A Sewer, Not a Swamp
Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she will resign. Her resignation statement is a document that will have political influence in the near term and historical importance in the long term.
BY CLAYTON J. BAKER
View original article at Brownstone.org.
Everyone talks about this place [Washington DC] being a dadgum swamp. It’s not a swamp. A swamp is something cool, God created. It filters water, animal life flourishes around it. This is a sewer. It’s created by man. And it needs to stop.
Sincerity is, by far, the most dangerous quality in Washington.
On Friday, November 21, 2025, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced that she will resign from Congress in January. Her resignation statement is an important document that will have political influence in the near term and historical importance in the long term. Given the perilous state of our country at present, a detailed reading of Greene’s statement is extremely valuable.
A resignation from Congress, in itself, is neither noteworthy or unusual. Members of Congress resign with some frequency. According to the website FiveThirtyEight, 615 members of Congress resigned or were removed from office between 1901 and 2018, for a wide variety of reasons.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s research, the most likely reason for leaving Congress mid-term is appointment or election to another government position. Changes in pension laws caused a large but temporary spike in the 1970s. Leaving for lucrative private sector jobs has recently become more common, and sex scandal-based resignations have increased as well in recent years. However, “three percent of departures stem from unique circumstances that don’t fit into any other category.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s stated reasons for her resignation do not just defy categorization. Her statement also describes in detail for ordinary Americans the Sewer that is Washington, DC: a place of pervasive corruption and endless lies, psychological operations, blackmail, death threats, and assassinations.
It describes how the Sewer appears to have bogged down and affected its great adversary, President Donald Trump. It hints at a path forward for individual Americans and for the nation as a whole. It does so from the point of view of a person who has learned these lessons the hard way – by descending into the Sewer herself, enduring it as long as she could, and getting out to tell the tale.
For her troubles, Greene has suffered derision and innuendo from all sides, ranging from Bush family acolyte and never-Trumper David Frum to Trump TV apologist Scott Jennings. Her own explanation is disregarded by these critics. But if flak indicates being over the target, then Greene must be on to something.
A Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations
Greene begins her statement by describing Washington, DC’s utter contempt for the average American. She describes elections as a recurrent uniparty psyop where “Americans are used by the political-industrial complex of both political parties, election cycle after election cycle, in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans to hate the other side more.”
She recites a litany of offenses by the Federal Government against its own citizens. While Greene is no Thomas Jefferson as a writer, her list echoes the Declaration of Independence:
…nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman. The debt goes higher.
Corporate and global interests remain Washington’s sweethearts. American jobs continue to be replaced, whether it’s by illegal labor or legal labor by visas, or just shipped overseas. Small businesses continue to be swallowed by big corporations.
Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars always fund foreign wars, foreign aid, and foreign interests. And the spending power of the dollar continues to decline. The average American family can no longer survive on a single breadwinner’s income, as both parents have to work in order to simply survive.
In other words, Greene describes:
Unsustainable, ever-increasing national debt.
Corporate capture of Government.
Globalist infiltration of Government.
Mass-scale job replacement.
Economic outsourcing.
Destruction of small businesses.
Prosecution of endless wars abroad.
Foreign meddling masquerading as “foreign policy.”
Massive money laundering masquerading as “foreign aid.”
Continual debasement of the currency.
These longstanding offenses by the Federal Government against American citizens that Greene outlines are undeniable. Furthermore, they clearly constitute, in Jefferson’s words, “a Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinc[ing] a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.”
Greene ends this portion of her letter by stating that “today, many in my children’s generation feel hopeless for their future and don’t think they will ever realize the American dream. And that breaks my heart.”
That’s what despotism tends to do to people – demoralize them and ultimately break their spirit.
“I Raged Against My Own Speaker”
Greene next describes her voting record and legislative efforts in detail. As she claims, her efforts have been closely aligned with Trump’s MAGA campaign platform – in fact, closer to it than Trump’s recent governance has been.
