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Marjorie Taylor Greene's early exit from Congress reveals that her tough-broad persona was very much an act. After she angered Donald Trump by demanding release of the Epstein files, she became target of the slings, arrows and threats unleashed by the president and his enforcers.

Her response? Flight.

"Once I left her, she resigned," Trump said. "She would never have survived a primary."

Maybe. Maybe not. But the woman who posted a picture of herself holding a rifle alongside photos of three liberal congresswomen turned tail. Greene held a good number of lunatic beliefs, but her push to get to the bottom of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking of girls was well founded -- and, evidently, shared by most Republicans.

Greene could have learned a lesson in courage from a very different Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Cheney is about as ideologically conservative as they come, but she regarded Trump's violence-fueled attempt to halt the official vote count in an election he had lost as an attack on the democracy itself. And that's what the 2021 Capitol riot was.

Cheney joined a handful of patriotic Republicans in supporting Trump's impeachment. For her brave stance, the so-called Freedom Caucus demanded her resignation from the House Republican leadership, where she ranked No. 3.

Before Trump erupted into his 2020 election lies, Cheney had supported about 93% of Trump's positions. She was a loyal Republican but an even more loyal American.

The amoral Kevin McCarthy, then-Republican House minority leader, warned the party's political consultants that they'd have to choose between working for her or for him. The Morning Group, a fundraising firm that Cheney had hired to help prepare for the next primary, immediately refused to work further on her campaign.

A spokesman for Cheney said, "It's sad but not surprising that Kevin McCarthy is continuing down the morally bankrupt path of embracing House Republicans who are white supremacists and conspiracy theorists but attacking Liz Cheney for telling the truth and standing with the constitution."

Add to that the anonymous threats of personal harm. Cheney did not flinch. She ran for reelection in 2022. When asked whether she expected to lose, Cheney said that if defending the Constitution cost her the seat, it was a sacrifice she'd accept. She ended up losing to a MAGA clone.

The coup attempt was OK with Greene, though she later found courage elsewhere. But the moment Trump called her "a traitor," she threw on her sneakers and ran away.

Another party member, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, is now bravely facing a primary challenge after being one of three Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot. Cassidy is a physician who has long criticized Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over his fringe theories linking vaccines to autism. He's running in an election he might lose.

When Greene announced her sudden retirement, she warned, "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."

She cast herself aside. In any case, if Greene believes all that stuff, why doesn't she run for reelection and use it in her campaign?

Because she's chicken.

It happens that both Cheney and Greene crossed Trump for good reasons. But Greene fled. Outside of her entertainment value, she will not be widely missed. But Cheney keeps fighting, armor still on. And if she comes back to run again, plenty of good Americans will be cheering her on.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and

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