You know there's something wrong with a congressman when they turn down committee assignments. Is that even a thing? George Anthony Devolder Santos has turned down his committee assignments after GOP leadership went to bat justifying him getting them, because he would like to not make waves until he settles all his issues.
That's amazingly optimistic. He has more issues than National Geographic. Are they going to get settled in a hot minute?
Like, take his treasurer situation. His treasurer just left. Like, just. Left. His campaign finance statement was filed with a new guy, but at least not the "new guy" whose consent was apparently forged. The new treasurer looks to be Andrew Olson. Hopefully that's a real guy, unlike some of Santos' donors, who may or may not be real people, and may or may not have donated money to his campaign.
That being said, I would not want to be his treasurer. And what we know of his actual funders, well, they are interesting. Like Andrew Intrader, who has also dumped money into the fight against progressive DA's, which is fun, because the people who are against progressive DAs all claim those people were put up by George Soros because of course they do. And it's true! And there is good reason for it. New approaches regarding fighting crime that are not based in nailing disadvantaged people to the fucking wall for accolades and calling it effective might get better results and be less harmful to the effected communities.
Obviously, I care more about the possibility that these ghost donors are some kind of influence op to buy old George, who likes money a little bit a lot. They could just be simple graft, but also could be representing foreign money for some purpose. It's clearly worth our time to know and rises to the sort of thing a relatively neutered FEC should look at.
The guy is endlessly weird, and his pathological lying seems almost funny (except that it extends, very pathologically, into his social life as well, apparently), but it certainly isn't because of what it says about our politics, and especially the politics of a certain political party. To his credit, he seems remarkably taciturn about his various woes and unravelling frauds, unlike a certain former president, who is lashing out in all directions on social media, not knowing from whence his first indictments will come. Santos doesn't know that, either, but at least he isn't being a whiny little turd about it.
But as to the GOP response? We have Elise Stefanik, letting us know the voters were to blame for voting for the person who deceived them. But how were they to know? And who helped sell them this bill of shoddy goods, Rep. Stefanik? And are you ready to have a chat about it?
Santos is a symptom, not the whole problem. Trump was a symptom, not the whole problem, too. The problem is dirty money, complacency, cowardice, and loyalty to party over any sense of duty or rectitude. And that certainly isn't getting settled over one election cycle.
UPDATE: Which leaves out this guy and the evolution of the current GOP--the increasingly nihilistic alt-right aspect. It's sinister that the NY Young Republicans more openly embrace Proud Boys and truck with white supremacy out in the open. How Santos (clearly a performative clod) serves that agenda remains to be seen. But being a gay Brazilian racist clusterfuck certainly is one spin on identity politics for lulz, isn't it?
