Outraged About George Santos? Blame Yourself

Republican Congressman George Santos has lied so much that I question if his name really is George Santos.

In 2019, at a Walk Away LGBT event, he introduced himself as Anthony Devolder:

"So my name is Anthony Devolder. I'm a New York City resident. I recently founded a group called United for Trump. So if you guys want to follow, that would be awesome."

He says his full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos. The freshman Congressman has apparently lied about everything to get elected: his ethnicity, academic background, employment history. He raised money for a company connected to a Ponzi scheme, allegedly broke campaign-finance laws during his run for Congress, wore a stolen scarf to a "Stop The Steal" rally, and pocketed $3000 from a GoFundMe fundraiser for a veteran's dying dog.

The deeper you dig, the more scandalous his lies become.

He lied about the death of his mother, tweeting, "9/11 claimed my mother's life..." in 2021. Later, his campaign website stated his mother died from cancer. Some reports suggest his mother was not in New York when 9/11 happened. According to a report by independent journalist Marisa Kabas, Santos is alleged to have been a drag queen in 2008. In 2010, prosecutors in Brazil accused him of forging two checks worth $400 to buy clothes.

When confronted about his past, Santos took a page from the Clinton playbook: when caught in a lie, deny, deny, deny. "I am not a criminal here - not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world. Absolutely not. That didn't happen," he told The New York Post.

George Santos is the real-life adaptation of Pinocchio, the protagonist of the fairytale The Adventures of Pinocchio. A mischievous wooden puppet carved by his poor father Geppetto, he aspired to become a boy. You all know the most notable plotline in this story: his nose would grow whenever he lied. Eventually, Pinocchio did become a real boy. Santos is what Pinocchio would have become as an adult. Santos is a puppet. He is carved out of the secular values persistent on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. His creators are Mark Zuckerburg and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Social media has become a fantasy world where anyone can recreate their lives with little effort. It was one of the takeaways from the Twitter Files releases. People and AI bots masquerading as government officials, doctors, foreign dignitaries, and other high-level influencers to change how people think and influence domestic and foreign policy.

Want to be a doctor without spending eight years and hundreds of thousands of dollars at universities? Just call yourself a Ph.D. or an M.D. in your bio. Want to have a better-looking body without proper diet and exercise? Use artificial intelligence tools to alter your appearance. Were you a social outcast in school and want to finally fit in with the cool crowd? Put emojis of the Ukraine flag, a black fist, a rainbow, a syringe, and a marijuana leaf in your bio.

People can live vicariously through their online alter egos, amassing money, fame, and power in the process.

What George Santos did is what some users do on social media every day. To go a step further, what Santos did is what some do in real life every day. Santos' prevarication parade is not dissimilar to Rachel Dolezal's suburban white woman-turned-black revolutionary shtick. Or Shaun "Talcum X" King's white man-turned-black revolutionary shtick. Or Elizabeth Warren's "Pocahontas" tales to skirt the tax laws she pushes for in Congress. Her lies stretch back to 1984 when she plagiarized two Cherokee recipes in a book titled Pow Wow Chow. 

There are hundreds of George Santoses in Washington, D.C.

In 2021, Santos had a rare moment of honesty when he called Joe Biden a pathological liar. Takes one to know one. Biden has lied his entire political career. His first bid for the White House in 1988 was derailed because of all the fibs he told. From his academic record at Syracuse law school to his plagiarized speeches during the campaign, where he ripped off lines from JFK and Hubert Humphrey. Biden finally bowed out in the wake of an exposé about him plagiarizing his college essays.

Biden lied about being arrested in South Africa protesting alongside Nelson Mandela. In addition, he lied about how his son Beau died, how the NAACP endorsed him (they can't because they are a 501 (c)(4) nonprofit organization and cannot legally endorse any political candidate), and about his house being burned down (it was a small fire in the kitchen that firefighters put out in a few minutes).

Given the chicanery of the 2020 election, Biden brazenly lied his way to The Oval Office.

The corruption, lunacy, and idolatry prevalent in American politics are a reflection of us, the American citizens.

If America was serious about its politics, 1988 would have been the last year of Biden's political career. Instead, he was reelected to Congress two years later. In a more serious political climate, the Clintons would not be able to show their faces in public today. In fact, the last four Presidents would not have made it to the White House.

What does Santos' election victory say about the voters of New York's 3rd District? They apparently did not do their homework before voting for him. I understand their Republican vote could have been a visceral, knee-jerk reaction to Democrat's pro-crime policies. But blind voting along party lines is also a recipe for disastrous results. Where was the local media? Where were the local journalists and investigative reporters to dig into his past and tear down his web of lies before they spun out of control?

Americans reward liars because most of us are liars ourselves.

Over half of Americans lie on their resumes. Most people lie on dating apps, or to their pastors, teachers, spouses, parents, and grandparents. They lie to and about their children. We tell an average of two to three lies every ten minutes.

England psychologist Richard Gramzow co-authored a study that concluded college students who embellish their GPA in interviews showed a greater increase in academic performance. "Exaggerators tend to be more confident and have higher goals for achievement," Gramzow said.

Let's call a spade a spade. When he says "exaggerators", he means "liars". And many of these lying college students he is enabling become tomorrow's CEOs and policymakers.

The cultural decay we see is partly due to the collection of little lies we tell every day. The more lies we tell, even seemingly insignificant ones, the more we desensitize and adapt our brains to the dopamine rush of lying.

University of Pennslyvania professor and Ph.D. Angela Duckworth (I hope she's telling the truth about that) describes the dangers of telling incessant falsehoods:

"Repeated dishonesty is a bit like a perfume you apply over and over. At first, you easily detect its distinctive scent each time you spritz. But with every application, you can no longer smell it as well, so you apply more liberally. Similarly, our emotional response to our own acts of dishonesty is initially strong but decreases over time."

George Santos, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Kamala Harris, Ron DeSantis, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Kevin McCarthy, Ben Shapiro, Cenk Uygur, Gavin Newsome, and Al Sharpton are all relevant political figures today because American citizens did not/do not hold them accountable for their lies.

We are comfortable with our political elites lying to us because we have become cozy with the idea that our little white lies are innocent and harmless.

Before we point fingers at George Santos from New York, we should address the George Santos in our bathroom mirrors.