‘Upton’ leaves but ‘Greene’ stays in U.S. politics

On November 6, 2021, numerous threatening voicemails arrived at Republican Rep. Fred Upton’s office. A caller told him: “I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f**king family dies.” The Michigan Republican was one of the 13 who voted for President Biden’s ambitious bipartisan infrastructure bill the night before. Marjorie Taylor Greene, another Republican lawmaker, shared contact information on her 13 colleagues she labeled “traitors” on X. It was a downright invitation sent to bullies. Her way of using conspiracies and lewd words gave her the nickname “Trump in heels.”

That year, Rep. Upton also voted in favor of an impeachment motion of then-President Trump for inciting angry mobs to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol Attack. Feeling threatened, he set up security cameras with motion sensors around his residence and decided not to share his schedule. Extra exits were built around his office to ensure he evacuated with his aides in case of invasion. However, he gave in to the fear of attack. Five months after Greene targeted him online, he finally declared to finish his journey.

Next to Upton did Debbie Dingell, a Democratic lawmaker his age, stand when he announced his retirement on April 5, 2022. She issued a statement right after his press conference: "While we may not have found harmony on every issue, Fred and I always managed to disagree without vitriolic rhetoric and mean-spirited language.” Upton was an “old-school” politician who built friendships with Democrats in Christian religious groups across the Congress and won them over. He willingly discussed critically significant issues with those on the other side of the aisle, writing bipartisan bills and traveling nationwide to gain public support.

Of course, he spent as many as 36 years in Congress, so his retirement would only have been a matter of time. However, his age does not explain the whole story. This also has to do with who ends up leaving the political arena.

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, 40, chairman of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, left the Congress last month. He was even considered one of the most promising party members who would likely make it to the Senate. This February, the Republican Party in the House of Representatives took aggressive, bold action to pass an impeachment motion on behalf of the Homeland Security secretary, creating an atmosphere of menace across the Biden administration. Back then, Gallagher voted against the motion, after which he struggled with death threats and nighttime swatting, a new politically violent act of making hoax phone calls to 911 dispatchers to send armed police forces to “prey.” Gallagher is a father of two daughters, who are two and four years old, respectively.

The survivor of this political warfare has turned out to be Greene, who incited political bullies, but Upton, the victim of such violence, has forcibly walked out of politics. In a nutshell, bad money drives out good. As such, a growing number of villains are making an attention-seeking effort to raise political funds, being hell-bent on grabbing an opportunity to be part of leadership or achieve re-election. The way things are now is not only limited to U.S. politics. Even in the 22nd National Assembly of South Korea, which began on Thursday, many lawmakers made it thanks to their strong supporters. Moreover, the Democratic Party of Korea, which takes up the majority of the legislative body, is still held back by the controversy over primaries for the Speaker of the National Assembly. It would be a great shame to see how many lawmakers like Upton will leave the National Assembly when their term ends four years later. How could we protect those whose taxpayers’ money has been nurtured for four years? How could we embrace truly “talented” leaders? It all comes down to what a new trend of political culture will look like.