Ought to the blessed day ever arrive when former President Donald Trump is shipped to federal jail, solely one in every of his acolytes has earned the correct to share his cell: George Santos, who on Friday grew to become 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 Occasion.
“At almost each alternative, he positioned his want for personal achieve above his responsibility to uphold the Structure, federal regulation and moral ideas,” stated 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 elements of Trumpism. Santos incarnates its venal and ridiculous aspect, the half rooted in actuality TV and get-rich-quick schemes. As Mark Chiusano experiences 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 document 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 explanation a vital mass of Republicans lastly jettisoned Santos is that he was too embarrassing a mirrored image of the values of the get together’s de facto chief. That’s actually 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 buying 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 “publish via it,” making an important present of shamelessness each on-line and in actual life.
A lot of the MAGAverse beloved it. Greene grew to become a loyal pal. As New York Journal’s Shawn McCreesh reported in March, at a Manhattan 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 title 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 must “drag my chilly, lifeless physique” out of Congress. Gosar chimed in with an admiring response: “Based mostly.”
Adam Serwer famously wrote that with regards to Trump, “the cruelty is the purpose,” however perhaps the criminality is as nicely. 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 explanation his a number of indictments appeared to solely solidify his Republican help. Certain, a few of his backers most likely 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 arduous,” gushed Fox Information host Jesse Watters.) Slightly, many individuals on the correct thrill to shows of impunity from individuals who share their politics. Within the late Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, the left-wing counterculture lionized outlaws just like the Hells Angels for his or her rise up in opposition to a hated institution. As we speak, 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, ultimately, 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 drive Republican institutionalists to swallow their disgust with him. Apart from, as Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. — who voted in opposition to expulsion — stated of voters in his district, “Individuals don’t like the actual fact he’s homosexual.”
Whereas he is probably not a congressman anymore, Santos has stated he’s not completed with public life. At a information convention Thursday morning, he stated he plans to be concerned within the 2024 presidential race: “I gained’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.
