Regardless of going through 23 federal costs for a litany of crimes, together with the sort that contain stealing — wire fraud, bank card fraud, and aggravated id theft — folks, together with not less than one sitting US Senator, can’t give former Rep. George Santos cash quick sufficient.
Since his expulsion from Congress, Santos has discovered a house on Cameo, a service that enables common folks to pay extra well-known folks, often of the fact tv or character actor selection, to report video messages for his or her private use. For a small price, you possibly can ask Santos to inform your mother that you simply love her or “roast” one in every of your folks. Santos initially charged $75 however, after critical demand, upped his worth to $400, in response to Cameo (Actual Housewife of New York Metropolis Ramona Singer costs $125 per video). In line with Semafor, Santos has made extra money in 4 days of Cameo appearances than he would have in a single yr ($174,000) as a member of Congress.
A person who’s going through doable jail time for theft and who bought thrown out of Congress is now being given money, hand over fist, to be that ex-congressional, money-stealing grifter on digital camera.
What is occurring? Is there no higher method for folks to make use of their wallets? Is inflation not an issue? Maybe we’ve got an excessive amount of cash?
Whereas we might by no means totally perceive what would compel an individual to ship Santos $200 of their hard-earned money, his closing type as a Cameo star is somewhat simpler to clarify. Anybody who has adopted Bravo’s “Scandoval” or The Bachelor might level out that this man’s profession arc is that of a actuality TV star. These folks, Santos’s Cameo cohort, go on TV with the purpose of getting well-known sufficient to launch a enterprise, do social media influencing, or generate earnings by way of Cameo. Actual Housewives Jen Shah and Teresa Giudice, like Santos, confronted federal costs and are doing or have served jail time.
The one distinction between Bravo celebrities and Santos is that the latter’s actuality TV present was Congress. Maybe there’s no distinction in any respect.
“He’s clearly going to should go on hiatus for a bit,” Vox senior politics reporter and Bravo watcher Christian Paz advised me, humoring me with TV communicate. Paz and I sat down to debate the person on everybody’s minds from our respective fields of experience — politics for him, actuality TV for me. However as Paz explains, whereas Santos would possibly look like an anomaly, the most effective methods to reach authorities is to behave like a actuality TV star. It’s truly designed that method.
The dialog under has been edited for size and readability.
Christian, on the Jen Shah scale of jail time, how a lot jail time is George Santos probably going through? Is it kind of time than Jen Shah? [Editor’s note: Shah was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.]
He has the potential to serve much more time. The massive embarrassing stuff got here out from this ethics report, however that’s simply the Home Ethics report. George Santos remains to be below indictment and going through fairly extreme federal costs: wire fraud, id theft, aggravated id theft, mendacity to a federal workplace, cash laundering, and so on. These are issues that folks go to jail for for a very long time.
Wire fraud! All the things I find out about wire fraud is from Jen Shah. When you had a Venn diagram of crimes actual politicians do and crimes Actual Housewives do, wire fraud is a type of crimes the place there’s overlap.
I by no means thought we’d have federal costs towards a congressman due to OnlyFans subscriptions. Although there was the misuse of taxpayer funds that occurred with Aaron Schock, the congressman from Illinois, famously.
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He made his complete workplace like Downton Abbey!
Precisely. We’ve had some scandalous/actuality TV-adjacent scandals up to now, however by no means as outright and simply brazen. And posting by it, as Santos is? Within the final 10 years, politics normally has simply turn out to be far more actuality TV-esque.
I imply, what an ideal segue into what I wish to discuss! There’s that saying, “Politics is Hollywood for ugly folks.” I believe that the replace to that saying needs to be, “Politics is actuality tv.”
Yeah, I completely agree.
That politicians are ugly? [laughs]
No. That politics is actuality TV!
Consider a few of the institutional limits in Congress. The best way that you simply get entry to higher committee positions, the way in which that you simply get clout inside authorities, the way in which to entry energy is thru displaying you could fundraise, displaying you’ve got the connections to individuals who will assist the social gathering long run, having an enormous donor base, and one of many ways in which you are able to do that’s by getting consideration. The eye economic system is crucial option to get donor cash from the grassroots.
Whereas George Santos is a really particular form of consideration seize that entails crimes, I believe this normal idea is kinda bipartisan. The best way AOC and “The Squad” are branded will get consideration. Sen. John Fetterman’s social media presence too. On the opposite aspect of that, there’s Marjorie Taylor Inexperienced and Lauren Boebert. Everybody’s on social media, and I believe it’s simply extra apparent now — succeeding in politics is getting well-known.
AOC and people in The Squad had been ready to make use of social media very successfully, early on. And also you talked about this as a both-parties difficulty — it’s. I’ve lined many freshman courses that enter Congress, and the primary factor that they need is clearly to win their subsequent election, however additionally they need consideration. They need stuff past simply the normal information protection. They need the invitations to the podcast. They need invitations to the discuss exhibits, to the daytime discuss exhibits. They wish to be talked about on cable information. The priorities are usually to get consideration, particularly should you’re within the minority.
