George Santos’ name has been in the media frequently ever since he became a United States House Representative in 2022. Despite being in Congress for such little time, Santos has had a reputation for being one of the most scandalous politicians in recent American history. While on the campaign trail, Santos created a backstory of his life that was simply untrue, falsely stating that his mother was a 9/11 survivor –even though she wasn’t even in the United States on September 11th, 2001– and that he worked at both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, even though neither company has any record of that being true. He told his electorate that he was a student at Baruch College and New York University, but these schools also have no record of Santos’ claims being true. He even lied about matters of his personal identity, claiming to be Jewish, when he isn’t. When this was later exposed, he denied ever claiming to be Jewish, insisting that he actually said that he was “Jew-ish.” Naturally, the media had a frenzy with all of these lies and outrageous comments; articles and reports about the congressman drew attention easily because of their absurd nature.
Earlier this year –just when it seemed like George Santos’ name wasn’t being mentioned in the news quite as frequently– the congressman’s name made a resurgence in American media. In October, federal prosecutors filed a 23-count indictment, accusing Santos of making purchases on his donors’ credit cards, stealing their identities, and committing other crimes of that nature. Then, in late November, the House Ethics Committee issued a 56 page report alleging that the congressman used campaign donor’s money for unethical purposes. Santos supposedly spent campaign funds on botox, OnlyFans subscriptions, luxury goods, and all sorts of other personal expenses. In early December, Congress finally decided that they needed to hold themselves to a higher standard than the one Santos held himself to and voted to expel him from the House of Representatives, effectively stripping him of his political power and taking him out of the public light… or so they thought.
While most people in George Santos’ position would likely feel humiliated and live a life hidden from the public eye, Santos has used his expulsion from Congress to foster his own sense of fame. The former congressman has joined Cameo, a platform where influencers can sell short videos of them speaking to fans. Santos is currently selling these videos for $400 a piece, many of which have been shared online and have gone viral. Steven Galanis, the founder and CEO of Cameo, predicts that Santos “is going to be an absolute whale” on Cameo and that even in his short time on the platform he has made profits at rates similar to that of celebrities who use it, like Sarah Jessica Parker and Bon Jovi. Galanis has even stated that if Santos actually records and sells as many Cameos as he has been requested to, he could easily make a salary beyond the one he would have made as a congressman ($174,000). Santos confirmed to Semafor that he joined the platform for the economic opportunity, but also for his own personal reasons as well, stating that, “Obviously there’s a monetary benefit –I’m not here doing it for charity– but the other aspect is to remind these a**holes who think they’re holier-than-thou that they will be forgotten in history and I will live forever, period.”
Santos’ Cameos have been rather… interesting. The disgraced congressman with federal charges against him has taken to giving Cameo users life advice, telling one user to “live life, laugh, and let the haters hate because they’re always gonna hate” and another that “if you have haters, that means you’re doing something right, girl!” Beyond that, Santos appears to actively be making fun of the behavior that got him expelled from Congress in the first place. He started off one Cameo by saying, ““Hey Harper, I love that you are such a dedicated student at NYU, you know, my not-so-real MBA.” When preaching the importance of self-care in another Cameo, he claimed that “Botox keeps you young, fillers keep you plump, mwah!” clearly joking about the fact that he used campaign funds to purchase botox himself.
While Santos’ statements on Cameo have gone viral and admittedly can be quite humorous at times, they are also a painful reminder of just how absurd American politics have become. If you told any American prior to the 2016 election cycle what the state of our current political realities are, they’d think you were crazy. A lying congressman who has cheated the American people and stole from his donors in the process has gone viral; people are paying $400 each to receive a minute-long video message from him. Dr. Oz –a TV personality and advocate for believing in pseudoscience over science– came terribly close to becoming a United States Senator. A failed businessman turned TV personality became our president and went on to handle the aftermath of an insurrection that he incited with the advice of the My Pillow guy, Mike Lindell. After defending this president in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and making baseless claims of election fraud, former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, made an appearance on the TV show The Masked Singer dressed as a jack-in-the-box while singing Bad to the Bone. These statements about recent American politics sound like synopses from parody movies from the early 2000s, but sadly are all too real.
As outlandish as George Santos’ behavior has become, he is clearly just one example out of many of how ridiculous our politics have come to be. As a nation, we must seriously reconsider our political values and reevaluate how we choose candidates to represent us in government. If we don’t, our country will continue to be the laughing stock of the world.
