The George Santos Saga Isn't (Just) Funny

[dalton99a]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/congressman-george-santos-lies-danger/672785/
https://archive.ph/607o6

The George Santos Saga Isn’t (Just) Funny
The amusement of such a candidate reaching office should not eclipse the horror of it.
By David A. Graham
January 20, 2023, 7 AM ET

Have you heard the latest ridiculous turn in the George Santos story? No, not that one. The newer one. Oh wait: That’s out of date now, too.

This week alone we’ve learned that Santos’s mother, who he said was in the Twin Towers on 9/11 and died years later from complications, probably wasn’t even in the United States that day. We’ve heard an allegation that he stole $3,000 he had raised for a military veteran’s ailing dog, a story that seems too cartoonish to make up. We’ve also seen a photo that a Brazilian drag queen insists is Santos in drag, though he denies it. In more scandalous sartorial news, a former roommate says that the scarf Santos sported at a Stop the Steal rally was, fittingly, stolen.

If you’re unable to laugh at these stories, you should check your pulse. But if you’re only laughing at them, you should check your head. The Santos story is funny, but a real danger exists that the public might allow its amusement to eclipse the horror of such a candidate reaching office and the consequences for Congress and the American political system’s remaining shreds of repute.

Voters have a right to know whether the people they vote for are who they say they are. In Santos’s case, even the fact of his name is marshy; many former acquaintances say he used to go by “Anthony Devolder”—his middle name and mother’s maiden name—and detested what one might call his government name, in two senses of the word. In response to his ill-gained success, some of his critics, including other members of Congress, have suggested bills that would require something like truth in advertising for political candidates, an approach both legally dubious—any sufficiently sweeping bill would probably violate the First Amendment—and more broadly imprudent, the latest example of Americans seeking to enlist the justice system to do work the political system can and should do better.

...

[cilla4progress]

1. America is a terrifying laughing stock

Since the ride down the escalator in 2015

[Walleye]

2. And this guy will be one of the ones in charge of fucking up our Social Security

[Blue Owl]

3. K&R

[Blue Owl]

4. George Santos is an insult to every voter

And an indicator of the utter failure of ABCNNBCBS to help vett and 'filter' candidates, and allow such a thing to happen...

[agingdem]

6. the networks are in business to make money..

the cable talking heads are in the business of spewing soundbites and headlines..surface only, no depth...just as the pundits and so-called journalist are addicted to Trump, so too are they addicted to George Santos..no one is clamoring for his resignation other than his constituents and a few party heads because shapeshifter Santos is a moneymaker, good for the networks bottomline...

eunuch Kevin McCarthy, who like Santos, is immune to shame and self-reflection, is now lying for him, protecting him, legitimizing him in his desperation to hold on to his one vote, a vote McCarthy could have without committee assignments...but in a MAGA congress that is rife with traitors, racists, antisemites and conspiracy theorists, Santos is the norm not an aberration...

[Cha]

5. Don't think it's "funny" &

certainly don't need to be told by this writer that I "don't have a pulse".

"Funny" as Fascist Shite.

[Magoo48]

7. Republicans: the Party of George Santos and tfg, oh, and Q.

[gab13by13]

8. Santos isn't funny,

he's a threat to our national security.

I keep hearing there is no way to remove him so I assume he is a US citizen, and I assume that George Santos is his legal name, although I haven't heard anyone confirm that.

[Enoki33]

9. The Santos story to date is much

more than a national embarrassment. This Republican is a man who conned his way into lifelong health benefits, and a taxpayer funded income that the average American legitimately work most of their lives to qualify for. Obscene and sickening on so many levels.