He’s the low-rent con artist everyone’s talking about, and for Republicans, he’s the one we deserve.
I refer, of course, to George Santos, the Republican congressman-elect who recently was forced to admit to “embellishing” facts on his resume, including (but not limited to) his ancestry (he claimed to be Jewish…then later, “Jew-ish”), his job history (he claimed that he “worked directly" for Goldman Sachs), and his education (he claimed to have graduated from Baruch College and New York University).
Others have pointed out similarities to the 1999 movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which Tom Ripley (played by Matt Damon) assumes a false identity abroad. The film was set in 1958, long before Google made sussing out imposters dramatically easier. It’s worth contemplating why Santos got away with his ruse for so long.
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One theory is that we wanted to believe in him. As a buddy of mine observed, “A Republican pretending to be openly gay and Jewish is, in a weird way, a sign of progress.”
In all fairness, we don’t know if he pretended to be gay; we do know he was married to a woman until September 2019. Still, my friend has a point about the new trend of posing as a member of a marginalized or victimized group. In a world where progressives have adopted identities such as Native American or Black to advance professionally, a Republican politician posing as a gay Jewish Latino is simply a lagging indicator.
As usual, Donald Trump explains much of this. Santos’ victory represents a Republican Party that is simultaneously more diverse and welcoming (in terms of race and sexual identity) and less devoutly religious and moral—while also being more accepting of corruption and lying.
To some degree, each of these things—the good, the bad, and the ugly—are reflections of Trump. This is to be expected. In the more than seven years since Trump came down the escalator, a generation of Republicans have come of age with him as the standard bearer.
The Republican candidates this era has produced—Herschel Walker (a pretend cop), Kari Lake (a pretend populist), and now Santos (a pretend everything)—are indicative of a party that only pretends it wants to govern.
In this regard, Santos is the huckster that the GOP deserves.
Still, in other ways, Santos seems fundamentally different from the MAGA right-wingers we have grown accustomed to of late.
For one thing, he seems so cheery. Even now, after being exposed as a fraud, most of the TV segment b-roll and all the photos associated with columns (like this one) tend to show a smiling young man.
He’s more Sam Bankman-Fried than Blake Masters or Marjorie Taylor Greene. To paraphrase Mike Huckabee, he might be a fabulist, but he’s not angry about it.
Pulling off a con requires that you look the part, to be sure. But in a world where Republicans are often seen as sneering and angry, Santos' affability helped him hide in plain sight. He is (in his own words) “not a criminal”—but if he were, he’d be more of a gentlemanly cat burglar than the political bomb throwers who propagate the right these days.
And when it comes to prevaricating, he really is talented. Whoever came up with the whole “I said I was ‘Jew-ish,’ not Jewish” spin deserves an award for deviousness. As Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen put it, “That’s some chutzpah!”
It hearkens back to a simpler time—more Clintonian than Trumpian.
Consider Santos’ comment to the New York Post: “I campaigned talking about the people’s concerns, not my resume… I intend to deliver on the promises I made during the campaign.”
Here, Santos sounds like Bill Clinton saying he needed to move on from the Lewinsky affair and get back to “doing the work of the American people” or whatever.
Like the not-so-Jew-ish Santos, Clinton bullshitted and parsed language (including the meaning of “is”) for reasons of self-preservation and professional advancement. Clinton wanted to cover up his naughty affairs; conversely, Trump’s lies pose an existential threat to liberal democracy.
In comparison, Santos’ scandal feels almost quaint.
Clinton and Trump both come from the generation that embraced postmodernism and eschewed objective truth. Both were habitual, shameless liars, and both refused to step down or quit fighting—even when the other side had the goods on them. It was only a matter of time before this worldview went fully mainstream.
What surprised me, however, was that it was the Republican Party that became the default preference for the ambitious weirdos, pathological liars, and yes, confidence men (and women) who are always attracted to politics and power.
As The Atlantic’s David Frum tweeted, “The alarming thing is that even now George Santos still doesn’t make the cut as one of the top 10 most reprehensible members of the 2023-24 House GOP caucus.”
Both parties have sketchy actors, but today’s MAGA party is the natural home of reprobates, charlatans, and grifters. In this regard, Santos—who still seems likely to be sworn in next month—will fit right in.
