Every “Western” society harbors far-right extremists like Greene who dream of committing acts of fascist violence. That’s not a new development. But the fact that the Republican Party embraces and elevates her constitutes an acute danger to democracy.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1439225130811539457
If what’s on display here were just the extremist nonsense of a fringe figure, it’d be best to simply ignore it. This, however, isn’t just Greene’s extremism - it is increasingly that of the Republican Party itself.
How do we know that Greene isn’t just a crazy outlier? Because the Republican Party doesn’t treat her like one. Neither her extremist views nor her open embrace of this kind of violence-affirming, fascist symbolism gets her in trouble with her GOP colleagues.
Her message is, of course, fully in line with what has become Republican mainstream: Democrats are a radical, “Un-American,” socialist threat, and they have to be stopped by whatever means. There aren’t many GOP officials left who disagree with this assessment.
Similarly, Republicans have long embraced the gun cult and made it an aggressive element of their political identity: Can’t be a “real American” and not love your guns! And pose with your guns! And promise to be willing to use those guns against the enemies of “real America”! 
What Greene and many Republican officials and candidates all over the country are doing is, in this perspective, just the logical next step: A promise to use these guns to stop those insidious, un-American Democrats and their assault on “real America.”
Yes, of course, this is over-exaggerated campaign nonsense; yes, Greene might be winking at her audience slightly (although it is hard to tell); and yes, these sorts of clumsy metaphors are, at first sight, more cringy than scary.
But what we are witnessing is one party rapidly abandoning and actively assaulting the foundations of democratic political culture. Accepting the legitimacy of the political opponent and denouncing the use of political violence: Republicans are delighting in crossing those lines.
I fear that, after four years of Trumpism in power, we have become so inundated with political stunts, so accustomed to outrageous political acts, that we might be becoming numb to how bizarre, how extreme, how dangerous these developments are.
Let’s not be lulled into a false sense of security by the clownishness, the ridiculousness of it all. Some of history’s most successful authoritarians were considered goons and buffoons by their contemporaries - until they became goons and buffoons in power.
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