Calling for 34-year-old Rep.George Santos’ (R-N.Y.) resignation, House Democrats try to pressure House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-N.Y.), hoping to pick up one more seat in Congress. Santos fabricated or exaggerated parts of his background, annoying both Democrats and Republicans but could not stop Sanstos from getting sworn in Jan. 5, along with other 222 Republicans in the House. When you consider Santos latch-key background, immigrating from Brazil, raised by a single mother, learning the language and competing in the American school of hard knocks, it’s remarkable he’s still alive let alone a member of Congress. Santos is a classic case of fake-in-till-you-make it, a kind of immigrant success story, despite the factual inaccuracies about his educational and work histories. At the same time, many politicians, including the current White House occupant, has made up plenty of stories.
President Joe Biden, 80, did not graduate in the top of his Syracuse Law School class, more at the bottom. Biden did not march with the late Nelson Mandela to end apartheid in South Africa but often tells people he did. When Joe visited South Africa in the 1980s, Mandela was serving 25-year sentence in Robben Island prison. Yet Biden, while running for president in 2020, touted his time spent with Mandela. Many other Democrat and Republicans elected officials have fabricated or made up parts of their resumes, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She once told a 2016 campaign audience, while First Lady in 1978, her helicopter was strafed with bullets entering Sarajevo during the Bosnian-Serbian War. Santos exaggerated more because he came from a poor background without to much excitement other than making ends meet.
Growing up in poverty with high ambitions can create an Imposter Syndrome, where a struggling person starts to believe their own fiction, regardless of how preposterous or exaggerated. So, before Democrats condemn Santos with so much venom they need to consider his upbringing, recognize that his constituents did voter for him due to his resume but because they liked his positive message and persona. “I haven’t even introduced my self to him because it’s pretty despicable lies that he told,” said Republican James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. “But at at the end of the day, it’s not to me or any other member of Congress to determine whether he could be kicked out for lying. Now if he broke campaign finance laws, then he will be removed from Congress,” Comer said. Some Democrats already complained how Santos lent his campaign $705,000.
As Comer said, its investigators can’t account for the $705,000 personal loan to his campaign, then appropriates steps can be taken to verify whether any campaign finance laws were broken. In the meantime, as Comer said, it’s up of Santo’s constituents to decide what, if anything, to do about his fabricated resume. “He’s a bad guy. This is something that—it’s really bad. He’s not the first politician, unfortunately, to make it in Congress, to lie,” Comer said, letting the press know that Republicans are also concerned about his fabrications. Comer, as many other members of Congress, know nothing about an Imposter Syndrome, where an individual believes his own fiction, becomes so much a part of his personality that he can’t detect lies from the truth. So, when it comes to someone dealing with Santos, elected officials must at least consider how Imposter Syndrome affects Santos reality.
Most liberal media outlets want Santos out so they can run another Democrat for the seat. But the problem is more complicated that just spreading lies on a resume but considering the whole package. “He’s going to be under strict ethics investigations, no necessarily for lying but for his campaign finance potential violations,” said Comer. Comer wanted the press to know that it’s not up to members of Congress to correct his biography for the record. That’s up to historians and other investigators that want to get the record straight. “So I think that Santos is being examined thoroughly. It his decision whether or not he should resign, It’s not my decision. But certainly I don’t approve of how he made his way to Congress,” Comer said. Democrats and members of the press see an opportunity for another Democrat to step into Santos seat, one less seat to make up in the 2024 election.
Members of Congress and the press need to look into the Imposter Syndrome before they try to tar-and-feather 34-year-old Rep. George Santos. His story defies all the odds, growing up in poverty, but, more importantly, not having the opportunity or money to go a normal path through the education or work systems. Santo told people his mother worked her way up from the bottom to become a corporate executive, part of his fiction to bolster his damaged self-esteem. All accounts show his mother, who brought him from City of God, a slum outside Rio de Janeiro, to Queens worked as a domestic help. Whatever Santos had to tell himself to keep from giving up, he managed, in spite of the odds, to succeed by developing his Imposter Syndrome. Members of Congress and the press need to cut him some slack in what constitutes one of the remarkable immigrant stories in U.S. history. Whether he violated campaign finance laws is another story. Before that’s determined, he’s a member of Congress..
About the Author.
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
