Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been accused of calling for civil war in a Presidents Day tweet.
“We need a national divorce,” the extremist Republican tweeted. “We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal goverrnment. 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.”
It’s not the first time Greene, who vocally supported the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, has floated the idea of secession. In October 2021, she polled her Twitter followers on whether they thought the U.S. should “have a national divorce.” She was similarly condemned at the time.
Civil war broke out in the U.S. in the 1860s, after an alliance of southern states seceded in an effort to continue the legal enslavement of Black people.
Monday’s tweet attracted backlash from both sides of the political aisle. Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox slammed her rhetoric as “destructive and wrong and — honestly— evil.”
“We don’t need a divorce, we need marriage counseling. And we need elected leaders that don’t profit by tearing us apart,” Cox tweeted. “We can disagree without hate. Healthy conflict was critical to our nation’s founding and survival.”
Sharing Greene’s tweet, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) noted that “secession is unconstitutional” and no member of Congress should advocate for it.
Democrats, including 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), also denounced Greene’s rhetoric.
Others labeled the missive treasonous and traitorous. See some of the other reactions below.