During the longest shutdown in our nation’s history, I raged against my own speaker and my own party for refusing to proactively work diligently to pass a plan to save Americans’ health care…The House should have been in session working every day to fix this disaster, but instead America was force-fed disgusting political drama once again from both sides of the aisle on television every single day. My bills, which reflect many of Trump’s executive orders…just sit. They all sit collecting dust. That’s how it is for most members of Congress’ bills. The speaker never brings them to the floor for a vote.
It’s hard to argue with Greene’s complaints about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) unwillingness to push the President’s agenda forward into law. President Trump has expressed frustration on this issue as well.
Regarding spending, Greene echoes the extreme frustrations expressed by Elon Musk months ago. Musk realized the DOGE project was pointless without the cuts identified by DOGE being encoded into law. Instead, they were ignored in the profligate spending of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Musk grew so upset by this that he floated the notion of a new political party.
Greene’s early call for Republicans to address Obamacare has proven prophetic. Republicans now scramble to address that issue months later, as “affordability” suddenly becomes a major campaign issue ahead of the midterm elections.
Greene strongly supported fellow House Member Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) bill to release the Epstein Files, which only made it to a floor vote after Massie managed to sidestep Johnson with a parliamentary procedure called a discharge petition. The subsequent vote was nearly unanimous in both the House and Senate, and it was quickly signed into law by the President.
Meanwhile, a defeated Johnson fretted about the release of the Epstein Files as a risk to “national security.” That the Speaker of the House attempted to block the public release of a notorious child-sex-trafficker and blackmailer’s records on the grounds of national security tells us all we need to know about the Sewer and how it operates.
British Parliamentarian Andrew Bridgen recently stated that, according to his sources, the CIA, the British Intelligence Agency MI6, and the Israeli Mossad work in lockstep, and that “if the whole of the Epstein files were released, there wouldn’t be 100 serious politicians left standing in the United States.” The blackmail value of these files is so broad and all-encompassing that he doubts they will ever be released in full form.
“Loyalty Should Be a Two-Way Street”
Greene emphasizes her years of genuine loyalty to President Trump, especially when his prospects were at their lowest ebb.
I will never forget the day I had to leave my mother’s side as my father had brain surgery to remove cancerous tumors in order to fly to Washington D.C. to defend President Trump and vote no against the Democrats’ second impeachment in 2021.
Despite this and numerous other examples of stalwart support, she was recently targeted by President Trump for replacement in Congress, who publicly mocked her as “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” Why did Trump stoop to defamatory name-calling and attempt the political destruction of one of his staunchest allies? Greene states:
Loyalty should be a two-way street…America first should mean America first and only Americans first, with no other foreign country ever being attached to America first in our halls of government. Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for.
Again, the Epstein files – which Trump had promised to release in full on the campaign trail, before he returned to the Sewer. It appears the Sewer will do anything to keep those files secret, and the pressure to do so has reached President Trump.
Still, according to Greene, injury, not insult, was the true reason she left. Greene’s statement contains a litany of reasons for resigning from Congress and leaving the Sewer.
With that has brought me years of non-stop never-ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare, ridiculous slander, and lies about me that most people could never withstand even for a single day.
Greene has been a target of numerous death threats against herself and her family throughout her time in Congress, with multiple arrests made in the past. She reported a large spike in threats in the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s “Marjorie Traitor Greene” attacks.
It has been unfair and wrong not only to me but especially to my family, but it’s been wrong to my district as well. I have too much self-respect and dignity, I love my family way too much, and I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms and in turn be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me. It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a battered wife hoping it all goes away and gets better.
Greene worries that the Trump administration has largely been absorbed into the Washington, DC Sewer. She is deeply concerned that it has also turned its back on his base of support.
If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine and replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can never ever relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well. There is no plan to save the world or a 4D chess game being played.
“All so Absurd and Completely Unserious”
American citizens, millions of whom voted for Trump three times, watch day after day as many of the most destructive human beings on the planet are rewarded with government largesse and feted repeatedly at the White House. What percentage of Americans, of any political stripe, support the President lavishing praise and, in many cases, huge amounts of government support on the likes of Bill Gates, Albert Bourla, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg? Furthermore, they look on such perverse spectacles with incredulity – what is the President thinking? Doesn’t Donald Trump know that these men despise him and conspire against him?
