How Far We’ve Fallen: Santos Edition

We're finally rid of the second biggest liar in the country. One down, one to go.

It is comforting to know that if you are the Vesuvius of liars, a fraud and a cheat, you can only expect to serve about eleven months in Congress. Yes, after nearly a full year of the nearly unrivaled fabulist, George Santos, with his tall tales and Mini Me approach to the kind of unrelenting, unrepentant lying that Donald Trump has been getting away with since forever, it’s finally all over but the shouting. The expulsion of George Santos from the House of Representatives (like his idol, he promises “revenge”) may represent a low bar of accountability, but I’m grateful that there’s a bar at all.

In addition to his idol, the King of Lies, Santos has reminded me of nothing more than the Jon Lovitz “Devil” character on SNL. I always imagined we were just a moment away from Santos saying, “Yeah, that’s the ticket, I’m the King of the World!”

The House Ethics Committee spent more time than one would think necessary to come to the conclusion that George Santos was a blight on the institution, and therefore must go.

Fully half of the Republican caucus agreed with their own Ethics Committee report, but none of the Republican leadership could bring themselves to do the oh-so-obvious right thing, and vote to expel. For these people, it is politics over decency, and party over country every time. They wouldn’t even do it after their colleague, Max Miller (R-OH), piled on to the Ethics Committee report by showing how Santos had stolen from Miller—and Miller’s mother—by charging their credit-cards way beyond the legal contribution limit. From the well of the House, Miller said, “You, sir, are a crook.”

The regular, and losing argument, is to say that he’s innocent until proven guilty, and while that is true in a court of law, simply not being convicted of a crime is far too low a bar when considering the fraudulent efforts of elected officials. We must and should expect a higher standard where public service and trust are concerned. After all, they’re our leaders.

This paragraph in Michelle Goldberg’s New York Times op-ed piece about Santos and the MAGA Movement really stood out: “That movement is multifaceted, and different politicians represent different strains: There’s the dour, conspiracy-poisoned suburban grievance of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the gun-loving rural evangelicalism of Lauren Boebert, the overt white nationalism of Paul Gosar, and the frat boy sleaze of Matt Gaetz. But no one embodies Trump’s fame-obsessed sociopathic emptiness like Santos. He’s heir to Trump’s sybaritic nihilism, high-kitsch absurdity and impregnable brazenness. Other politicians embody the sinister, cruel and disgusting aspects of Trumpism. Santos incarnates its venal and ridiculous side, the part rooted in reality TV and get-rich-quick schemes.”

I think “impregnable brazenness” is among the best descriptors of these grifters that I’ve heard. While the phrase “doubling down” is descriptive, it misses the, cock-suredness of it all. To be able to lie with such ease, and when challenged, to be able to morph the lie on the spot, is its own psychopathic triumph. The shear will to never surrender to shame or decency, or, let’s face it, reality, is truly masterful. A pinnacle in the annals of prevarication.

In related stories from the crime blotter, the  Honorable Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge hearing the case brought against Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, denied the defense claim that the Former Guy is immune from prosecution, saying, “The Constitution’s text, structure, and history do not support that contention [that the charges should be dismissed]. No court—or any other branch of government—has ever accepted it. And this court will not so hold. Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass. The defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”

This perfectly illustrates where we are as a country. We have a political party—nearly unrecognizable from even its pre-2016 past, the Republican Party of yore—that denounces our criminal justice system, and pretends that its leaders are above the law.

Santos is most likely on his way to prison, but don’t worry, George, after he pardons you, there’ll be a spot for you in Donald Trump’s new cabinet (Secretary of Fabulism?). Trump’s already made it clear that he felt burned by the people he selected the first time around, because so many demanded that he and his administration live up to their oaths of office by protecting the Constitution, not lying, not cheating, not breaking the law, and serving the American people rather than themselves.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

©2023 Jon Sinton