No, Trump is not going to cancel the midterms

Sometimes you read something that makes you do a double-take. That’s what I did when I saw former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) intimate that President Trump would “cancel” the midterm elections in November.    

There is stupid and irresponsible, and then there is dangerous. Her ridiculous speculation is all three.

This latest example of the “Art of the Smear” was unleashed when radio host Shannon Joy recently posted on X: “Trump doesn’t seem to care about the midterms. Who wants to bet he’ll declare a ‘national emergency’ because of Iran (or some other manufactured crisis) and try to cancel the elections in November?” Greene, unfortunately, took the bait, replying: “Yeah, I could see it. INSANE.”

No — what is “insane” is that Greene would post such a potentially incendiary remark.   

Greene has had to deal with some truly vile death threats of her own in recent years, so surely she knows better. Irresponsible words and conjecture, most especially in the Age of Trump, can go sideways in an instant.  

As we have seen with the two assassination attempts against Trump himself, the ideologically driven killing of Charlie Kirk, and the sniper attack upon the ICE facility in Dallas that took two innocent lives, it is precisely this type of irresponsible rhetoric that can trigger an already damaged mind to cross an uncrossable line. 

When Greene served in Congress as the representative for the people in Georgia’s 14th District, she stepped up time and again for the working-class voters under her care. She did walk the walk, and she worked diligently to keep her campaign promises.  

That said, circumstances change, and so do people. For years, Greene was one of Trump’s loudest and proudest defenders, until she wasn’t. With her rubber-stamping of Joy’s reckless postulation, Greene deliberately fed the hate beast.

Why would she do such a thing, knowing that, for more than a decade now, partisan operatives from the left have purposefully and continually sought to frame Trump as “Hitler,” a “dictator,” a “totalitarian,” a “monster” and other pejoratives that can and do trigger unstable minds to choose violence?

Beyond her bitterness regarding the very public political divorce from Trump, some have speculated that she may want to run for president herself in 2028, either as a Republican or as an independent. That is, of course, her right as an American citizen. But no matter her plans, where does Greene draw the line on the tenor of her attacks on a president who has already been shot and came within millimeters of losing his life?  

Could it be that she has already forgotten what she herself said just after Trump was shot in Butler, Pa.? As she addressed the 2024 Republican National Convention, Greene said: “Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I thank God that his hand was on President Trump.”

That raises an obvious and critically important question for Greene: What does she believe created the “evil” that came for Trump? Could it have been the constant dehumanizing smears directed at him by the left, or the clearly coordinated accusations that he is a “dictator” who would never surrender the presidency or power? 

Marjorie Taylor Greene does know Trump. She used to be his friend. She saw that in January of 2021, he did indeed turn over the White House to Joe Biden. Surely, she most certainly knows that come the end of his current term, Trump will again turn over the White House to the incoming president in 2029. Just as, in her heart of hearts, she must know that Trump would never “cancel” the midterm this November. 

The woman who once loved Trump has now flipped on him in a big way. So much so that in an ironic twist of fate no one would have predicted four years ago, MTG is now “loved” by the left. She has every right to oppose Trump on the issues. What she does not have the right to do is fan the flames of rage that could trigger the unthinkable.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene should retract her rubber-stamping of a crazed conspiracy theory and apologize to the president. Politics, partisanship and anger aside, it is the correct thing to do. 

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.

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