Although reporters and commentators are doing a fine job cataloging the individual falsehoods that enabled George Santos’s election to the U.S. Congress, few are looking at the bigger picture.  

Politicians have dissembled since the dawn of democracy.  But that dissembling occurred within the limits of what might be called a “zone of acceptable untruth.”  Various factors have served to define that zone:  the probability of getting caught, where the untruth lay on the continuum between objective facts and subjective opinion, whether the dissembling was closer to “little white lie” or preposterous fabrication, the importance of the subject, the consequences of the lie, and the extent to which those in power would excuse and enable the liar, or cut him (usually) off for crossing a line.   

The boundaries of this zone have waxed and waned over time.  During wars, for example, when victory is widely seen as trumping all other goals, gross deception by those in charge has been accepted if seen as serving that goal.    But in 2016 the constraints of the zone of acceptable untruth collapsed altogether, resulting in political dissembling that exceeded even that seen in time of war.   The pathological narcissist, uninterested in the truth even as a starting point of reference, said only those things that would get him what he wanted and would make him look good in the moment.   He lied when he was virtually certain to get caught and the facts in dispute were objectively determinable.  His fibs were often preposterous and they included some of the most consequential lies told in the history of the world.   And what happened?  Those in a position to constrain him allowed him to cross a line that had never before been crossed and his base of popular support rewarded him with continued loyalty.  Other politicians hastened to copy his example by saying whatever they needed to say to win, however preposterous or morally odious.

Mr. Santos took it all one step further.   He did not merely pad his resume or exaggerate.   He simply ignored his own biography and substituted one engineered from the ground up to win.   The district has lots of Jews?  Well then, better make my ancestors Jewish, why not holocaust survivors while we’re at it, and then the brilliant stroke of harvesting some additional sympathy votes by having them come from Ukraine.   My district has lots of small business owners and a powerful real estate industry, so I’d better make myself one of them and own a few rental properties so I can show that I know their pain.   Even animal enthusiasts got a line item on his resume – founder of a pet charity.  And then there are the old establishment Republicans, who are impressed by a good education and the validation provided by the big job.  So why not NYU (and/or Baruch, he couldn’t get it straight) and the most prestigious early career jobs he could think of, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup?  And there it is, the whole package – family, education, and job experience - created from scratch in order to win, and not a word of it true.   When the GOP suspected that his whole persona was a fraud, did they balk?  No.  And the Christian nationalist base that is essential to GOP fortunes, who would require the Ten Commandments to be hung in every courtroom and whose Bible says a lying tongue is one of the abominations most hated by God?  Silence.

I’m afraid that a future historian will see this as a turning point, after which at least one of the parties no longer finds candidates, but creates them.   The lies will come to light, they will be objectively untrue, they will be offensive and often preposterous, but will do the job of winning.   Will this, which in turn relies on a silenced press and un-educated and gullible public, precipitate a negative feedback loop that spirals the culture as a whole into the abyss?   George Santos is a nothing, but if he gets away with it, it could mean everything.