Ought to the blessed day ever arrive when former President Donald Trump is distributed to federal jail, solely one in all his acolytes has earned the precise to share his cell: George Santos, who on Friday turned the sixth particular person in historical past to be expelled from the Home of Representatives, greater than seven months after he was first charged with crimes together with fraud and cash laundering. (He’s pleaded not responsible.) A clout-chasing con man obsessive about celeb, pushed into politics not by ideology however by vainness and the promise of proximity to wealthy marks, Santos is a pure product of Trump’s Republican Social gathering.
“At almost each alternative, he positioned his want for personal achieve above his obligation to uphold the Structure, federal legislation and moral rules,” mentioned a Home Ethics Committee report about Santos launched final month. He’s a real youngster of the MAGA motion.
That motion is multifaceted, and totally different politicians symbolize totally 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. However nobody embodies Trump’s fame-obsessed sociopathic vacancy like Santos. He’s inheritor to Trump’s sybaritic nihilism, high-kitsch absurdity and impregnable brazenness.
Different politicians embody the sinister, merciless and disgusting points of Trumpism. Santos incarnates its venal and ridiculous facet, the half rooted in actuality TV and get-rich-quick schemes. As Mark Chiusano studies in his excellently timed new ebook about Santos, “The Fabulist,” if the now ex-congressman confirmed a lot curiosity in politics earlier than 2016, we don’t have a report of it; his heroes have been pop divas like Paris Hilton, Woman Gaga and “Actual Housewives” star Bethenny Frankel. “However by 2016,” writes Chiusano, “he had discovered a brand new function mannequin who introduced celeb glitz and gossip to civics: Donald Trump.”
Maybe the rationale a vital mass of Republicans lastly jettisoned Santos is that he was too embarrassing a mirrored image of the values of the occasion’s de facto chief. That’s definitely why I, for one, am going to overlook him. A homosexual man and, reportedly, a former drag queen in a celebration consumed by homophobia, and a pseudopopulist accused of bilking his marketing campaign donors to pay for Botox, Hermès purchasing journeys and grownup leisure web site OnlyFans, Santos distilled the Trump motion’s lurid hypocrisy to nice comedian impact. In a world overflowing with tragedy, he’s a farce.
It’s not simply his grift and vainness that made Santos such an ideal avatar of the MAGA ethos. Much more important was the defiance he confirmed as his flagrant wrongdoing was revealed and the way in which that defiance endeared him to a few of Trump’s most avid supporters. In December 2022, after Santos was elected however earlier than he took workplace, The New York Occasions reported that he’d lied about his schooling, purported profession in finance, household wealth and charitable endeavors and that he’d been charged in Brazil with utilizing stolen checks. Santos’ response was, as Chiusano writes, to “put up by means of it,” making an amazing present of shamelessness each on-line and in actual life.
A lot of the MAGAverse liked it. Greene turned a loyal buddy. As New York Journal’s Shawn McCreesh reported in March, at a Manhattan birthday celebration for Breitbart editor Emma-Jo Morris, Santos was “the ‘It’ woman. His wrists are bedizened with bling from Hermès and Cartier, and fawning followers line up for selfies.” A month later, The Intercept’s Daniel Boguslaw described Santos being feted at a bar in Washington: “A milieu of younger conservatives, operatives and Home staffers have been assembling to howl within the next-gen mannequin of Donald Trump’s societal wrecking ball, and the identify on everyone’s lips was George Santos.” A hardcore MAGA group referred to as Washington, D.C., Younger Republicans posted about Santos’ “inspirational remarks” at that occasion, together with his insistence that his enemies should “drag my chilly, useless physique” out of Congress. Gosar chimed in with an admiring response: “Based mostly.”
Adam Serwer famously wrote that on the subject of Trump, “the cruelty is the purpose,” however possibly the criminality is as effectively. Rule-breaking is vital to Trump’s transgressive attraction; it situates him as above the strictures that govern lesser males whereas making a permission construction for his followers to launch their very own inhibitions. That’s a giant a part of the rationale his a number of indictments appeared to solely solidify his Republican help. Positive, a few of his backers in all probability recognized together with his epic persecution advanced, however that alone doesn’t clarify the worshipful enthusiasm amongst a few of his followers for his mug shot. (“He seems to be laborious,” gushed Fox Information host Jesse Watters.) Moderately, many individuals on the precise thrill to shows of impunity from individuals who share their politics. Within the late Nineteen Sixties and Seventies, the left-wing counterculture lionized outlaws just like the Hells Angels for his or her riot towards a hated institution. Right this moment, as Santos’ rise to iconic standing demonstrates, the same antinomianism has taken maintain amongst alienated conservatives.
After all, the devotion of a part of the right-wing demimonde was not, in the long run, sufficient to save lots of Santos. Greater than half of the Home Republican caucus, and most of its leaders, stood by the disgraced swindler, and Greene referred to as his expulsion “shameful,” however not like Trump, Santos by no means amassed almost sufficient energy to pressure Republican institutionalists to swallow their disgust with him. Moreover, as Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. — who voted towards expulsion — mentioned of voters in his district, “Folks don’t like the actual fact he’s homosexual.”
Whereas he might not be a congressman anymore, Santos has mentioned he’s not accomplished with public life. At a information convention Thursday morning, he mentioned he plans to be concerned within the 2024 presidential race: “I received’t relaxation till I see Donald Trump again within the White Home.” Hopefully, he’ll pop up on the marketing campaign path earlier than his trial begins subsequent September. Nobody deserves to be a Trump surrogate extra.
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