As Sen. Mitch McConnell noted, the GOP has fielded some awful candidates for 2022. I’ve seen plenty of mediocrities over the 50 years I’ve voted, but most were relatively harmless. At this moment in our country’s history, this time is surely different. And it is hard to imagine a more loathsome candidate than George Santos, who is running for Congress in the 3rd District.
Time was you could take the measure of a person by their bookshelves. Their interests, character and depth of knowledge was on display. Today, social media performs that function, but for the world to see. Who you follow is who you are. So, too, is who follows you.
So it’s Mr. Santos’ own Twitter timeline that marks him as someone not fit to hold public office anywhere, much less Washington. He would be an embarrassment to our district, as he engages in the same buffoonery as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the other members of the GOP’s lunatic fringe. Indeed, he relishes their support.
Ye shall be known by the company you keep.
Mr. Santos follows some deranged characters: J.D. Vance; conspiracy nut Dinesh D’Souza; Marjorie Taylor Greene herself; Blake Masters, who is running for Congress and has hired fake electors; as well as renowned demagogue Jack Posobiec, considered an antisemite and white supremacist by some. Add in Ryan Fournier, head of “Students for Trump,” who tweeted, “Joe Biden is not president. He’s #PedoHitler All HEIL THE PEDO LORD.”
Those “students” must have one hell of a future in front of them.
Mr. Santos lists his occupation as an “economist.” It doesn’t sound like it. Indeed, he tweeted:
“Due to reckless government spending, the housing market has gone up 16.5% or $89K in New York over the past two years. It’s time for change in DC!”
I know of no correlation of the federal budget to local housing prices, but there you have it.
Then he tweeted:
“The U.S. economy is officially in a recession because of Joe Biden’s reckless spending. In November, we must vote RED save our country and get our economy back on track.”
Well, no. First, spending is stimulative and can’t cause a recession, and real economists know we’re not in one. With this level of job creation, record low unemployment, industrial capacity utilization, etc., we can’t be.
Here’s a nice word salad:
“I am disturbed by reports of a raid of President Trump’s home, and I’m watching closely. A raid of Biden’s top opponent, while Hunter Biden walks free, would indicate a dangerous abuse of power. This would undermine the credibility of our FBI and violates the trust of voters.”
His take on education: Maybe we’ll use recess to burn books.
“Our classrooms have become indoctrination camps for our children. Recess has turned into a place where students learn the radical ideology of CRT. It is time to turn our classrooms back into a place of learning what is important.”
Supporting a GOP governor who sends migrants to his home city he wants to represent:
“Almost 1,000 Illegal Immigrants have been bused to New York from Texas. That is not an indictment on Texas, but on the Democrats doing Pelosi’s work. It is time to secure our border and the citizens of this great nation.”
A moment of Right Wing paranoia seized Mr. Santos when he tweeted:
“So Twitter just deleted my 19k followers! The censorship against conservatives is real please follow and share to fight back!”
Then it turned out it wasn’t real.
“Thank you all for the support! It seems there was a ‘glitch.’ We must always remain aware of any sign of speech censorship.”
Well, even paranoids have real enemies.
Mr. Santos’ characterization of Democrats being “anti-police radicals” is on the same moral level as antisemitism. Make your own judgment about his intellectual integrity.
Throughout his timeline, Mr. Santos, like his cohorts in his Party, has no policy solutions, only resentment, grievance, and bile.
Most damning of all, Mr. Santos was in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. According to Newsday, he “wrote a nice check” to a law firm to help pay legal bills of the insurrectionists. Now THAT’S an “anti-police radical.”
I don’t care what your politics are. If you want to send an infantile, cackling hyena like this to sully our district’s good name, I honestly don’t know what you’re looking for in a candidate.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
