The Atlantic recently wrote a profile of Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG). At the beginning, it offered a brief bio.
MTG’s father grew up in a working-class family, born to a factory worker. He got into home construction first as a worker and contractor, and then as the owner of a small construction company. MTG grew up in a more rural part of a red state in an area with a deep history of racism. That history left the area with almost no black population. Her parents raised her Catholic, but she later left the church.
MTG attended the major public university in her state and became the first college graduate in her family. And as she got older, she saw something deeply wrong with the world.
MTG and MLD
Well, so what? One thing really strikes me about this little bio of MTG. If you replace ‘she’ with ‘he’ and ‘MTG’ with ‘MLD’ (my initials), all that could be my biography.
Literally word for word. My grandfather was a factory worker, and my father got into home construction and owned a small company. My parents raised me as a Catholic, and I later left the Church. I grew up in a rural part of Indiana with a history of racism that today has almost no black population. And I attended the major public university in my state, becoming the first member of my family to graduate from college. So, really, it’s my bio, too.
This raises a few questions for me. Why do many leftists and far right figures share similar social and class backgrounds? Does something about this background lead to feelings of discomfort with the state of the world? What is it that pushes a person like MTG over the edge into far right authoritarianism, rather than to the left? Do certain kinds of events or exposures do it?
For now, I leave these questions for the reader. I can’t say I know the answers. They’re interesting to consider, and I’d appreciate any insights readers might have.
