Updated Jan 15, 2021; Posted Jan 15, 2021
By Connor Sheets
This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. AL.com was a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in 2019.
In 2009, Kevin Greeson traveled from Alabama to witness the inauguration of President Barack Obama, at the time one of his political heroes. Twelve years later, a stone’s throw from where Obama had been sworn in, Greeson died of a heart attack while demonstrating in support of President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.
Greeson had undergone a stark political transformation in those intervening years. A longtime Democrat who once championed unions and supported progressive politicians, Greeson had become a staunch Trump supporter by the time he died outside the Capitol at the age of 55.
•••••
“He was a vice president at the union, and he was an Obama supporter,” said Mark McDaniel, the Huntsville attorney representing the Greeson family. “He got interested in Trump because he felt he was more business-minded, and as the economy kept getting better, he kept getting more interested in Trump.”
For much of the late 20th century, north Alabama was home to a number of large factories and industrial facilities that provided blue-collar jobs with decent wages to people like Greeson. But many of those positions were eliminated over the past two decades as manufacturers and plants closed or sold to foreign companies — and as the jobs disappeared, the Democratic Party’s support dwindled.
•••••
No comments:
Post a Comment