If you’re already bummed out about Donald Trump possibly running for president again in 2024, here’s some even worse news: It looks like he may be considering someone who’s an even bigger anti-LGBTQ dingbat than Mike Pence — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

I told you this was bad news.

There are more than a few indications that if he runs this will be a campaign that’s more combative and Greene has earned a name for herself with her anti-LGBTQ complaints and activism.

And in an appearance on The Daily Beast’s The New Abnormal podcast, Robert Draper of The New York Times Magazine commented that the idea of Greene being a running mate for Trump has been “discussed since February of this year, and it’s been discussed repeatedly,” Draper said. “Now, to be fair, I mean, how many of these conversations has Trump had with other people?” Draper asked.

Draper has a new book that was released earlier this week — Weapons of Mass Delusion: When The Republican Party Lost Its Mind, which chronicles the GOP downward spiral in the 18 months that followed the January 6th insurrection.

And there’s reasons why Trump is taking a look at Greene, Draper adds. She has traits that Trump would consider advantageous in a running mate. Like Trump, she’s no stranger to using extreme rhetoric.

“She’s cognizant of the fact that the attention economy rewards hyperbole,” he said. “In terms of how to run a winning campaign, she was right then, and she continues to be right now to the extent that in Georgia politics, everyone running for office is trying to be Marjorie Taylor Greene. They’re all competing to be more outrageous than the other and they’re stealing lines from her to the extent that it’s become bothersome to her because now she’s competing not only against herself and whatever outrageous thing she said the day before to gain attention, but she’s competing against her mimics, too.”

She’s also good at fundraising, something that most of us already know Trump loves to do.

“Republicans kind of wanted to kick her to the curb immediately,” Draper said, referring to her early days in Congress. “But instead she became a fundraising dynamo, came to have this huge social media presence, and ultimately came to be very influential within the party itself.”

The last thing on Draper’s list is that, unlike her equally homophobic counterpart, Mike Pence, Greene is loyal, which is, of course, something that Trump values. Trump has been sniping at Pence ever since he refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and the former president took this as a betrayal.

“She has been unflaggingly loyal to Trump throughout,” he said. “What is Trump concerned about most of all in a VP after the Mike Pence experience? Loyalty. He knows that if he needs someone to fight for him to overturn a presidential election. He has every reason to expect that Greene would be by his side and would be his proximate warrior.”

Like Pence, Greene has a long history of repressing the rights of LGBTQ+ people. She’s introduced a bill to ban the rainbow flag from flying at U.S. embassies. She’s cosponsored an anti-trans bathroom bill. She also tried to shut Congress down right before it began debating the Marriage Equality Act by introducing pointless motions, none of which passed, although this used up an hour of debate time so she could make her point that she believes anti-LGBTQ+ should remain legal. She described the Equality Act as “DISGUSTING, IMMORAL, AND EVIL,” in a statement.

Greene began her career in politics by protesting Drag Queen story hours and putting up an obnoxious sign that read “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE. ‘Trust The Science!'” as a rebuke of Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill), who placed a trans flag outside her office. Newman’s child is transgender.

This is a depressing and worrisome turn of events for those of us who truly value the things Republicans are always screaming about — freedom and equality. They want this for themselves as long as they can impose their religious “freedom” on the rest of us.

I think Draper is right: Republicans really have lost their minds.