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As a congressman, George Santos won a wage of $174,000 a 12 months. However simply days after turning into the primary individual to be expelled from Congress in twenty years, he has already came upon a extra profitable calling: Cameo celebrity.
Cameo is a video platform that permits shoppers to pay celebrities of various ranges of notoriety to craft customized video messages for pals. Consistent with Semafor, Santos “initially underpriced his videos at a mere $75, a mistake he has since remedied.” Even after elevating his charge to between $200 and $300 in line with video, requests persisted to pour in. Santos, stories Semafor, is already on the right track to generate profits that “dwarfs” his congressional wage. Cameo’s CEO says the previous congressman seems like he will be an “absolute whale” on a platform the place celebrities now and again make hundreds of thousands of greenbacks.
Santos should be held to account by means of being overlooked, no longer being paid to be a clown.
That the scandal-plagued Santos is already thriving financially inside per week of his expulsion is form of humorous, however most commonly it’s a tragic remark about our society. Out of doors the prison procedure, Santos should be held to account by means of being overlooked, no longer being paid to be a clown.
A great deal of the cash flowing towards Santos at the moment — perhaps virtually it all — is ironic in goal. Left-of-center individuals are prompting Santos to ship heat messages of convenience to their pals, delighting within the alternative to poke amusing on the second-most-brazen fabulist of the Trump generation, crowned handiest by means of Trump himself. And it additionally allows other people to in short revel within the nihilistic undercurrents of our political second. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., paid over $300 (the use of marketing campaign price range) for a Santos video to troll Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., over his bribery fees: “You stand your ground, sir, and don’t get bogged down by all the haters out there.” (Santos later stated he didn’t know the video was once for Menendez.) A liberal vote casting rights activist paid Santos to riff on a Taylor Swift music and posted it on X. Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt posted a Santos Cameo video from a chum that inspired her to face by means of her “convictions.”
It’s no longer exhausting to peer the temptation of those movies. Santos was once an unrepentant huckster, however he was once an a laugh one. The sheer quantity and audacity of his fabrications, coupled with an unwavering refusal to recognize wrongdoing, made him an strange spectacle on Capitol Hill. Each absurd new allegation of misconduct generated social media buzz, from stories that he stole cash from a in all probability nonexistent rescue puppy charity to the Space Ethics Committee’s findings that he spent marketing campaign price range on Botox, high-end outlets and Handiest Lovers. And in contrast to his position fashion Donald Trump, he was once too ineffectual to be sinister. Whilst Trump was once an influential figurehead of authoritarian white nationalism within the White Space, Santos’ handiest reason appeared to be insisting that he deserved to be someplace he didn’t, and he were given not anything accomplished in Congress aside from for ludicrous information meetings.
Nonetheless, it’s something to deride Santos. It’s any other factor to pay him to stay the display going. Santos was once politically impotent, however that doesn’t imply his misdeeds have been trivial or victimless. Even ahead of getting into Congress, Santos allegedly cheated blameless other people out of hundreds of greenbacks. He defrauded the general public by means of making it into Congress via a closely fabricated resume and lies about his identification. And he’s now dealing with 23 criminal fees, together with identification robbery, twine fraud, stealing unemployment advantages, mendacity to election officers and defrauding donors.
Santos’ Cameo superstardom will lend a hand pay this swindler’s prison charges. In addition they have the impact of rehabilitating his symbol, making him appear to be a goofy man who tousled, and obscuring his true identification as a grifter with not anything however spite for the general public hobby. That during flip will make it more straightforward for him to pursue any other lifestyles on fact TV, signal profitable offers for a guide contract, or get picked up as a media commentator.
Santos’ former communications director described him as “someone who was more interested in being a celebrity” than a lawmaker. At this time Santos is getting precisely what he needs. The worst punishment shall we give him is solely to forget about him.