"I was allowed to believe." Why did she say it this way?

[halfulglas]

Notice the weird phrasing by MTG. She takes no responsibility for even what she says she believed. She was allowed to believe. Like she would never have had those weird beliefs except by accident or something. This wasn't really her? If she disavows it now, what does she really believe? That phrasing really bothers me.

[dchill]

1. Antifa made me do it!

[Phoenix61]

2. It's weasel words. Word salad with the specific

intent to absolve oneself of any responsibility for action or inaction.

[SoonerPride]

3. Passive voice. Same as "mistakes were made"

Takes no ownership of actually believing the insane crap.

No responsibility.

Passing the buck.

She was allowed to believe things which places the onus on some outside “other” that did this to her.

It is utter bullshit.

[ShazzieB]

26. Passive voice was absolutely deliberate.

"Allowed to believe" may have been an accidental poor choice of words. Maybe she was thinking "led to believe" but said the wrong word. It definitely sounded weird.

Using the passive voice, however, was no accident. Not. At. All.

[PatSeg]

36. Yes, "allowed to believe"

really made no sense. It implies that someone in authority gave her permission to believe something. I agree that she was probably trying to say, "led to believe", as if somehow that would absolve her of responsibility. But of course being an adult, she was "allowed to believe" or disbelieve the nuttery she read online.

In the end, she did not really apologize and obviously she is not sorry at all. It was all this conspiracy theory talk that got her elected. She is just "regretting" that it cost her committee assignments.

[abqtommy]

4. We logical lefties really have a hard time understanding the illogic of the reTHUGS.

As far as I'm concerned that's a normal situation.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Implication: not my fault. Passive voice. Mistakes were made.

In fact, I'm kind of the victim here, when you think about it.

i.e., the usual RepublAnon self-pity persecution playbook.

[SkeezerRedux]

6. As well it should bother...us.

It's as close to taking personal responsibility as someone who likes to tout that as one of their endearing qualities can get to taking personal responsibility without actually taking any personal responsibility.

[niyad]

10. Welcome to our DU family.

Last edited Fri Feb 5, 2021, 09:39 AM - Edit history (1)

[lunatica]

7. It's their fault because they allowed it.

Surprise! She’s the victim!

[badhair77]

8. Remember Flip Wilson and "the devil made me do it."

Only difference is he was funny. She is horrifying.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

9. Narcissists

Never will take responsibility

Unless they are forced to.

They believe they can do no wrong. So to keep that delusion alive they avoid taking responsibility for thier actions for thier whole life.

We need to make Narcissism very uncomfortable for narcissists and make them be responsible and to pay personally for what they do. Give it to them with no mercy or tolerance with no way out of it.

No more coddling these career assholes.

[Eyeball_Kid]

14. Yes. n/t

[mr_lebowski]

11. I assume she must mean 'by my mommy and daddy, when I was a little girl'

Thus attempting to explain why she's now such an utter fucking dipshit as an adult.

[Eyeball_Kid]

18. I saw a video clip today of Greene.

She was giving a presentation to a small group of women. She dragged out a life sized cardboard photo of Trump. She then patted the shoulder of the photo image before sliding her hand up and down the crotch area.

[mr_lebowski]

20. Heard about that. That's totally normal behavior for a grownup woman

[ShazzieB]

23. Gross!

Eww. Eww eww eww eww. 🤢

[retread]

38. There is a perfectly logical, benign explanation for her behavior in this instance.

She likes mushrooms!

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. This was in the long-distant past of 2018

when she was "upset":

“I never once said during my entire campaign, QAnon. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today. During my campaign, I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress. These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values. Here’s the problem: Throughout 2018, because I was upset about things and didn’t trust the government really because the people here weren’t doing the things that I thought they should be doing for us, the things that I just told you I cared about. And I want you to know a lot of Americans don’t trust our government, and that’s sad. The problem with that is, though, is I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true. And I would ask questions, questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret because if it weren’t for the Facebook post and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn’t be standing here today. And you couldn’t point a finger, and accuse me of anything wrong.”

https://www.newsamed.com/house-debate-over-punishment-for-marjorie-taylor-greene/

So she wants us to believe that she was highly gullible and easily led in 2018, but that's not her fault, and although she was already in her 40s and running a business, she was psychologically still a child, but has matured to such an extent in 2 years that she should now sit on the House Education Committee. And her activities in 2017 on conspiracy sites, when "the government" and "people here" were all Republicans, most sitting next to here now, are somehow irrelevant.