In the wake of the President’s attacks on Greene, millions of Americans who voted for Trump and the MAGA platform watched the President joke around in the Oval Office with avowed socialist New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, declaring they “agree on a lot more than I thought.”
Meanwhile, the President cheerleads as tens of millions of out-of-district billionaire donor funds are spent to primary Massie, one of Greene’s closest allies, who has also supported Trump the overwhelming majority of the time (the most notable exception, of course, being the Epstein Files) and who functions as the de factoconscience of the House of Representatives.
This raises the question, to which Greene does not have an answer – what has happened to the President? To many, it appears he has become mired in, if not absorbed by, the Sewer. But how, and why?
There is no question that the Sewer seeks to undermine President Trump and his administration at every turn. No serious observer of Washington, DC, believes that any President since at least the Kennedy assassination has full operational control over the Sewer. Couple that with the pathological, deeply personal hatred the Sewer possesses toward President Trump, and the lack of operational control quickly becomes outright sabotage. The constant throwing of monkey wrenches into his agenda by activist judges is one obvious example.
On the other hand, as Greene describes, President Trump’s recent positions on numerous issues, such as involvement in foreign wars, Federal usurpation of states’ rights over Artificial Intelligence (AI), H1-B visas, and of course the Epstein Files, directly contradict his campaign platform, the desires of the electorate that brought him back into office, and in many cases, his approach during the first few months of his second term.
When called out on these flip-flops, increasingly the President publicly attacks natural allies such as Greene and Massie – and previously, Musk – rather than addressing the contradictions.
Greene points out that the administration increasingly ignores or dismisses the issues the American people care about. Instead, they push initiatives Americans do not want, under premises nobody believes. Citizens see through the ham-fisted propaganda promoting increased biometric surveillance at airports and AI data centers everywhere. The administration’s much-ballyhooed “Genesis Mission” looks to even casual observers like a massive AI bailout.
Add to that the abject failure to date of Trump’s Department of Justice. His feckless Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has made zero significant arrests related to the Covid catastrophe, January 6, or Russiagate. The complete lack of accountability for Deep State bad actors bodes poorly for reform in the Sewer.
Many Americans, especially MAGA voters, despise the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA), recognizing it as a threat to personal privacy and a massive violation of the 4th Amendment. Instead, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, under Kristi Noem, promotes billions being spent on increased biometric surveillance systems in airports.
Americans do not want AI data centers all over the country, gobbling up energy and water, compromising the electrical grid, and raising electricity prices. Nor do they want the 10th Amendment trampled so the tech bros can expand their empires with no oversight by the States.
Millions of Americans have become aware that they are being sprayed constantly by their own military with massive amounts of toxic heavy metals via weather modification and weather weaponization programs. They want it to stop. Multiple states, including Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee, have passed anti-geoengineering laws, and over 30 states have bills to this effect. But the states cannot control the US military, which is largely responsible.
EPA Chief Lee Zeldin has made public admissions of government geoengineeringhere and there. But the administration has made no public effort to stop this crime against nature and humanity. Numerous people noted a significant reduction in spraying during the Federal Government shutdown. Meanwhile, it was none other than Marjorie Taylor Greene (with Tim Burchett and Thomas Massie among the co-sponsors) who authored the first serious Federal bill in nearly 20 years to stop geoengineering in American skies.
The American people – especially Gen Z – know very well that Charlie Kirk’s death was not a “lone gunman” event. They know President Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel was not being truthful when he claimed Thomas Crooks acted alone in Butler, PA. They know, because independent journalists are repeatedly doing the job the FBI refuses to do. The assassinations continue – and the official ‘investigations’ remain as bogus – as if it were the 1960s.
The Department of Justice has always been a problem for President Trump, dating back to his first term. This time around, the track record of Attorney General Bondi’s DOJ has been one of maddening ineffectiveness. Memes abound on social media of the “Pam Bondi inaction figure” and “zero arrests” complaints and even arrest scorecards. AG “Blondi” has become a laughingstock.
