George Santos Is the Low-Rent Con Artist the Modern GOP Deserves

He’s the low-rent con artist everyone’s talking about, and for Republicans, he’s the one we deserve.

I refer, of course, to George Santos, the Republican congressman-elect who recently was forced to admit to “embellishing” facts on his resume, including (but not limited to) his ancestry (he claimed to be Jewish…then later, “Jew-ish”), his job history (he claimed that he “worked directly" for Goldman Sachs), and his education (he claimed to have graduated from Baruch College and New York University).

Others have pointed out similarities to the 1999 movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which Tom Ripley (played by Matt Damon) assumes a false identity abroad. The film was set in 1958, long before Google made sussing out imposters dramatically easier. It’s worth contemplating why Santos got away with his ruse for so long.