Liar, liar, somehow still in power: George Santos is America’s representative

George Santos is in a lot of hot water because of his lies, and yet he is a key player in American politics (Photo credit: https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2023/01/11/USAT/5b4d9c5c-8e35-4493-8f2d-24b369fcc12a-AP_Congress.jpeg)

January 2023 has already been a whirlwind in American politics; from the revelation that current President Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence have kept classified documents at their homes, to the US hitting the debt ceiling which could lead to significant ramifications to the global economy if Congress does not do anything about it. However, the most popular key story is the saga of George Santos.

Since late December 2022, a month after Santos was elected as the representative of New York’s third district, news that many things in Santos’ resume were blatantly false has trickled out.

He lied about his mother’s death at 9/11, even though she died in 2016. He lied about his family immigrating due to the Holocaust, even though his family was from Brazil. He lied about his race, claiming he was black, Ukrainian and Jewish. He lied about his educational background, claiming he attended a prestigious preparatory school. He lied about working at Goldman Sachs. He lied about his heritage, and pretended to be Jewish when running for Congress. Later on, it was revealed that Santos is a Christian and claimed he meant “Jew-ish.”

You get the idea, Santos lies. A LOT. However, at the time of writing in late January, amid countless scandals, investigations by New York and Brazilian prosecutors, and members of his district and party calling him to step down, he’s still in power. 

As ludicrous as his lies might be, and even amidst the prevalence of falsehoods in politics, Santos achieved something unique. To paraphrase the renowned political observer Keith Olbermann, some politicians can lie to all of the people some of the time, some politicians can lie to some of the people all of the time, but Santos is the only politician that can lie to all of the people all of the time.  

Through these lies, Santos gave us a perfect representation to the clown car of chaos that is the current Republican Party. 

First of all, Santos reflects the hypocrisy of the party. A campaign advertisement supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022, which restricts how gender and sexuality is taught in schools, was supported by Santos. This is not new, however. It follows a general trend in the Republican Party that denounces any discussion of LGBTQ issues and calls anyone who is gay, supports the community, and/or refuses to engage in their homophobia, “groomers.” Yet, in January 2023, news broke out from one of Santos’ Brazilian drag queen friends, that he was once a drag performer and performed under the name Kitara Ravache, complete with photographic and video proof. This has not been the first time any GOP member has demonstrated their hypocrisy to the world, but the “just joking” defense by Santos, claiming he did drag for fun when he was young, shares similarities to other politicians like Pence who launched into a diatribe against Biden for his handling of classified documents, yet later on, it was revealed that his residence also had classified documents in it as well.

Secondly, Santos shares the cruel nature of the party. In 2016, Sapphire, the service dog of a disabled homeless veteran, needed life saving surgery. Santos promised to help and raised the $3000 needed for the surgery using the platform “GoFundMe”. However, instead of donating that money to save Sapphire, Santos kept the money and fled. Then, Sapphire died. The news outraged many, including one dog rescue advocate who wanted Santos to “burn in hell, and the sooner the better.” Unfortunately, cruelty towards others is not just a bug, but a feature of Republican politics. For example, Fox News and one of the television channel’s key personalities, Sean Hannity, aired an audio recording of Biden’s private audio messages to his son, Hunter, who was at that time suffering drug addiction. Many of the right wing media outlets used the audio to attack the father and son and furthered calls for the investigation to Hunter Biden, a case more likely to be pushed forward, as Republicans have taken the house and have made it a big problem in the upcoming months.

Thirdly and finally, the shamelessness of Santos is apt for a political party whose morals are collapsing. Normally, a politician like Santos would be shunned into resignation, regardless if he is a Republican or a Democrat. However, Santos has resisted any calls from his district and his party to resign, and was selected to specific duties in the House of Representatives while being dogged by reporters asking him for comments. Luckily for Santos, this level of humiliation can be shared by the likes of the new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. After fifteen excruciating rounds of voting over four days, McCarthy’s road to Speaker of the House was ripe with obstacles and concessions. Compared to the Democrats who have all sided with selecting their leader Hakeem Jefferies, twenty congressmen from the far right Freedom Caucus either voted for a different candidate or voted “present” throughout the process before some agreed to vote for McCarthy after he made major concessions, like giving far right members of the House key roles and decreasing the power of the Speaker.

Like Santos, a majority of the GOP have sold their souls and dignity in exchange for power and status in an ever more competitive political sphere. The level of blatant hypocrisy and falsehoods Santos maintains has also been reflected in the party. A divided group that has decided to become more extreme, who instead of appeasing moderates and disaffected voters after a humiliating midterm election, has focused their attention on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Fauci, and censorship on Twitter while undermining efforts like supporting Ukraine or fixing the debt ceiling which both carry gigantic geopolitical and economic consequences.

It is very unlikely that Santos will be out of office in the foreseeable future, just like the rest of the Republican party and hence, this is the state of politics in the USA.