Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is used to delivering shocks to American politics, mainly to her Democratic and liberal opponents who have long seen her as a rightwing firebrand, but latterly to her own side as she rebelled against Donald Trump over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Her dramatic announcement of her resignation on Friday was a typical act: out of the blue, full of punchy language and rage and – mostly – unexpected by people on both sides of the political aisle.

She railed against the “political industrial complex” and said “not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country”.

Greene – long known as MTG – will now leave Congress in January. She gave little hint of what she plans to do next, though it was rumored that one of her reasons for falling out with Trump was in part an opposition to her running for senate in her home state.

But, officially at least, Greene’s resignation letter said: “I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead.”

Here are some career highlights:

Early writing career

Greene began her public career properly in 2017 when she began writing for a conspiracy-laden website called American Truth Seekers. She also joined the conservative group, the Family America Project, and began to become a political activist.

Running for Congress (and winning)

After considering several different Georgia congressional districts Greene settled on the 14th district for the 2020 election. She ran as an unabashed pro-Trump candidate in the Republican primary, though she was not endorsed by him. She wielded an assault rifle, slammed socialism and antifa and staked out the extremist positions she became famous for. When she faced a Republican run-off in the party primary, Trump finally backed her and she romped home to easily win the reliably red seat in the general election.

Trump loyalist from the start

On her first day in office after the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden, Greene wore a face mask that stated: “Trump won.” Trump, in fact, had not won the election. But it showed Greene’s trademark style: bold, far right, conspiracy minded.

Baseless conspiracy theories

Despite winning repeated elections in her set, Greene became a symbol – for Democrats at least – of the extremist, conspiracy-orientated mindset of the Maga movement. She was famed for endorsing the idea of violence or the death penalty against her opponents, once telling a follower who asked if they could hang the former president, Barack Obama, that the “stage is being set”. A 2018 Facebook post was unearthed where she appeared to suggest a wildfire was caused by a space laser controlled by a prominent Jewish banking family. She was critical of climate crisis and close to believing that the government could control the weather.

Growing dissent

But, despite her record, over the past year Greene has broken with Trump and the broader Maga movement on several key issues. One was support for Israel, where Greene’s condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza often stood to the left of many Democrats as she labeled the actions a “genocide”. The second was the release of the Epstein files, which she endorsed in the face of strong opposition from Trump himself.

Trump breaks with Greene

On 14 November Trump posted on Truth Social that he was abandoning Greene. “All I see “Wacky” Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” he wrote, suggesting that she was angry at him for not wanting her to run for the US senate. He slammed her for opposing the party and accused her of moving left. “She has gone Far Left, even doing The View, with their Low IQ Republican hating Anchors,” he added.

Greene announces her resignation

A week later Greene gave her definitive response, announcing she was resigning from her seat in Congress in January. Her letter of resignation summed up her astonishingly fast rise and, perhaps, fall. It was full of loyalty to the ideas of Trump and Maga, even while decrying their failures. “If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well,” she raged.