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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.
It says a lot about our electoral system that Santos felt it necessary to lie about his wealth and education. There is an unspoken bar to elected office that involves not just projecting wealth but actually having it.
It's something I learned firsthand when I ran for office earlier this year in the Republican primary for Virginia's 10th congressional district. The local party and PAC system was nearly singularly focused on control and profit. This became clear to me as soon as I voiced my desire to run for Congress. I approached many people in the party for guidance but was regularly discouraged. When I ignored them and jumped in the race, the first thing I was asked was whether I knew it would cost me $7,000 just to get on the ballot. I did not, and I was shocked the party of small government and small business would require such a wealth barrier to the People's House.
Once I paid the barrier to enter, I reached out to my local county and district chair for guidance, but neither would take the time to sit down with me. I was running for office but they were more concerned about whether I could pay the fee than who I was and if I was qualified.
One of them criticized my campaign website because I designed it like a job resumé as opposed to a site designed to gather information and money; I wasn't doing a good enough job of "selling myself."
I worked in the Party for a year and it became increasingly clear what a miserable failure it was, not because of the people on the ground working their butts off knocking doors but because of the people above them who refused to listen.
The sad truth is that our political parties and elites recruit and support candidates based on their wealth or fundraising potential. As a result, candidates have three choices: They are entirely turned off by the racket, seduced into playing the game, or—as in Santos's case—they simply make things up.
To be clear, Santos misled voters and that should be disqualifying. And yet, he did so in a system that no longer really allows average Americans to compete for office in any systematic way. You've got to have money to get in the game, or be singularly focused on raising it. Santos's lies exposed a much deeper rot in our political system.
Why did George Santos lie and manipulate his way to office? He saw the opportunity to "sell himself" even if it wasn't him in a system that wouldn't give the real him a chance. Why did it take so long for him to be exposed? A broken political system that focuses too much on profit and control and too little on serving the people.
If you're a citizen concerned about the lack of accountability in our political environment and want it to change, there are very few ways for you to make real change. My recommendation would be to get involved in your local county and district parties. But if our political parties ever want to get back to representing the people instead of the elites, they need to focus less on profit and recruiting the wealthy and more time on opening the gates to a wider range of candidates.
Santos lied to voters. But he is a symptom of a much bigger problem than just his own dishonesty. And that problem desperately needs to be addressed.
Jeff Mayhugh is a former candidate for Virginia's 10th congressional district. He is a husband, father, small business entrepreneur. He is the author of the Politics and Parenting Substack and podcast.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