[mr_lebowski]

33. Great synopsis :)

I was only saying that the only possible way a statement like "I was allowed to believe ..." would even remotely make sense was if the context was her upbringing from childhood, wherein she was explaining her continued poor judgement in discerning fact from fiction.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

12. Because she represents the party of "personal responsibility"?

[Eyeball_Kid]

13. Greene is looking more like a sociopath

with each passing day. She also shows narcissistic tendencies in the Trumpian vein.

[Ilsa]

19. From what I've been reading about her from

her constituents, that's an accurate assessment.

She's loving this attention. The only thing worse would be for her to be recalled by her district. Then she'd be available to run around for trump and ramp up the Q people, neonazis, etc.

[area51]

37. +1

I'm wondering if she'll be the QOP candidate for president in '24.

[KentuckyWoman]

15. I am the victim.

Poor thing

[struggle4progress]

16. "Why didn't anybody tell me I was crazy?"

[Ilsa]

17. Passive speech. MTG CHOSE to believe the nonsense.

She isn't taqing responsibility. Typiqal republiqan.

[Cosmocat]

21. Gaslighting 101

nm

[RockRaven]

22. Assholes like her never admit they were wrong. The wrongness is somebody else's.

The phrasing she used should bother you. It should bother EVERYBODY (but it won't).

[Denzil_DC]

24. It's been called "the past exonerative tense"

It's often seen in reporting of events like "officer-involved shootings".

This blog post below is among many writings that have examined this linguistic phenomenon.

It cites two examples of constructions describing the same event:

I made a mistake (active voice).
Mistakes were made (passive voice).

In the second sentence above, who was responsible for the mistake? We don't know. Use of the passive voice in this case allows the speaker to admit that something went wrong without admitting who was responsible. For this reason, use of the passive voice in admitting wrongdoing has been called the "past exonerative tense," and is much beloved of politicians and celebrities who find it necessary to sort of apologize for something without actually doing so.

https://bilbosrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/past-exonerative.html

[Solly Mack]

25. Recall how she said what she was looking at online (Qanon conspiracy theories) were things she was

also hearing on the news (Fox).

She even said CNN but CNN was not backing any of the Qanon bullshit.

That goes to her meaning behind what she was saying by claiming she was "allowed to believe"?

She is claiming the media never told her any different.

Which is a lie unless all you listened to was Fox, News-max, and OAN. Which she did.

So if no one told her any different, then they "allowed" her to believe it.

Absolutely no responsibility for her own actions. Her own self-built echo chamber. Her own choices. Her willing participation in the bullshit and her enthusiastic spreading of the bullshit.

IF she viewed CNN or MSNBC at all, it was to get so-called examples of "fake news" to share with her online cohorts.

She also blamed government. Claiming she didn't trust government - which would mean she didn't trust Trump since he was the government at the time. (dates she gave 2017, 2018)

What she really meant by that was she didn't trust the so-called "deep state". Which takes her right back to her anti-Semitic, lizard people, pedophile, blood drinking cabal Qanon bullshit.

Everything she said today by way of mitigation was complete bullshit. Nothing but her lying.

[kskiska]

27. If she's so weak and susceptible to such things

she has no business being in the U. S. Congress.

[CentralMass]

28. Her crazy arse let her believe it.

[3catwoman3]

29. Very peculiar word choice.

Allowed to believe - by whom?

What a wacko!

[moondust]

31. Blame shifting.

"The devil made me do it."

[Karma13612]

32. I have always

Believed that people elected to public office needed to be of high caliber. I was wrong. We are being represented, in SOME cases, by the very worst among us.

Except for being a bit older and not quite as quick as I used to be, I would love to represent my district in Washington. I could do a darn sight better job than Elusive Elise NY-21. Just need gobs of $$$$

[lagomorph777]

34. Willy Geist asked if her Mommy and Daddy allowed her to believe that stuff.

[wiggs]

35. God is in control. nt