“The thing we have to be careful of, and I always caution myself on this, and I ran into this trouble with Trump, is we cannot mistake absurdity for lack of danger, because it takes people with no shame to do shameful things,” John Stewart, “The Problem With Jon Stewart.”
Donald Trump’s chief psychological characteristic is his shamelessness. There is no bottom as to what he might do to get what he wants, no limit to as what he would say to degrade an enemy. He is (in)famous on the New York party scene for pouring red wine down the backs of his female enemies. I grew up in New York in the 1980s, and borborygmic are Trump’s disgusting utterances, in the tabloids, during that era. He once called a famous actress a “six” and he once placed an item that his mistress raved of his sexual prowess while in the process of divorcing the mother of his children. In short, the man can only be properly construed under the category of semi-savage.
Trump’s shamelessness is also, strangely enough, why he was able to singularly dismantle the entire podium full of 2015 Republican Presidential candidates during the debates. One by one he broke the candidates because Trump is willing and able to say and do anything — anything — in order to win. Could “Little Marco” Rubio stoop to similar depths? Could Jeb Bush? Clearly not. Trump literally hosted a chat with some of Bill Clinton’s accusers of sexual misconduct immediately before a debate with Hillary Clinton!
The pendulum swings. Shamelessness on the level of Trump used to be a peculiar affliction, seen on full display rarely outside of maximum security prisons, in the days before reality television. It is no surprise that before becoming President Trump’s greatest success came as a Reality TV host on NBC. Now, with the advent of shows like “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Chrisley Knows Best,” shameless (and criminal) behavior is on the rise, in the zeitgeist, even. Overturning tables and tax fraud has become dramatic entertainment. Social media platforms have picked up the reality TV baton, kept the pace and continued to magnify and bless new, astonishing forms of shamelessness, like “viral fast food fights,” which are now actually a genre on YouTube. And within the Trump-infected Republican Party itself, shamelessness is no longer a deal breaker.
I am of course getting around to George Santos. Santos, a mediocre man in every way, a man without qualities, is now famous — or infamous, if that even matters anymore — with caricatures in The Economist and the attention of the late night monologists. Representative Santos would not be seated in Congress as well as on the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, if not for the boundary-breaking ascension of Trump to the highest office in the land. And what boundaries did Trump break? Let’s start with norms of financial propriety, in that he was the first Presidential candidate since Nixon to not publicly release his tax returns. He got away with this through sheer, audacious shamelessness. Trump, further, broke the norms on the veracity of Presidents, “misinforming” the commonweal tens of thousands of times during his (thankfully) brief term in office. There are, arguably, noble, Platonic lies but there are also damned, ignoble Trump lies.
Which leads us back to Congressman Santos. Trump’s financial improprieties and his damned, ignoble lies have paved the way to a new breed of shameless public officials. Matt Gaetz, who is being probed for sex trafficking, will continue to serve on (ironically) the Justice Committee; Lauren Boebert, who got into a “screaming” bathroom argument with Marjorie Taylor Greene, was awarded a seat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee; and Greene, who was stripped of her assignment seats two years ago because of promoting scurrilous conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism won seats on the Oversight and Homeland Security Committees. In fine, the Trump base of the Republican Party has become so degraded that it is no surprise that Santos was not only seated — despite Nassau County appeals for him to resign — but granted two Committee seats. Trump has Defined Deviancy Down.
Shameless behavior often leads to viral video moments. It is hard to turn away from dumpster fires. Congressman Santos —and it feels odd to write that — is already becoming a viral video fountainhead. He has not (yet) overturned tables, like Teresa Giuduice, but every day a new viral video exposing his utter shamelessness surfaces. He stole from a dying dog’s GoFundMe; he told a roommate he only wants to be in Congress to get free healthcare and apension for life; he is quoted as saying “I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and the son of a 9/11 survivor,” while he is neither. And those shameless moments, in turn, can lead to fame — of a sort — and, unfortunately, to money. Unfortunately, Congressman Santos may find the fame and fortune he seeks after through his lies. The line between infamy and fame is gradually thinning, and at the perfect time for Santos.
Finally, I have been asked why this issue — Santos and Shamelessness — features so prominently on this Substack. Surely there are weightier topics in Culture and Politics than George Santos’s latest, inevitable media eruption. To this I answer: New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which Santos represents, happens to be also my Mother’s. So this is personal as well as political. And for my mother and her friends in that gerrymandered district, I will continue to draw attention to and fight against that entirely Shameless fraud until at last he is no longer in office. The voters in the 3rd District deserve better.
“Or—billionaires being subject to experiential distortions most of us will never know—it may be that (Elon Musk) found infinite wealth uninteresting.” (Lili Loofbourow/Salon)
“A different explanation for the decline of news publishing is that, starting in the mid-2000s, Google and Facebook built market power in ad markets, directing revenue away from newspapers and towards themselves.” (Matt Stoller)
“The Tonight Show With Jay Leno died in 2014. For me, not a day too soon. At the end of Leno’s run, the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University analyzed the 44,000 jokes he told over the course of his time at the helm. While President Clinton was his top target, I was the only one in the top 10 who had not specifically chosen to be a public person.” (Monica Lewinsky/VF)
The Biden Administration’s Anti Asian violence initiative priorities are combating anti-Asian hate and discrimination, the disaggregation of data across the communities and better language access, according to the report. (NBCNews)
“Frustration among White House reporters with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is reaching a boiling point.” (Oliver Darcy/Reliable Sources)
“If James Cameron's film continues its weekly holds, it should surpass "Top Gun: Maverick" as the top domestic hit of 2022” (IndieWIRE)
“Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday accused the political and business elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, of prioritizing self-interest and short-term profits over people and the planet.” (CNBC)