George Santos is the ‘Jew-ish’ Rachel Dolezal we all deserve
Ian Haworth
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You may remember Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who built her career on pretending to be black and was then outed by her two white parents and became a “transracial” woman who identified “mentally, emotionally, physically and culturally as black” — whatever that means.
Well, the GOP now has its own Dolezal.
PRESSURE BUILDS ON SANTOS: REPUBLICAN DEMANDS INVESTIGATION INTO GOP COLLEAGUE’S FALSEHOODS
This November, Republican George Santos beat Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman to represent the 3rd Congressional District of New York in Washington, D.C.
The only problem? Santos is apparently guilty of flogging the most creatively misleading (i.e. false) resume since the Biden administration insisted that everyone call the first lady “Dr. Jill.”
According to Santos’s campaign, he worked with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. In reality, he worked for a company that worked with these two firms. Based on Santos’s transitive property of employment, I am happy to announce that I am a NASA astronaut.
Santos also lied about his educational nonprowess, having initially claimed that he had degrees from New York University and Baruch College. The truth? He never graduated from any college. Not even Boston University — an institution that happily handed an economics degree to the economically illiterate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
And then there’s Santos’s piece de resistance of nonsense: that he’s Jewish.
According to his campaign website, Santos said he had a Jewish mother and that his grandparents fled from the Nazis. But it turns out that Santos is Catholic and his Jewish heritage was based on his grandmother, who was born in Brazil, telling stories about being Jewish before she became a Catholic.
“I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish,'” the New York Republican said.
Oh, Jew-ish! Our mistake, I guess.
How strange that Santos called himself a “proud American Jew,” rather than a proud-ish American-ish Jew-ish!
Setting aside what will obviously be labeled as Jewish privilege by the Kanye Wests of the world in that faking Jewishness could be seen as providing a political advantage in New York, the real problem here is not that a politician lied, but that he was essentially rewarded for lying.
It honestly seems like everything about Santos is a lie. Even his sexuality is questionable: He was lauded as the first openly gay non-incumbent GOP member to be elected to the House despite having married a woman in 2012. Maybe he’s gay-ish?
But how is it possible that someone can lie so boldly and make it to the steps of Congress? Well, it’s because we let them.
Santos’s lies might be more obvious than usual, but are they fundamentally different from those told by every other politician?
What’s the difference between Santos lying about working for Goldman Sachs and any one of President Joe Biden’s abject falsehoods? What about educational background — another favorite topic of revisionism for the president?
And it’s hardly the first time someone has lazily piggy-backed on identity politics to give themselves an advantage in an election. Don’t forget that Ocasio-Cortez once said that she “sensed” her own Jewish heritage. Or that Sen. Elizabeth Warren tried to claim Native American ancestry.
Politicians will continue to lie as long as we allow them to. And if we are willing to elect figures such as Santos, whose lies could have been uncovered with a few emails and a basic Google search, then we are getting exactly what we deserve.
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Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) is the host of Off Limits with Ian Haworth.