiance. She’s stepping down because she finally understands that she no longer has a place in the movement she helped build.
You can stay on the tiger, or you can fall off.
But you never get to dismount gracefully.
Greene believed she could choose her own exit. Instead, like so many before her, she learned that the tiger makes that choice — not the rider.
Ray Watford is a retired newspaper production director. He lives in Hilliard, Ohio.