By now, almost everyone has heard of the massive campaign of lies that Republican George Santos has built that has just been elected to a New York congressional seat.
In explaining himself in various ways and conversations, he seems to feel shame almost as much as the ugliness of the lies themselves.
Sadly, Santos is a child of both the disturbing and, indeed, dangerous state of affairs in our nation today.
A friend sent me a short cartoon version of Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
They convince the weavers that the clothes are the clothes of the emperor, when, however, there is nothing. They argue that only the foolish and pure cannot see the fabric in their work.
The only thing on anyone’s mind is what others think of them. There is no truth, there are only appearances – while one country boy walks without learning and tells the truth that he is a naked emperor.
This is what happens when people become immobile and lose the sense that there is something called reality, something bigger than themselves, of which they are a part.
A vital part of a child’s learning is learning that they are not the center of the world. That there are others, and they must know where the line ends and others and the outside world begin.
In traditional cultures, there are rites of passage where children formally become adults and assume the responsibilities of adults. But today in our nation, where the sense of objective right and wrong has largely disappeared, rituals exist and many children remain forever. They deny that the world is as it is, which they consider to be a greater thing to which all must suffer.
We see that culturally, economically, fiscally. I write all the time about the mind boggling debt piled up on the backs of American citizens. The fiscal role is realism. It means the numbers need to add up, and the debts are not incurred without clear ways to pay them off.
One analyst from the Institute for Policy Innovation calculates our national debt at nearly $600,000 for every American man, woman and child. This includes not only federal obligations in the order of some $30 trillion, but also debts in Social Security and Medicare built up from an insufficient tax base to meet the burdens in the coming years.
But what did this Congress do before ending its term? Pass another $1.7 trillion in giving.
The pipe will be returned, and this is said to be true.
On the cultural front, the US Supreme Court, now the US Congress — based on politics and arbitration — is an eternal institution called marriage. What wonder, a little later deciding that it is not necessary for a man and a woman to establish a marriage, now also who is a man and who is a woman is a personal decision?
So Santos is a man of our time. Why does he feel the need to submit to any “reality” other than what is happening in our culture at large?
What has Santos created more than the “1619 Project” which is a fictional American history?
Santos shows little shame, because shame comes with praise to be true, right and wrong. There is no shame in a culture where we make everything up.
Fortunately, there are many Americans who are not detached from the situation and see what is happening. But still many are afraid to tell the prince naked.
But how long can this widespread disconnection from things last?
Meanwhile, the unrepentant liar, George Santos, America’s awakened child, will be sworn in as a member of the US Congress.
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