As a result of while you’re within the political minority, you don’t essentially have policy-making energy?
Particularly within the Home, you don’t have a number of energy while you’re within the minority. And that incentivizes cloud chasing — , little clips that go viral on TikTok, the interviews that get clipped from TV, cable information interviews that go viral on Twitter.
I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that you simply noticed a number of these right-wing social media influencer varieties come to prominence after they had been within the minority too. In 2020, Republicans had been within the minority, they didn’t have a number of energy. And so what’s the choice? It’s to get as a lot consideration as you’ll be able to.
You could have these institutional frames that form of power politicians to search for this consideration as a result of they don’t have political energy. After which the eye will assist them as soon as they do get energy and are capable of rise. However then the opposite factor is that, in newer years, it’s turn out to be more durable for politicians in each events to climb the ranks as a result of so many individuals keep in highly effective positions for thus lengthy.
While you don’t have a path to promotions throughout the authorities, the following smartest thing is fame.
I believe we’d be remiss in not mentioning that the mannequin for “actuality tv and politics are the identical” was President Trump. A former actuality tv star who grew to become president, proper?
Quite a bit has been written and quite a bit nonetheless stays to be written concerning the actuality TV star turned president. A whole lot of consideration has additionally been paid by the political lens to, “Who’s the following Trump? Who will succeed him?”
A giant a part of that fails to see the fact TV star aspect. It’s not only a populist enchantment. It’s additionally all of the issues that include being a actuality TV star that increase him, just like the sense that he’s identical to you or that his supporters view him by the lens of fandom and never by the lens of a political motion. A whole lot of politicians and folks attempting to posture as “the following Trump” don’t have that.
I maintain wrestling with the thought of politics being actuality TV, one facet particularly: Over the past decade and perhaps even longer, the entire concept behind actuality TV and why folks take part has shifted.
Folks go on exhibits like The Bachelor or Drag Race, however successful isn’t essentially the top aim. It’s good, positive, however an increasing number of the aim of being on actuality TV isn’t successful. The aim is to get as well-known as you’ll be able to, after which while you depart the present, get extra well-known and monetize that.
If you concentrate on George Santos, it looks like — barring a jail sentence — that he’s basically embodied this mannequin. He’s pivoted in a method that made him extra well-known and extra highly effective than he would have been had he gone by his profession as a congressman representing a district in New York.
The grift was the important thing to all of it. I completely see what you’re saying. He’s earning profits off Cameo now. Possibly it’ll be short-lived. However his stans are persevering with, and now we’ve got Democratic Senators utilizing donor cash to ship to George Santos to troll political rivals on Cameo. On the root of it, it’s nonetheless cash from Individuals going into George Santos’s pockets that he will get to maintain.
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If politics is really actuality TV, has the press protection modified in any respect? Is it nonetheless the identical?
The DC press features very equally to Bravo blogs. I’ve written about this earlier than, like, the attention-grabbing overlap in how popular culture protection has bled into political protection and protecting critical exhausting information. The DC press likes to cowl something that’s remotely scandalous in any method. And with all of the profiles, all the next him round asking him questions, and all these memorable moments, additionally they helped to create this Santos persona.
Do you suppose politics is the top aim anymore for any of those politicians? And has that ever been true? It’s not exhausting to think about former politicians and press secretaries who get ebook offers, gigs on cable information, and other forms of contracts. Possibly these issues simply look completely different now.
Prior to now, it was once about getting on TV or getting on boards or getting soft consulting jobs on Okay Avenue.
However within the digital present period, generally politics will not be actually what individuals are getting into politics for. There’s ideological causes for operating. However, for instance, what number of members of Congress have podcasts? There are such a lot of extra choices within the leisure house to make a extra inventive profession by politics or after politics. And even the folks round Trump, for instance, all of them both discovered ebook offers, rehabilitated themselves to turn out to be commentators on cable information or launched their very own podcasts.
There’s simply this ecosystem that makes it profitable so that you can go into politics and never for politics’ sake. And what we’re seeing now could be a number of it’s drifting right into a purely leisure course.
If there’s a parallel to that, it’s what number of Actual Housewives have bizarre aspect companies. And wire fraud!
A ebook deal for a politician is sort of a Housewife promoting a candle or athletic put on. However George Santos bought caught, whereas there are such a lot of people who’re and can get away with it. And so they’ll be round for an additional season.
As somebody who covers politics, is that this flip actually miserable to you? Or has politics all the time been like this?
It’s undoubtedly been a actuality. Nevertheless it’s miserable within the sense that I’m firmly within the camp that’s attempting to guard democracy and get folks to imagine within the system.
These sorts of grifts delegitimize the entire establishment. It reminds of us that there’s a big class divide in America. And that’s a type of issues that all the time turns into obvious after we see cash grifts in politics as a result of it’s usually folks attempting to get out of no matter stratification they’re in due to class. That’s why you grift and steal cash to search out methods to higher your self. And also you’re utilizing the general public and the electoral system to do it.
You’re simply harming that system much more.
