QAnon coming to Congress

A QAnon true believer won the Republican primary in a safe red seat in Georgia:

Congressional Republicans came a step closer Tuesday to welcoming into their ranks a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents believe President Trump is battling a cabal of “deep state” saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has endorsed the baseless theory and made a slew of other racist remarks on video, won a Republican primary runoff in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. Her victory, in a northwestern swath of the state that has favored Republicans by wide margins, sets her up to become QAnon’s first devotee in Congress.

Greene, who owns a construction company jointly with her husband, defeated John Cowan, a neurosurgeon. She will face Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal, an IT specialist, in November.

GOP leaders, whose standard-bearer rose to political prominence on the basis of a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama’s birthplace, have watched her ascent with some unease. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House Republican whip, endorsed her primary opponent. Republican members of Georgia’s delegation privately urged the party’s House leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, to do more to intervene in the race, according to multiple GOP aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the conversations.

And the key here is not just that the leader of the Republican Party got his foothold in the party by embracing a false and racist conspiracy theory, Republican elites who didn’t outright embrace the theory were careful to pander to its followers with various forms of birther curiosity. Ultimately a lot of Republican voters are going to prefer the straight undiluted drink.