Graphic by Yujin Kim ’23
Republican George Santos of New York’s third congressional district was delivered a resume full of lies.
Seeking his first term in office, he fabricated his background and experience to sell his candidacy to voters, creating a profile that made him the “full embodiment of the American dream.”
A New York Times investigation found many of Santos’s claims to be completely false or highly unlikely to be true. Some notable pretenses and their realities include: being openly gay, although he was married to a woman and had a divorce before his first congressional campaign; having Jewish grandparents who escaped the Holocaust, although they were actually Brazilian; and losing employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting, although none of the victims worked for him. He also claimed to have graduated from Baruch College, a CUNY school located in the center of the city. He similarly lied about running a nonexistent animal charity and working for Goldman Sachs.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: why did he lie? It is possible that Santos is a pathological liar. His string of lies began with a few small ones, which pushed his candidacy along and into public view. Seeing how these fabrications benefited his campaign without being discovered or questioned, he continued to lie to gain political favor. Furthermore, this lying is in accordance with his past. He admitted to committing check fraud in Brazil in 2008 by using a stolen checkbook and a fake name in a store. It is easy to see how he went from fraud in his home country to lying to American voters.
The system that resulted in Santos’s lying is one that deserves our attention. In a time where political leaders are more likely to gain support if they are racially diverse and politically corrrect, a candidate with Santos’s description would check many boxes, especially in New York. Republicans have a small lead in Congress, and the ends of keeping Congressional control seem to justify the many means of getting there. Santos may have believed that he would not be elected as a straight, white male, so his natural solution was to lie.
Similarly, his claims of attending Baruch and working at Goldman Sachs expose the excessive value society places in certain schools or places of work.
The second question we have to ask ourselves is: how did he get away with lying for so long? His long run is the result of faulty background checks on the part of the media and opposition. When Santos was elected to office, it was more than just a few small lies passing by unnoticed in his resume. The entire resume was made up. In the end, it was the New York Times who actually discovered his lies, not the background check on employees required by the government. Meanwhile, New York citizens, expecting their institutions to account for lying in the political system, believed him wholeheartedly.
Despite investigations by law enforcement bodies, Santos is not likely to be taken out of office. It would take a two-thirds vote, or he would have to choose to resign. However, if there is a House ethics investigation, the onus is on his fellow representatives to push him to resign to set a strong precedent for future candidates.
