Why serial liar congressman George Santos refuses to give up: ‘Reality nonetheless issues’

At different occasions he might be seen dashing via the halls of the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers do, from one assembly to the following. He as soon as handed out doughnuts to the press corps staking out his workplace.

Removed from being chastened by the widespread criticism, mockery and rejection that Santos has acquired after having admitted to fabricating many points of his life story, the newly elected congressman is breezily carrying on in Congress. He’s refusing requires his resignation all whereas rewriting the narrative in actual time.

For Santos, it’s an uncommon up-is-down method that will have been virtually unthinkable in an earlier technology however one which indicators the brand new norms taking maintain amid the deepening of a post-truth period in Congress.

“I used to be elected by the folks to come back right here to characterize them, and I do this day by day,” Santos informed The Related Press in a quick interview off the Home flooring.

“It’s a tough job. If I mentioned it was simple, I’d be mendacity to you — and I don’t suppose that’s what we wish, proper?”

Pressed in regards to the thought of a post-truth period, Santos mentioned, “I feel reality nonetheless issues very a lot.”

Maybe not since Donald Trump launched his presidency with exaggerated claims of the gang measurement at his inauguration has an elected official arrived in Washington and sought so openly and defiantly to persuade the general public of actuality totally different than the one earlier than their very eyes.

Santos is coming of political age at a time of an unmooring in civic life, when a duly-sworn member of the U.S. Congress can persevere, enterprise as common, regardless of having admittedly lied to voters about his resume, expertise and private life as he ran for elected workplace.

Whereas Santos faces a crush of investigations — by the Home Ethics Committee and a county prosecutor in New York — in addition to questions from earlier costs in Brazil, the place he lived for a time, he seems unmoved by the challenges.

Only a few days in the past, Santos filed paperwork to doubtlessly search reelection.

“It was once that when a politician lied, they usually received caught, they have been ashamed — or there was some form of accountability,” mentioned Lee McIntyre, the writer of “Publish-Reality” and a analysis fellow at Boston College.

“What I see within the post-truth period isn’t just that persons are mendacity or mendacity extra, it’s that they’re mendacity with a political objective,” he mentioned. “The actually scary half is getting away with it.”

At stake isn’t just “truthiness,” as comic Stephen Colbert as soon as known as falsehoods in public life, however broader questions over the expectation of truth-telling from political management.

Santos has admitted he had portrayed himself as somebody he was not — not a school graduate, not a Wall Road whiz, not from a Jewish household of Holocaust survivors, not the son who misplaced his mom within the 9/11 World Commerce Middle assault.

Within the time since, extra questions have flowed, together with in regards to the origins of a $700,000 mortgage he made to his marketing campaign for Congress and his personal reported wealth.

Fellow Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York, a freshman who received election final fall from the neighboring Lengthy Island district, mentioned: “I don’t suppose it’s the state of politics. I feel it’s state of a person — and the state that he’s in is one in all delusion.”

D’Esposito has launched a pair of payments that will forestall elected officers from profiting off wrongdoing and mentioned he’s working with others to make sure Santos will not be “the face of our celebration. We’ve made it very clear. He’s not our model. He’s not a part of us.”

Whereas Santos did take away himself from his committee assignments whereas the investigations are underway, he has withstood the strain from Republicans to resign and from Democrats to be expelled from workplace.

Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who received a slim Republican majority with only a few seats to spare, has mentioned the voters elected Santos and “he has a proper to serve.” If wrongdoing is discovered, Santos could possibly be faraway from workplace, he mentioned.

“He ought to have resigned a very long time in the past,” mentioned Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Democratic president of the freshman class who sponsored the decision to expel Santos.

“This isn’t simply Democrats saying this and his Republican colleagues in New York,” Garcia mentioned in an interview. “No person needs him in D.C.”

However Santos seems emboldened as his profile has risen, even being parodied on “Saturday Night time Stay.” He has launched his personal payments in Congress — together with one to require cognitive assessments for presidents — and is attempting to maneuver on.

“I’ve owned as much as it, and I got here clear on it,” he mentioned referring to the general public apologies he made in December.

When President Joe Biden arrived to ship the State of the Union handle final month, Santos infuriated colleagues by situating himself on the middle aisle — the place to see and be seen greeting the high-profile friends. He was scolded by fellow Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who mentioned it was improper for Santos to be “parading in entrance of the president” and others.

“Senator Romney simply echoed one thing I heard my whole life, proper, coming from a minority group, coming from a poor household: Go to the again room and shut up. No person cares to listen to about you,” Santos recalled. “Effectively, I’m not going to do this.”

Santos usually turns the tables, participating within the whataboutism that has grow to be commonplace in fashionable politics — the verbal somersault of equating one’s actions with these of others, even when they don’t seem to be fairly comparable conditions.

“You realize,” Santos mentioned, “have you ever ever not informed a lie? Suppose exhausting.”

It’s what McIntyre calls a basic “disinformation tactic” designed to not convey readability however confusion, and keep away from accountability.

Requested if he was right here to remain, Santos mentioned, “I’m right here to do the job I used to be elected to do for the following two years.”

However will he run for reelection? “Perhaps.”