Did MTG See the Light? On Apologies, Audiences, and the Difference Between Regret and Repentance
In one of my most popular essays, When Truth Comes Late: The Social Politics of Scams, Myths, Shame, and Recovering Ourselves, I wrote about what happens when people finally see that they were misled, or worse, that they helped promote a lie. I described the shame that follows, the temptation to double down, and the way pride can harden their error into their identity.
But there is also hope. There is a moment in every scam when the mark begins to suspect. The promises do not quite add up. The story has gaps, sometimes big ones. But the hardest part is not recognizing the deception, it is admitting you fell for it, and worse doing so in public. And it is also tough to watch someone else claim they have seen the light, and then try to figure out if they actually have changed.
In recent days, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has appeared on national television to apologize for what she called her participation in “evil toxic insanity.” She invoked Jesus Christ and his message of asking for and giving forgiveness and the need to be kind. Greene - popularly known as MTG - said she wanted out of the political complex that rewards outrage and punishes decency. The question is what do these words actually mean, and whether we can tell the difference between someone breaking free from bad politics and someone simply rebranding it. Some have argued she that is only breaking away from the leader of the Republican Party, President Donald John Trump because he will not back her for statewide office in Georgia. Others say that he is not backing her because she will not violate her principles to suit Trump’s agenda which is she believes is not truly conservative. Which is the truth?
Because if we have learned anything about fraud shame and moral injury, it is this: the language of redemption can be hijacked by those who have no intention of changing course. And a society that cannot distinguish performance from transformation will be fooled by both the original con and the apology-con that follows. At the same time, if someone has changed you want to support them because you gain nothing if people feel they are stuck playing the role of the bad guy. How can they embrace a new, healthy role?
The behavioral economist Dan Ariely once asked Catholic priests to explain confession from an economic perspective.1 The answer Ariely arrived after discussing with them is interesting: confession works not because it erases consequences, but because it requires confrontation. You have to speak the specific sin aloud to another person. You have to hear yourself say what you did. The anticipation of that discomfort—not necessarily immediate divine punishment, but human acknowledgment—acts as a deterrent.
But there was another angle which he explored in his 2012 book The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, and he explained in his 2012 talk to the Royal Society of Arts in London:
Now if people cheat a lot, all the time, why would they ever stop? If you think you’re going to hell, in the Catholic version why would ever stop? The Catholic confession might have actually stumbled on this, which is, this might be a really good idea that if you are cheating a lot maybe you need to be able to open a new page.2
In his experiments Ariely found that when given a chance to confess to cheating, the cheaters actually cheated less, the misbehavior declined. But his research found the opposite was true, if people thought they could never get clean they would decide to revel in being unclean. If we want civic reform and a better moral environment we must have a way for people to turn a new leaf or they will choose to bloom in defiant corruption. Both pride and hopeless resignation entrap people in wrongdoing, harming the rest of us who suffer from the actions of the unrepentant.
But here is what matters for our purposes: confession without specificity does not work. You cannot simply say “I have sinned” and receive absolution. The tradition requires naming what you did. Generic contrition is not enough. The moral framework demands precision about the harm. That is, confession is clear and targeted.
Has MTG gone far enough? Maybe not, but we can hope that her contrition is real. Some are very skeptical. Even while calling for an end to toxic rhetoric, MTG recently defended Tucker Carlson’s decision to host white nationalist Nick Fuentes. That does not seem like someone who has reckoned completely with the road she has gone down. Perhaps she is still navigating a change in direction. I wrote previously that “the scammer flatters your instincts, mirrors your fears, and adopts your language.” What I, perhaps, did not emphasize enough is that scammers also adopt the language of moral awakening when it serves them. They know that decent people want to believe in redemption. They know that Americans love a comeback story. They are aware that the vocabulary of faith and forgiveness carries weight and places a burden on the target. Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
But using religious jargon or Holy Scripture does not make someone sincere, it could mean nothing more than that they understand code switching.
The Victims We Must Not Ignore
So, I am interested in the idea of people making real changes, because that can become a point on the decency scoreboard. We need them. But, genuine repentance centers the harmed, not the harm-doer. It asks what restoration requires for those who suffered, not what forgiveness offers to those who caused suffering. It acknowledges that some damage cannot be undone by words alone, no matter how artfully arranged. For political leaders, a real reckoning would involve reaching out to those victims. Making amends where possible. Supporting the institutions she undermined. Using her platform to counter conspiracism. MTG can do all this while remaining in office.
There is a deeper question, however, about how we got to this point, because MTG did not invent toxic politics, she has only been in elected office since 2021. Nevertheless, she read the room, she saw what worked, she watched as concocted outrage generated attention, attention generated donations, and that money got people elected, got her elected. The system, the current American system, rewarded her for behavior that a healthy civic culture would have rejected. MTG’s alleged transformation is happening at a moment when her - old? - brand of politics has become less useful, and there is a clear MAGA split happening. So, one can ask if she is experiencing moral growth or is she adjusting to a new political market?
Now here is where it gets hard, and where we need to be careful.
If MTG is sincere, we gain something by recognizing it and nothing by dismissing it. We make it easier for the next person who wants to turn away from toxic politics to actually do so. We demonstrate that recovery from fraud shame is possible. But if this is a performance and if we treat cynically strategic repositioning as a real transformation then we become marks again. And worse, we make it harder for actually reformed individuals to be believed, for an honest transformation to be recognized. And then people might persist in bad behavior because they think no one will believe they have changed. That would be a loss. This is why the question of grace matters. Not because we owe Greene anything, but because we owe ourselves a culture that can distinguish between genuine transformation and talented performance.
If Greene’s turn is serious, we should see specificity in the coming months. Not vague regrets about “toxic politics,” but naming which conspiracy theories she may have promoted and why they are wrong. This is important because there is another group watching this: the people who supported Greene’s previous approach. Who defended her. Who amplified her messages. Who built their own political identities around the same combative, own the libs, style she now claims to reject. If she is truly changing course, what does that mean for them?
When a leader you have backed claims they were not just wrong but fundamentally wrong in their whole approach to politics, you face a major choice. It is an odd spot to be in. You can say you were misled by them and reject their change of heart. That feels like admitting you were a sucker, but also means doubling down and insisting she was right before and wrong now, and that the real betrayal is her abandonment of “the cause.” Or you can continue to follow that leader and treat their reform as your awakening as well. You can follow them into a better way of responsible politics. Both are plausible responses, but it is the duty of the reformed politician to reach out to their supporters and bring them along to the sensible path.
A healthy and robust civic culture creates space for those supporters to change too. Even if the leader turns out to be a fraud, the break with their prior stance might make it easier to reach their supporters. Those who advocate for careful, rules-based leadership & accountability within government, business, schools and churches, do their organizations a favor. You get the environment you create. Good behavior is to be expected & confessing mistakes should be seen as a strength not a weakness if you want more of it.
So where does this leave us with MTG? We have to hold multiple truths simultaneously.
Self-government is hard, being ruled is easy. Civic maturity requires discernment: the ability to evaluate claims, watch for patterns, remain open to surprise while grounded in evidence. It requires us to be neither marks nor cynics, but something harder: careful observers who can recognize both true change and a feigned skilled performance. So are we at the trust but verify stage? Maybe more like let’s wait and see. Democrats should encourage MTG while still acknowledging where they disagree. Our civic health requires lowering the temperature so that compromise, reasoned debate, and changing your mind are once again seen as normal.
The truth comes late, but it comes. Our job is to have the wisdom to recognize it when it arrives.