FBI Director Patel’s statements about the FBI ‘investigations’ into January 6, the Butler, PA attempt on Trump’s life, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Epstein files – the list goes on – have devolved into recurrent insults of Americans’ collective intelligence. Patel is approaching Solzhenitsyn’s territory of ‘We know that they know that we know they are lying, and still they continue to lie.’ So absurd and completely unserious, indeed.
A Reckoning
At heart, Greene’s resignation statement asks a basic question that goes beyond the Trump administration: where do we stand as American citizens with respect to our government?
First, it is clear that, based on our nation’s own founding document, our Federal government has committed a sufficiently “Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations” to justify wholesale change. Furthermore, our Federal government shows no willingness to reform itself, nor to submit to the legitimate will of the electorate. Instead, it resorts increasingly to lawlessness, sabotage, and violence when threatened.
Second, the Legislative branch of the government is utterly ineffective. Trump talks about “nuking” the filibuster to get legislation passed, but with leaders in both chambers unwilling to move good legislation forward, that will not help. Furthermore, unless significant reforms are codified into law and the most tyrannical existing laws (e.g., the Patriot Act, the PREP Act, the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act) are repealed, and unless spending is controlled, our nation will continue on the path to ruin.
Third, President Trump, although unquestionably the most disruptive force in modern American political history, appears to be mired in the Sewer at present. This somehow compels him to try to publicly destroy loyal allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, while publicly supporting obvious political opponents.
Fourth, the Sewer continues to spew propaganda and lies, and continues to promote its despotic agenda as before, despite the growing awareness of huge portions of the population that lies and despotism are all it has to offer. Many of its falsehoods are now being repeated by high-ranking officials in the Trump administration, with the Department of Justice leading the way.
Lastly, accountability for at least some of the worst actors in the Sewer must happen. The current leadership of President Trump’s Department of Justice appears incapable of or unwilling to hold Deep State bad actors accountable. This Achilles’ heel in the President’s administration must be addressed decisively and soon.
President Trump faces political disaster if Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. He knows this, although at present he appears to be badly off course. It appears the wrong people have his ear far too much of the time. Their whispers have given a previously skilled political communicator a severe case of tone deafness, and their bad counsel has derailed much of his stated agenda.
If Greene was a bit naïve when she entered the Sewer, it appears she departs with a trace of hope intact. Throughout her resignation statement, Greene notably stops short of direct attacks against the President. Her friend and colleague Thomas Massie has shown similar restraint, despite facing a Trump-endorsed primary opponent richly funded by billionaire friends of the President, as well as vicious personal attacks from Trump. It seems they have not lost all faith in the unpredictable President’s ability to make a course correction.
“A New Path Ahead”
There are multiple corrections President Trump can make to secure victory in the midterms. Much more importantly, there are actions he can take that would continue the reform process in Washington, DC, that began with a flurry at the beginning of his second term. But as Greene implies, he must resist and reject the malign influences from the depths of the Sewer that have stalled and even reversed many of his early gains. He must stop attacking and instead listen to genuine allies who are trying to point him in the right direction.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is often described as the closest there is to a personification of the MAGA movement. Despite Trump’s recent attacks, her stance on issues – including those the President currently disavows – represents the best possible blueprint for Trump and the Republicans to win the midterms.
Greene’s positions also provide a platform for Trump to return to his promised agenda of reforming and reining in the Federal Government. The President would be well advised to reflect upon her resignation statement and adjust his policies accordingly.
Even if President Trump were to do so, would it be nearly enough?
Ms. Greene closes with an admonition that ordinary Americans would also do well to reflect upon:
When common American people realize and understand that the political industrial complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it. Until then, I’m going back to the people that I love to live my life to the fullest as I always have, and I look forward to a new path ahead.
What is this new path ahead? How do we free ourselves from the Sewer? Should our current political parties be eliminated? Should the Sewer itself be shut down and the political industrial complex be completely dismantled? If so, how?
The new path ahead, whatever it turns out to be, will be very difficult. But a Sewer is no place to live, nor from which to be ruled. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, then definitive change must take place.
THANK YOU! and AMEN!