“Have you heard about the new Marjorie Taylor Greene?” resounds across the Thanksgiving table. Immediately capturing my attention, I looked up from a filled plate and the conversation that I had been half-listening to beside me. My well-meaning aunt continued on explaining Greene’s reconciliatory actions to the perked ears of my liberal family members. Celebrations ensued and it seemed that comments of Jewish space lasers and “Gazpacho Police” had been at least momentarily forgotten. The news cycles documenting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s reformation have captured liberal attention and appealed to one of the ideology’s most well-intentioned impulses: forgiveness.
After all, the most celebrated are the rehabilitated, and Greene has appeared to have a character arc more dramatic than most. The tendency to praise the converted connects to a core tenet of liberal ideology. Liberals have long demonstrated a preference for rehabilitative policies over punitive measures. This phenomenon, ingrained in our consciousness and forms of political engagement, is not isolated to only the Georgia congresswoman. It has extended to Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and other conservative firebrands who have espoused views that many Democrats find repugnant. Our instincts toward forgiveness become tools that others use to shape our reactions rather than earn our trust. We can’t let this instinct dictate our politics — and we must withhold attention from those who crave it most.
Attention is a top currency in our political economy, one that is hard fought for and difficult to maintain. It brings politicians fundraising dollars, public awareness of the issues they champion, and, above all, an elevated profile, which yields choice committee assignments, roles in leadership and a pathway to higher office. Tactics to capture the public’s eye have become even more ruthless. Conservatives have attempted to outcompete each other for this attention by making bombastic statements in order to catch liberals’ ire and galvanize their base. But what happens when this tactic fails to yield the same returns that it once did? Conservatives like Greene must find new ways to enter the public conversation.
When our short memories allow forgiveness to be won by little more than talk, it leaves us vulnerable to political opportunism that doesn’t prioritize the public’s well-being, but rather that of politicians. Not only does this create environments for harmful histories to soften or fade, but we are also rewarding political transience by creating incentives for faux reconciliation. While politicians like Greene or pundits like Owens have been critical of the Trump administration, they continue to promote policy positions we detest. Even well-intentioned liberals accidentally platform harmful figures when we reward aesthetic shifts, snappy soundbites or cleverly packaged moments. Our empathy becomes a vulnerability when it’s used to manufacture rebrands rather than push for true accountability.
Within our own generation, irony carries an undercurrent in almost every conversation, joke or viral video. Specifically at Brown where political views remain largely homogenous, it can feel easy to sensationalize these events because it may feel benign. These bits are celebrated by students with little push back because the absurdity seems self-evident. Yet this keeps questionable figures in the spotlight, inadvertently boosting their profile.
The image rehabilitation of figures such as Greene, exaggerated by doing things ‘for the bit,’ creates a plausible cover for past wrongdoings. Memes proliferate that make conservative characters more palatable and funny in ironic ways. This leads to the virality of short clips about these figures. These clips, taken out of context, can blur the line between condemnation and celebration. Our short attention spans don’t just weaken memory, they strengthen the power of the spectacle.
When your neighbor or family member begins to push back against conservative ideals, maybe they are uncomfortable with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids or financially squeezed by the tariffs, we need to welcome this discontentment. While politicians are incentivized to pander based on political winds shifting, your fellow neighbor is often doing so out of concern for their own lives: one is strategic, the other sincere. We must stay open to the people around us who are reckoning honestly with their beliefs and reserve our skepticism for the politicians who are simply trying to elevate their profiles. We should welcome anyone willing to rethink their views, because punishing imperfect allies doesn’t build coalitions; it only shrinks them.
Politics has always been a game of jockeying for power, but the rise of attention as its chief currency has warped how we judge sincerity, reform and accountability. When we allow ourselves to believe we’re just one viral clip away from a political enemies-to-lovers arc, we mistake theatrics for transformation. The cost is not abstract: We normalize opportunism, flatten harmful histories and let spectacle dictate who deserves a second chance. If we want a political system rooted in principle rather than performance, we have to resist the emotional sugar-rush of the redemption narrative and remember that real change is earned slowly, not awarded instantly. Our memories — collective and individual — are more powerful than we acknowledge. It’s time we start treating them that way.
Tommy Leggat-Barr ’28 can be reached at thomas_leggat-barr@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
