The Corsair
Why George Santos Is Still in Congress
Today Baruch College denied knowledge of any George Santos ever having been a star volleyball player, a claim he made during the vetting process in his run for Congress. In retrospect, Santos doesn’t really look like the volleyball type.
One of the many despicable aspects of last week’s rolling Congressional dumpster fire was that Kevin McCarthy had to rely on the vote of George Santos, who has no business in the United States Congress, in order to achieve his ring of power. Kevin finally achieved his dream of the Speakersip, with the help of Santos, but at what cost to our already fragile democracy? Writes Jeet Heer at The Nation:
The Freedom Caucus’s humiliation of McCarthy was driven by the same insurrectionist spirit—and often the same planners—as the January 6 aborted coup. As journalist Adele Stan noted in a blog post, Steve Bannon has played a prominent role in advising Freedom Caucus holdouts such as Gaetz. Stan’s analysis parallels reporting by Grid and Yahoo! News showing that the Freedom Caucus’s strategy was developed in close cooperation with the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), a MAGA think tank headed by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint. Meadows was one of the key architects of the January 6 coup. Steve Reilly and Maggie Stevens of Grid report that activists such as Ed Corrigan presented at CPI a strategy of hobbling McCarthy’s bid to become speaker with a view toward allowing the Freedom Caucus to function like a European-style coalition partner independent of GOP leadership. Reilly and Stevens report, “The strategy outlined by Corrigan went beyond just extracting concessions from House leaders—it amounted to a game plan for the House Freedom Caucus to operate as a third party in a de facto parliamentary system, essentially co-governing the chamber with mainstream Republicans.”
This is, of course, chilling on an infinite number of levels. To even the casual observer, the United States House of Representatives is already beginning to resemble a European — or even Israeli — Parliament.
And the Freedom Caucus looks not entirely dissimilar to the demographically-obsessed far right parties in the Knesset that Binjamin Netanyahu looks to for coalition governments. But then the authoritarian far right — from Bannon to Netanyahu to Trump — have always been more about the demographic decline of whites and the fading of privilege more than anything else. Which, curiously enough in this post, leads us right up to the Nassau County-Queens border …
Why is it so hard for Kevin to simply do the will of the Nassau Republican Party? Long Island Republicans, arguably, got the Republicans into the Majority in the House of Representatives. Long Island Republicans in any other political climate would be the VIPs of the party. The Freedom Caucus disagrees.
And McCarthy is only offering a smack on the wrist in response to Long Island Republican leaders calling for the resignation of Santos. Today Kevin publicly assured us that Santos won’t serve on any “key” Congressional Committees. That is not quite what Long Island Republican leaders asked of him, though. Further, why is there any debate of Santos serving on any Committee at all? George Santos should not be in Congress. George Santos is not merely a fabulist, as some commentators have suggested in the last few weeks, attempting to minimize his culpability in lying to the voters in his district. He is, quite possibly, a sociopath — and evidence continues to mount. Everything he says is a lie, including “and” and “the.”
But it is interesting for sure that the Nassau County Republican Party is speaking out at this moment. The Nassau County GOP -- suburban Republicans within a blue state -- are already clearly feeling the heat. Their brand spanking new gerrymandered district is at risk. Kevin can't, however, worry about drinking a Long Island Merlot with those leaders in the Hamptons because he is now deep, deep in with the Freedom Caucus in order to continue living his best life as Speaker of the House. Kevin’s ambition may have exceeded his grasp — but just … not … yet.
The destiny of George Santos, liar and bigot, is, in many ways tied to that of Kevin McCarthy. Because aside from being in deep with the Freedom Caucus, Kevin has a razor-thin majority. Santos, in his severely damaged political state, is Kevin’s yes-man, his permanent, unquestioning yes-vote. Santos is a little bit of a shelter from the storm for Kevin. He is something that Kevin never has to worry about. Santos will be a bulwark against Hakeem Jeffries on the one side and the Matt “Punchy Face” Gaetzes on the other side — a small but not insignificant one. In fine, it is not in the Speaker’s interests to ask Santos to resign and let the Governor of New York — Democrat, Kathy Hochul — further hollow out his already hollow gavel. Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership will almost certainly be brief, but he’s clinging on to every second of his life’s ambition.
It is difficult to imagine a scenario where George Santos retains his seat for the entirety term. It is equally difficult to imagine a scenario where Santos resigns, or Kevin asks him to resign. Kevin will probably drop Santos’s supine body off at the door of the multiple investigators in America and Brazil to do his dirty work. This allows Kevin maximum time with the hollowed out gavel. That will ultimately do the trick, removing the problematic Santos from the chessboard after he has served his purpose as a temporary bulwark, without leaving any of his fingerprints on the isolated pawn.
Then and only then, after his brief Speakership is in the dustbin of History will he allow himself that long delayed, refreshing glass of Long Island Merlot with the boys.
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