George Santos used Congress to become the ultimate reality TV star

Despite going through 23 federal costs for a litany of crimes, together with the variety that contain stealing — wire fraud, bank card fraud, and aggravated identification theft — individuals, 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 individuals to pay extra well-known individuals, often of the reality tv or character actor selection, to report video messages for his or her private use. For a small price, you might ask Santos to inform your mother that you simply love her or “roast” certainly one of your pals. Santos initially charged $75 however, after severe demand, upped his worth to $400, in accordance to Cameo (Real Housewife of New York City Ramona Singer costs $125 per video). According to Semafor, Santos has made extra money in 4 days of Cameo appearances than he would have in a single 12 months ($174,000) as a member of Congress.

A person who’s going through doable jail time for theft and who acquired thrown out of Congress is now being given money, hand over fist, to be that ex-congressional, money-stealing grifter on digicam.

What is occurring? Is there no higher approach for individuals to use their wallets? Is inflation not an issue? Perhaps we’ve got an excessive amount of cash?

While we might by no means absolutely perceive what would compel an individual to ship Santos $200 of their hard-earned money, his remaining type as a Cameo star is a bit of simpler to clarify. Anyone who has adopted Bravo’s “Scandoval” or The Bachelor may level out that this man’s profession arc is that of a reality TV star. Those individuals, Santos’s Cameo cohort, go on TV with the goal of getting well-known sufficient to launch a enterprise, do social media influencing, or generate earnings by way of Cameo. Real Housewives Jen Shah and Teresa Giudice, like Santos, confronted federal costs and are doing or have served jail time.

The solely distinction between Bravo celebrities and Santos is that the latter’s reality TV present was Congress. Perhaps there’s no distinction in any respect.

“He’s obviously going to have to go on hiatus for a bit,” Vox senior politics reporter and Bravo watcher Christian Paz advised me, humoring me with TV converse. Paz and I sat down to focus on the man on everybody’s minds from our respective fields of experience — politics for him, reality TV for me. But as Paz explains, whereas Santos may seem to be an anomaly, certainly one of the finest methods to achieve authorities is to act like a reality TV star. It’s really designed that approach.

The dialog beneath has been edited for size and readability.

Christian, on the Jen Shah scale of jail time, how a lot jail time is George Santos presumably going through? Is it roughly 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 House Ethics report. George Santos remains to be beneath indictment and going through fairly extreme federal costs: wire fraud, identification theft, aggravated identification theft, mendacity to a federal workplace, cash laundering, and many others. Those are issues that individuals go to jail for for a very long time.

Wire fraud! Everything I learn about wire fraud is from Jen Shah. If you had a Venn diagram of crimes actual politicians do and crimes Real Housewives do, wire fraud is a kind of crimes the place there’s overlap.

I by no means thought we’d have federal costs towards a congressman due to OnlyFans subscriptions. Though there was the misuse of taxpayer funds that occurred with Aaron Schock, the congressman from Illinois, famously.

He made his complete workplace like Downton Abbey!

Exactly. We’ve had some scandalous/reality TV-adjacent scandals in the previous, however by no means as outright and simply brazen. And posting by means of it, as Santos is? In the final 10 years, politics basically has simply become rather more reality TV-esque.

I imply, what an ideal segue into what I need to discuss! There’s that saying, “Politics is Hollywood for ugly people.” I believe that the replace to that saying must be, “Politics is reality television.”

Yeah, I completely agree.

That politicians are ugly? [laughs]

No. That politics is reality TV!

Think of a few of the institutional limits in Congress. The approach that you simply get entry to higher committee positions, the approach that you simply get clout inside authorities, the approach to entry energy is thru displaying you can fundraise, displaying you have got the connections to individuals who will assist the social gathering long run, having an enormous donor base, and certainly one of the ways in which you are able to do that’s by getting consideration. The consideration economic system is the most necessary approach to get donor cash from the grassroots.

While George Santos is a really particular form of consideration seize that entails crimes, I believe this basic idea is kinda bipartisan. The approach AOC and “The Squad” are branded will get consideration. Sen. John Fetterman’s social media presence too. On the different facet of that, there’s Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert. Everyone’s on social media, and I believe it’s simply extra apparent now — succeeding in politics is getting well-known.

AOC and folk in The Squad have been in a position to use social media very successfully, early on. And you talked about this as a both-parties challenge — 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 in addition they need consideration. They need stuff past simply the conventional information protection. They need the invitations to the podcast. They need invitations to the discuss reveals, to the daytime discuss reveals. They need to be talked about on cable information. The priorities have a tendency to be to get consideration, particularly should you’re in the minority.

