Patricia Murphy: Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled the president. Her own hecklers went to jail.

The next year, Greene was back at the State of the Union, this time wearing a white fur-trimmed coat as she yelled, “You lie! You lie!” at President Biden after he claimed some Republicans wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security. As she sat down, she yelled, “Liar!” one more time.

In 2024, Greene attended the State of the Union in a bright red MAGA hat and matching red blazer and disrupted the speech again. “What about Laken Riley?” she screamed at Biden in the middle of his remarks, referring to the Georgia woman murdered by an immigrant who came into the country illegally. “Say her name!“

Credit: NYT

Credit: NYT

With those many confrontations behind her, you might have expected Greene would be ready to mix it up Tuesday night in Acworth, the most liberal part of her recently redrawn 14th congressional district. But a back-and-forth wasn’t part of the plan.

Green had barely started to talk when a gray-haired man in the audience yelled, “Boo!” Within moments he was pulled out of his row and whisked away by two, then four, then five Acworth police officers. “Are you really doing this?” the man said, stunned, before he was pushed to ground, subdued and then shocked with a Taser. Greene thanked the officers as the audience cheered.

“This is a town hall. This is not a political rally. This is not a protest,” she said from the stage. “If you want to shout and protest, we will have you thrown out, just like that man was thrown out. We will not tolerate it.”

As Greene explained that the Democrats “are the party of rioting” and “the party of violence,” a man in khaki pants and a button-down shirt stood up and yelled “No!”

Greene pointed her finger at the door. “Go!” she said. As police showed that man the door, she offered a message for the Democrats and independents left in the audience. “This is a good place. You have a lot to learn,” she said.

In fact, it was Greene who had a lot to learn from her new constituents, who were represented in Congress by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat, until four months ago. That’s when newly drawn congressional lines from the Georgia General Assembly took effect and shifted Greene’s mostly rural, extremely Republican district slightly further south toward Atlanta.

For the first time, Greene now represents a swath of diverse, suburban Atlanta constituents. Unlike the rest of her mostly Trump-supporting district, that section of Cobb County mostly voted for Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024. Many voters there are also for abortion rights, gun safety and, as they said during the town hall meeting, highly distressed by Trump’s first three months in office.

Between mass layoffs at the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DOGE cuts to federal agencies with offices in Georgia and tariffs roiling the economy all over the state, the anxiety among all but the strongest Trump supporters is real.

Credit: Jenni Girtman

Credit: Jenni Girtman

But Greene made it clear she was not there to listen to her new constituents. She was there to talk to them, answering pre-selected questions as they appeared on an overhead screen.

When Greene read a question from “Sara,” asking why MTG supported DOGE and cuts to Medicaid and Social Security officers, Greene responded, “Well, Sara, unfortunately, you’re being brainwashed by the news that you’re watching,” before saying she’ll never vote for cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

When another question asked, “Why are you such a coward in the face of a fascist takeover?” Greene dismissed the question and declared Trump “the most transparent president in history.”

As the town hall went on, more constituents were ejected, including a second man subdued with a Taser after he grabbed the officer removing him by the neck. Altogether, three of Greene’s constituents were kept overnight in the Acworth jail and charged with crimes, some of them serious.

But Greene seemed pleased at the end of the night,

Talking to a gaggle of reporters about what had just happened, she said, “I’m glad they got thrown out. That’s exactly what I wanted to see happen,” she said.

“This isn’t a political rally or a protest. I held a town hall tonight. You know who was out of line? The protesters.”

No public official, including Greene, should be subjected to threats, attacks or harassment from members of the public. And the police had their job to do.

But many of the voices of dissent ejected from the town hall Tuesday night were just that — dissent and disagreement. Greene has exercised her right to dissent in the past, even with the president of the United States. Her constituents have the same right, too.