Bookman: What’s real and what’s not these days in Georgia politics?

The lines that separate truth from falsehood, reality from fantasy, have become so smeared in recent years that democracy itself becomes difficult. Edgar Allan Poe, and later the Temptations, gave us the motto for our times: “Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.” But which half to believe? We’re now […]

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently apologized during a CNN interview for her role in the country's "toxic politics." Greene is pictured here at a press conference this week in Washington. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The lines that separate truth from falsehood, reality from fantasy, have become so smeared in recent years that democracy itself becomes difficult. Edgar Allan Poe, and later the Temptations, gave us the motto for our times:

“Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”

But which half to believe? We’re now witnessing the introduction of high-quality, AI-driven deep-fake videos into Georgia politics, which makes it even harder to tell. 

For example, the other day I saw a clip that depicted U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saying the following:

“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.  I’m committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another. As Americans, we have far more in common than we have differences, and we have to be able to respect each other in our disagreements.”

Was that real, or was it an AI deep fake? I’m told that it’s real, but I’m also told to believe none of what I hear, so ….

One way to approach that question is to first ask what we mean by “real.” If by real you mean did it actually happen, yes, it’s real. Greene actually said those words. She’s saying similar things quite a bit these days, to such an extent that she and Donald Trump are publicly exchanging charges that the other person has become a traitor.

But is it real in terms of a sudden change of heart, a transformation by Greene from vicious culture warrior to a champion of peace, love and understanding?

No. It is not. 

What we’re seeing is Greene’s reaction to being told the obvious by Trump and other top Republicans, that she has no future in politics beyond representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She didn’t like to hear that, and what she now frames as enlightenment is better understood as just a different manifestation of the resentment and frustration that has fueled her entire political career.

It’s important to remember that as far back as 2023, Greene was publicly musing about her future as U.S. senator, governor or even higher. “I have a lot of things to think about,” she told a reporter back then. “Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?”

Girl, no.

Don’t get me wrong, Greene does have some gifts as a politician, chief among them her instinct for the swings and sways of popular opinion within MAGA. That’s at play here too. It’s no accident that she has dared to divorce herself from Trump at a moment when he has become vulnerable. The economy is shaky, his immigration policy is unpopular, the poll numbers are bad and his bizarre mishandling of the Epstein case has made even close allies nervous. Greene seems to sense that if a door has been slammed in her face, fate may be opening a window.

And of course, we have an actual case of deep-fake video in Georgia, created through artificial intelligence, in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Jon Ossoff and a handful of Republican challengers. U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, has released a video in which a deep-fake Ossoff can be heard – and seen –telling voters that he just doesn’t care about the impact of the recent government shutdown on farmers, that his only concern is his out-of-state donors..

It looks real. It sounds real. And given the regrettable gullibility of American voters, at least some of them are likely to take it as real. The Ossoff campaign condemned the video, pledging never to produce deep fakes of its own, while Collins dismisses any such concerns. 

“It’s just new technology, a new way to campaign, and you’re going to see a lot more of that out there,” he said.

Politics has never been a particularly truthful endeavor, but even then, fake quotes and fake photos have always been considered unacceptable distortions. Like a lot of people these days, the Collins campaign appears to believe that technology voids all those rules. They are living an approach that Trump has driven home, and that MAGA has fully embraced: If the rules and the norms get in the way of victory, screw the rules and the norms, and never ever apologize for doing so. If it works, if there’s no voter backlash to Collins’ actions, then yes, we will see a lot more of it.

Down that road lies chaos, though, and I’m hopeful that the American patience for chaos is running pretty thin these days.