George Santos Is a Symptom of a Political System That Only Lets in the Rich

In today's Republican Party, you can be openly gay and Hispanic. What you can't be is poor.

That's my takeaway from the news this week that Congressman-elect George Santos, the son of Brazilian immigrants and the first openly gay non-incumbent GOP candidate to win a House seat, lied about key parts of his resumé. Santos told voters he'd graduated from Baruch College and worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, fibs a New York Times investigation exposed, along with a history of eviction and debt. As Santos told The New York Post this week, "My sins here are embellishing my résumé. I'm sorry."

At the end of the day, Santos is responsible for his own sins, and in a decent world, he would resign or Republicans would refuse to seat him in January. But it's an even bigger problem that we have created a system that incentivizes—even requires—such lies for people of modest means to enter politics.