George Santos is the biggest political embarassment to the Republican Party since Donald Trump. Or Marjorie Taylor Green. Or Matt Gaetz. Or Lauren Boebert. The possible exception to that is Solomon Pena, in New Mexico, but not that many people know who he is, yet.
A Litany of Wrong
I am old enough to remember a Republican party that touted itself as the party of "family values." I can still see images of a fat-faced, big-bellied Jerry Falwell making moral declarations about siding with Republican "values," even though it was just as hypocritical then as it would be now, especially knowing what is going on in the Falwell empire these days. Would Republicans of the past be horrified and scandalized by what some of the leaders they now uphold have done, and continue to do with their lives? But they'd do a good job of pretending.
So yeah, Democrats had to deal with the saga of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Being a political party, not a moralizing religious denomination, meant that the President's private business could be separated from his politics, but Republicans wouldn't let that alone, made a big deal out of it, turned it into a reason to impeach, which they had been looking for since the day he moved into the White House, and tried to use it to their political advantage. It's possible, given how close the 2000 election turned out to be, that they were able to use that to turn just enough of an advantage to claim the White House. But against the backdrop of what has developed in the GOP since then, what President Clinton did was no big deal.
And it has been fun to watch him, time after time, smack them down and come out ahead of them at every turn.
Compared to Republicans, in the area of moral deportment and family values, the private lives of most Democratic politicians, especially in Washington, are incomparably more self-disciplined and moral than the Republicans have put out since the Clinton era. Human nature is what it is. But for a political party that gets compared to the other one in terms of how many of its members are church-going Christians and advocates of "family values," Democrats have exhibited a very high level of morality, compared to the scum-buckets produced by Republicans. I'm not aware of any Democrat who asked one of his associates to pick up teenaged girls for him.
Sure, there are some Democrats whose lives are not lived according to the moral principles outlined in Christian doctrine. But they don't claim to be Christian, which is fine, since there is no religious test required for anyone to participate in government, at least, not legally. But the George Santos scandal, hot on the heels of the single most corrupt and immoral Presidency in history, one for whom many so-called Christian leaders also claimed the moral high ground, is making even some of the bad, corrupt and immoral members of the Republican party look better than they should.
Suddenly, It Doesn't Seem to Matter any More
I haven't seen a lot of Republicans waving the "family values" banner lately. That would be impossible to do without looking like hypocrites up against their support of the worldly lifestyle proclaimed by Trump and that he worked so hard to identify with his character. They haven't really needed it, since many self-proclaimed Evangelical leaders have been so willing to ignore everything that directly contradicts what they preach to hold on to the one thing that Republicans do which they still find consistent with their values. They've grown quite comfortable with adultery and divorce, pathological lying and rank dishonesty and lack of integrity, insurrection, rioting and rebellion, sexual assault of underage girls, and now, in the case of Solomon Pena in New Mexico, attempted murder.
So their response to George Santos, a shrug, a dismissal of his total lack of character with the phrase, "Well, the people of his district elected him," and hoping the news cycle gets off his name in a few days is predictable. What else could a party that now hates family values do? They elevate politics and power above everything and something has to give, so they've sacrificed morality and ethics.
What Would Democrats do With Someone Like George Santos
That very likely depends on who was in charge in the House. If it was Nancy Pelosi, it wouldn't have gone this far. Someone else would have been running for that seat the moment it became known that he was a phony, no matter how late it was in the campaign cycle. If he had managed to get into the house before his scam was detected, she would have gone to him privately and put pressure on him to resign.
And if evidence is needed to support that contention, there's the case of Representative Katie Hill, a California Democrat who resigned after details of a complicated sexual scandal were revealed. While some colleagues defended her, which would be expected in a Democratic party that doesn't see details of one's personal life as connected to competence in governing, Speaker Pelosi insisted that her resignation was the right thing to do. The House Ethics Committee, under Democratic party control, was pursuing ethics violations.
It's no surprise to me that her most ardent defender in the House wasn't a fellow Democrat, but Matt Gaetz. His comment on twitter was, "Who among us would look look perfect if every ex leaked every photo/text." That's the new Republican line.
If Santos were a Democrat, he'd already be facing the ethics committee, not the softball throwing one that belongs to the GOP now, but a real ethics committee. He'd have to make his own way, without party assistance or endorsement. And the Democratic party leadership would be strongarming him into stepping down. That's quite a contrast to McCarthy, who is doing, well, absolutely nothing.
The Irony of It All
Rather than being the party of family values, the GOP is the party of rank hypocrisy. I've never believed that they were interested in anything more than the political value of the image of being the party of "family values" while they really weren't all that. Church membership and attendance, which isn't necessarily a measure of these things, though it should be, favors Democrats in this department more than Republicans. But Republicans stand against a lot of legislation that is family friendly, especially if it involves reducing the taxes of those who need it most, helping out with medical expenses, curbing gun violence or improving education.
On top of Trump's worldly corruption and immorality, which he openly made his trademark, and the barrage of his pathological lying, we now have George Santos and a new creature of the dark, Solomon Pena. I would be willing to bet that, with McCarthy in the speaker, new lows in Republican immorality are on the horizon.
Get the popcorn and pull up a chair. It should be a lot of fun.
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