Democrats Call on Republicans to Return Marjorie Taylor Greene's Donation to Form an "America First Caucus"

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Last updated on April 22nd, 2021 at 10:05 pm

House Democrats are calling on their Republican colleagues to return Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) donation to form an “America First Caucus” that would promote “Anglo-Saxon” values.

“While they continue to dodge questions about Greene’s racist platform, the NRCC has refused to return the $175,000 in campaign cash Greene funneled into their coffers,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said in a statement.

Although Greene’s plans for an “America First” caucus have since been scrapped, the news of the caucus’s possible formation inflamed existing hostilities between Democrats and Republicans as they contend with the often incendiary behavior of one of the nation’s most high-profile and controversial congresswomen. Greene, a noted subscriber to the QAnon conspiracy theory who also regularly promotes former president Donald Trump’s baseless lies about the 2020 election, was stripped of her committee assignments earlier this year amid criticism of her social media posts that spread lies about the election and called for the execution of prominent Democrats.

“America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” the “America First Caucus” platform read. “History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.”

Republicans worked to distance themselves from Greene’s proposal almost as soon as it was unveiled.

One GOP strategist who works on House campaigns called the proposal “complete bullshit and a huge distraction,” adding that “It undermines the bigger and more important story here, that there is strong diversity within the Republican Party and this current freshman class is providing us a strong path forward on how to connect with and relate to an increasingly more diverse electorate.”

Former Representative Carlos Curbello (R-Fla.) said the proposal “should be dismissed and condemned,” calling it “a modern, decaf version of the KKK — a group designed to elevate one race and ethnicity by diminishing all others.”