From the midst of the gray cloud of politics and presidents, I found one brightly-colored flower this week.

Without getting into the gory details (again), my millimeter-deep analysis of how our president has done the job this year, and how he has upheld his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, is: this is even worse than the first term, right?  This Administration’s incessant lying, the historic self-dealing, the deliberate ignoring of – and demeaning of – the rule of law, the racism and cruelty, and the blatant and thorough obsequiousness of their apparently contractual requirement to overpraise Dear Leader at every turn fight against the flicker of hope I nurture that things will get better.  I think they will: doesn’t matter if our next president is a conservative – or even a MAGA Christian nationalist – things will have to be better once this man-baby leaves office, and when the U.S. House and Senate members of his party once again take seriously their responsibility for checks and balances on the co-equal Executive branch of our government.  Last month I wrote in praise when some of them seemed to be starting to do just that.   Now, here’s another one.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, “is widely considered to be a populist and far-right politician.^”

Greene has promoted Islamophobic, antisemitic, and white supremacist views including the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as QAnon, and Pizzagate. She has amplified conspiracy theories that allege government involvement in mass shootings in the United States, implicate the Clinton family in murder, and suggest the attacks of 9/11 were a hoax. Before running for Congress, Greene supported calls to execute prominent Democratic Party politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As a congresswoman, she equated the Democratic Party with Nazis, and compared COVID-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, later apologizing for this comparison. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Greene promoted Russian propaganda and praised its president Vladimir Putin. Greene identifies as a Christian nationalist.

So, yeah, a princess of MAGA America and an unflinching supporter of TFG.  Until suddenly she wasn’t anymore, and announced her resignation from Congress only halfway through her current term.  Can we get to the bottom of this huuuge change?

Yes, we can, thanks to Robert Draper in the New York Times Magazine this week.  The long-time magazine journalist (and long ago acquaintance of mine from the high school debate circuit in Houston) has a handy summary accompanying his full story this week; those free links are my gift to you.

When Marjorie Taylor Greene proclaimed in early 2021 that the Republican Party “belonged” to Donald Trump, I thought she sounded nuts. Not only did she turn out to be prescient, but the newly elected congresswoman also became a rising star in the MAGA ecosystem — and one of Trump’s most visible cheerleaders. To understand that ecosystem it was essential to understand this figure at the heart of it, so in 2022, I went to her hometown, Rome, Ga., to meet her, when the congresswoman, a prolific user of the term “fake news media,” had never spoken with a Times reporter before.

I have regularly interviewed Greene since then, and sat down with her in December for two lengthy interviews — in which she was remarkably reflective and forthcoming — after a spectacular break from the president, who called her a “traitor,” and her subsequent announcement that she would resign her House seat in January. “There’s a significant reason why women overwhelmingly don’t vote Republican,” she told me. “I think there’s a very big message here.” These interviews offer a window into Greene’s political journey — and the future of the movement she has long called her own.

Please take a few minutes to read the full story for the details behind what Draper calls the highlights:

–“Trump’s speech at Charlie Kirk’s memorial was a clarifying moment for Greene”

“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong. You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that. I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.”

–“Greene’s demands to release the Epstein files seemed to be the last straw for Trump”

After the hearing [with some Epstein victims], Greene held a news conference and threatened to identify some of the men who had abused the women — names she says she didn’t know but could have gotten from the victims. Trump called Greene and yelled at her as she listened on speakerphone; the angered president was so loud that staff members throughout her Capitol office’s suite of rooms could hear him. Greene says she expressed her perplexity over his resistance. According to Greene, Trump replied, “My friends will get hurt.”

–“Her disillusionment with Trump goes beyond the Epstein files”

Greene told me that she once believed that Trump wanted to help ordinary people but has since been disillusioned by his actions and statements on issues that include tariffs and Gaza. “I was so naïve,” she said.

Greene’s last exchange with the president was by text message on Nov. 16. That day, she received an anonymous email threatening her college-aged son: “Derek will have his life snuffed out soon. Better watch his back.” The email’s subject heading used the nickname Trump had given her the day before: “Marjorie Traitor Greene.”

Greene texted that information to the president. According to a source familiar with the exchange, his long reply made no mention of her son. Instead, Trump insulted her in personal terms. When she replied that children should remain off-limits from their disagreements, Trump responded that she had only herself to blame. Greene texted a senior administration official that Trump had endangered her family.

–“Greene said she was wrong for accusing Democrats of treason in the past”

[On] Nov. 16, Greene appeared on the CNN program “State of the Union,” co-hosted by Dana Bash. The congresswoman was uncharacteristically somber, describing the threats she received. Bash referred to a recent post by Greene on X saying that Trump had unleashed a “hotbed of threats” against her. The CNN host then pointed out the long history of Trump’s attacks on others. “And with respect,” Bash said, “I haven’t heard you speak out about it until it was directed at you.”

“Dana, I think that’s fair criticism,” Greene replied. “And I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.”

I asked Greene in December to specify what she was referring to. There was a manifestly pugnacious side to her, I said, and I referred her to the period when, just before running for office, she was a far-right social media influencer practicing what she called “confrontational politics.” She harassed the 18-year-old gun-control activist David Hogg on the street and roamed the halls of Congress, writing “You’re a traitor” in the guest book outside Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office and barging into Pelosi’s office to chant “Lock her up!” “We were terrifying everyone,” she boasted at the time in a video she posted on Facebook. And she went further, posting more videos that called Pelosi a “traitor” who deserved to either face prison or “suffer death.”

Was that the toxic politics she meant? “Yeah!” she exclaimed. “I was an angry citizen. An angry American.” She thought, she continued, that “Americans have to go through all this crap, constantly being lied to.” She went on: “And when I got here to Congress, I was attacked relentlessly and was enduring real pain in my personal life” — referring to her father’s brain cancer, which proved fatal, followed by the dissolution of her marriage. “And my emotions were just really raw.”

“And so, when you were apologizing about your role in the toxic politics,” I asked, “you were thinking about the times when your anger got the better of you, like the stuff about A.O.C. and Pelosi?”

“Yeah!” she exclaimed again. “Because a Christian shouldn’t be that way. And I’m a Christian.”

I again urge you to read the full story.  In it, Draper does a great job of making more of a full human being out of the caricature that most of us see, and provides us detail and context to another story of cracks in the seemingly solid MAGA wall around TFG.  It’s another piece of evidence that, for some members of MAGA America, it is possible for you-know-who to go too far, to lead his followers where some of them, in good conscience, can not go.