Is Saying Sorry Enough?
Marjorie Taylor Greene's apology for adding to the 'toxicity' of our politics has brought up some old feelings I've held for those that enabled Trumpism and are now profiting off of it.
For eight years, I’ve wrestled with a question that has no easy answer: What do we owe those who stood with Donald Trump, who enabled his worst impulses, who profited from his destruction and now want absolution?
It’s a question were going to have to ask ourseleves more and more after MAGA evaporates, Trump leaves the stage and millions deny they ever supported him.
I’m a Catholic. I believe in redemption. I believe that no sin places anyone beyond God’s mercy, that the door to forgiveness stands perpetually open. But my faith also teaches me something else: forgiveness requires genuine contrition. Not the performance of regret, but true sorrow for the harm done. And penance, real penance, demands more than words.
This isn’t theoretical for me. Over three decades in political consulting, I built relationships with people I trusted, respected, and considered allies in the work of strengthening our democracy. I watched nearly all of them slink into MAGA world, one by one, because they were too cowardly to stand up for what was obviously right and against what was obviously wrong. They saw the same things I saw…the cruelty, the corruption, the contempt for democratic norms…and they chose complicity.
Some worked in the administration that separated children from their parents at the border, creating a humanitarian catastrophe that will haunt those families forever. Thousands of children traumatized because too many people chose career advancement over basic human decency. Others served as communications advisers who helped cast doubt on election results, poisoning faith in the democratic process itself. Imagine being the person tasked with developing the message to sell Trumps actions to the American people.
They were paid handsomely to advance Trump’s destructive agenda, and they did so willingly, day after day, lie after lie. Paycheck after paycheck. Playing the Washington DC power game thinking more of their own personal, political and professional prospects than about the republic they were complicit in destroying.
Now some of them have had a change of heart—or at least claim to. And what’s their reward? Book contracts. Television deals. Awards celebrating their “principles.” Massive social media followings. They’re lionized as heroes for doing the bare minimum: finally, belatedly, admitting that yes, actually, undermining democracy and tearing families apart was bad.
This isn’t penance. It’s opportunism. And it’s at the social, cultural and moral rot that allowed a man like Trump to ascend to power in the first place.
Where’s the genuine acknowledgment of the damage they’ve done? Where’s the public accounting for their role in breaking families, in spreading lies, in corroding the institutions they once claimed to serve? Where’s the evidence that they understand the magnitude of their betrayal—not just of their country, but of their communities, their party, their fellow citizens, and themselves?
Instead, we get sanitized narratives of courage and redemption, carefully crafted to maximize book sales and speaking fees. We get the rehabilitation tour: the apologetic interviews, the thoughtful essays about “what I learned,” the positioning as moral authorities who’ve emerged from the darkness to guide us forward. And we, those of us who fought against Trump from the beginning, who sacrificed relationships, the personal safety for our own lives and those of our children as well as financial opportunities to stand for principle, are expected to welcome them with open arms and celebrate their transformation?
I struggle with this. And don’t try to sell me on the “we need everyone we can get right now” argument. I’ll pass on that slop - thank you. That’s precisely the moral flexibility that got us here.
I hate that I feel like this.
My Catholic faith teaches me about the prodigal son, about the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to find the one that’s lost. But it also teaches me about repentance—or metanoia, the Greek word for the complete transformation of heart and mind required for forgiveness. It’s not enough to say you’re sorry when it becomes profitable or socially acceptable to do so. True repentance means facing what you’ve done, making amends where possible, and accepting that some consequences can’t be erased.
I think of the families still separated because of policies these people helped implement. I think of the election workers who received death threats because of lies these people helped spread. I think of the democratic norms they helped demolish, norms that won’t be easily rebuilt. And I wonder: What have they actually done to repair that damage?
The question that haunts me isn’t whether people can change. I believe they can. It’s this: At what point have those who helped destroy our democracy done enough to be considered heroes? And why are we so willing to lionize those who profit from their misdeeds?
Perhaps the real test of contrition isn’t what people say in their book tours or cable news appearances. It’s what they’re willing to sacrifice. It’s whether they use their platforms to repair the damage they caused, rather than to build their brands. It’s whether they accept that redemption might not come with acclaim or financial reward.
Saying sorry isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Not when democracy hangs in the balance, and not when the damage continues to compound daily. Forgiveness is possible sure, but it must be earned, not purchased with a well-timed press release. It’s this same character flaw that doesn’t require contrition, just defection, that created the moral vacuum in our society that a man like Trump was so easily ready to fill.
Until then, I’ll keep wrestling with this question, knowing that while mercy is infinite, accountability must come first.
I agree as well, and I wrestle with these feelings too. Something that just popped in my head as I read this was the 12 steps of AA, a few of which seem very relevant right now.
Here's the full list: https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps
But I found these especially enlightening:
"4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."
There's a lot more in there, but like I say, these are the ones that stand out to me. Are we seeing the people you describe do anything close to these? If not, I think it's only healthy to be skeptical if their conversion is genuine. If we don't see something like this from them, I can't help but wonder if we're only seeing another performance, you know?
This performance from those that went along to get along (which it is unless and until we see actual accountability in the form of actual good governance) is exactly why no one trusts politicians and why so many people don’t vote. Nihilism seeps in, and the only thing we can do to combat it is to focus forward to do what we can do to help our communities and stay positive. We can accept the help of the opportunists without giving them our trust. The sacrifices you and others like you made don’t compare to those in it for the graft, Mike. Take heart in knowing that at least we know. And we can’t thank you enough for being on the right side of history.