Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene addresses Kootenai County Republicans at Coeur d’Alene resort; protester calls her ‘Instagram model’ of GOP

Nearly 100 protesters denounced controversial Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene prior to the Georgia congresswoman’s speech at a Kootenai County GOP dinner Saturday in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Protesters, holding signs such as “Lies Divide U.S.” and chanting “Love lives here,” stood along Sherman Avenue outside the Coeur d’Alene Resort as a line of drivers filed into the resort to listen to Greene speak.

Greene was the keynote speaker at the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee’s Lincoln Day Dinner. The Spokesman-Review was not allowed to attend because press passes had already been allocated, according to the Kootenai County GOP.

Greene is a far-right conspiracy theorist who has shown support for QAnon and says the 2020 election was stolen. She garnered attention last week by heckling President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address.

Jim Dalton was one of the many dinner attendees.

“I like Marjorie very much, because she’s outspoken, she’s unafraid and she’s obviously conservative, which I am also,” Dalton said.

Protesters received some pushback outside the resort.

One passenger yelled, “Shame on you!” to protesters while another occupant in a different car screamed, “Traitors!” out the window.

One man, wearing a tie, suit jacket and white hat with the American flag on it, walked through protesters and filmed his interactions with them.

The man, who called abortion “murdering babies,” got into verbal altercations with some, including Democrat Ann Marie Danimus, who is running to unseat Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in 2024.

“He basically is one of the people that takes every Democratic platform and reduces it down to baby-killing,” Danimus said.

Danimus said fighting for a living wage, promoting age-appropriate sex education and providing free birth control are ways to reduce the abortion rate.

“He just wanted to call us all baby-killers – because that’s how a Neanderthal answers – and walk off, but there are paths to massively reduce the abortion rate,” Danimus said. “But the Republicans don’t want to hear it.”

Danimus said Greene does not get much done in office, “except for stirring the stick of hate, stirring the lies.”

“She is kind of the Instagram model of the GOP,” she said.

Susie Rodger-Wilson, a CdA resident who held a “Love is love” sign, said Greene is “really bad news for our democracy.”

“She’s a proponent of hate and … she’s a traitor,” she said.

“She gives women in politics a bad name, just like (U.S. Rep.) Lauren Boebert does,” Rodger-Wilson added. “It’s sad.”

Former Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer said he walked over to the protesters to see what they were doing.

“I’m not a fan of hers,” Widmyer said of Greene. “But you have some people over there that support her side and you got some people over here that support this side. I think it’s great that people come out and say what they want to say.”