Because whenever you’re in the political minority, you don’t essentially have policy-making energy?

Especially in the House, you don’t have a number of energy whenever you’re in the minority. And that incentivizes cloud chasing — you realize, 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 once they have been in the minority too. In 2020, Republicans have been in the minority, they didn’t have a number of energy. And so what’s the various? It’s to get as a lot consideration as you’ll be able to.

You have these institutional frames that form of drive politicians to search for this consideration as a result of they don’t have political energy. And then the consideration will assist them as soon as they do get energy and are in a position to rise. But then the different factor is that, in more moderen years, it’s become 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.

When you don’t have a path to promotions inside the authorities, the subsequent neatest thing is fame.

I believe we’d be remiss in not mentioning that the mannequin for “reality television and politics are the same” was President Trump. A former reality tv star who grew to become president, proper?

Loads has been written and so much nonetheless stays to be written about the reality TV star turned president. A whole lot of consideration has additionally been paid by means of the political lens to, “Who is the next Trump? Who will succeed him?”

A giant a part of that fails to see the reality TV star facet. It’s not only a populist attraction. It’s additionally all the issues that include being a reality TV star that increase him, like the sense that he’s identical to you or that his supporters view him by means of the lens of fandom and never by means of the lens of a political motion. A whole lot of politicians and folks making an attempt to posture as “the next Trump” don’t have that.

I hold wrestling with the concept of politics being reality TV, one side specifically: Over the final decade and perhaps even longer, the complete concept behind reality TV and why individuals take part has shifted.

People go on reveals like The Bachelor or Drag Race, however successful isn’t essentially the finish aim. It’s good, certain, however increasingly more the aim of being on reality TV isn’t successful. The aim is to get as well-known as you’ll be able to, after which whenever you go away the present, get extra well-known and monetize that.

If you concentrate on George Santos, it looks as if — barring a jail sentence — that he’s basically embodied this mannequin. He’s pivoted in a approach that made him extra well-known and extra highly effective than he would have been had he gone by means of his profession as a congressman representing a district in New York.

The grift was the key to all of it. I completely see what you’re saying. He is making a living off Cameo now. Maybe it’ll be short-lived. But 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. At the root of it, it’s nonetheless cash from Americans going into George Santos’s pockets that he will get to hold.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

If politics is really reality TV, has the press protection modified in any respect? Is it nonetheless the similar?

The DC press capabilities very equally to Bravo blogs. I’ve written about this earlier than, like, the fascinating overlap in how popular culture protection has bled into political protection and protecting severe onerous information. The DC press loves to cowl something that’s remotely scandalous in any approach. And with all the profiles, all the following him round asking him questions, and all these memorable moments, in addition they helped to create this Santos persona.

Do you suppose politics is the finish aim anymore for any of those politicians? And has that ever been true? It’s not onerous to consider former politicians and press secretaries who get e-book offers, gigs on cable information, and other forms of contracts. Maybe these issues simply look completely different now.

In the previous, it used to be about getting on TV or getting on boards or getting soft consulting jobs on Okay Street.

But in the digital present period, generally politics isn’t actually what individuals are coming into politics for. There’s ideological causes for operating. But, for instance, what number of members of Congress have podcasts? There are so many extra choices in the leisure house to make a extra artistic profession by means of politics or after politics. And even the individuals round Trump, for instance, all of them both discovered e-book offers, rehabilitated themselves to become commentators on cable information or launched their very own podcasts.

There’s simply this ecosystem that makes it profitable for you to go into politics and never for politics’ sake. And what we’re seeing now’s a number of it’s drifting right into a purely leisure course.

If there’s a parallel to that, it’s what number of Real Housewives have bizarre facet companies. And wire fraud!

A e-book deal for a politician is sort of a Housewife promoting a candle or athletic put on. But George Santos acquired caught, whereas there are such a lot of people who’re and can get away with it. And they’ll be round for one more season.

As somebody who covers politics, is that this flip actually miserable to you? Or has politics at all times been like this?

It’s positively been a reality. But it’s miserable in the sense that I’m firmly in the camp that’s making an attempt to shield democracy and get individuals to imagine in the system.

These sorts of grifts delegitimize the complete establishment. It reminds people that there’s a large class divide in America. And that’s a kind of issues that at all times turns into obvious once we see cash grifts in politics as a result of it’s typically individuals making an attempt to get out of no matter stratification they’re in due to class. That’s why you grift and steal cash to discover methods to higher your self. And you’re utilizing the public and the electoral system to do it.

You’re simply harming that system much more.