Perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever seen Republican congressmen do in my entire long life was vote to expel former U.S. Rep. George Santos (R.N.Y.) from his fellowship. It is not necessary to admire Santos’ character or excuse his swindling to recognize that he was no less worthy of his former office than many Democrats who remain in Congress.
Is Santos really more reprehensible than that black racist demagogue Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who, about a week before leaving for a pro-Hamas rally, managed to activate the fire alarm in a United States Capitol office building Joined? According to publicly released video of the incident, Bowman committed the criminal act quite deliberately and apparently did so to prevent the House from reaching an agreement on a temporary budget bill that would prevent a shutdown. Bowman was eager to achieve a shutdown to punish “racist” Republicans. He therefore acted in a blatantly criminal fashionendangering the lives of his colleagues.
Democrats are a serious and ruthless force that will break any rule or protect any wrongdoer to hold on and expand their power.
Of course, nothing happened to our black radical who raised the alarm except a slap on the wrist and a inconvenient censorship. When Republicans finally voted to censure him, they could only attract three Democrats. This came after Democrats spent weeks trying to block even minimal acknowledgment of Bowman’s outrageous behavior.
House Democrats also allowed their colleague Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to remain chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, even after revelations that Swalwell was having an affair with a Chinese spy. Democrats have also more recently blocked any attempt to discipline Swalwell for his misconduct.
Were Santos’ actions so uniquely disgraceful that they surpassed the sordid behavior of many of his colleagues, like Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is just one of our morally compromised Democratic soloists? Charlie Kirk has dedicated a recent podcast to the timely topic of “why expelling the clown George Santos is dumber than usual for Republicans.”
Self-destructive justice
These activities may be driven in part by the need to overcompensate for the way the media portrays Republican politicians, namely as narrow-minded, ultra-partisan right-wingers. This can lead Republicans to periodically engage in unseemly virtue signaling. and constant chattering about finding “common ground” with the left. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine has mocked the 105 Republican congressmen who “were deceived by moral vanity” and cut their own throats.
While I wouldn’t discount Trump’s vanity or verbal intemperance, it is to his credit that, unlike most Republicans in Congress, this populist hero does not indulge in self-destructive justice.
I won’t hold my breath until Democrats start getting rid of their own clowns in a spasm of moral righteousness or disarming media critics. Democrats are a serious and ruthless force that will break any rule or shield any wrongdoer to latch onto and expand his power. I may hate their politics, but I deeply admire their relentless pursuit of what they want.
Democrats could easily get rid of Bowman, Menendez and other criminals in their party without risking seats. These tarnished politicians could easily be replaced by their ideological and even ethnic or gender counterparts. But why make such concessions from your position of power? Let the other side fall on his sword. Democrats don’t act like that.
What they did to Santos was the height of madness for the Republicans. The Long Island district he represented, primarily in Nassau County, will almost certainly return to Democrats. Meanwhile, the slim majority the GOP now has in the House will become even slimmer. Since former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has already announced who plans to leave at the end of the year, this will reduce the Republican vote margin to just three. If Republicans now have trouble trying to assert their will in a predominantly Democratic Congress, try doing so with an even narrower majority.
What was Santos for?
It’s truly surprising that the 105 morally vain Republicans who voted to unseat Santos didn’t more deliberately reflect on the continued value of the person they were abandoning. As Devine reminds us, Santos “had the most conservative voting record of the entire New York delegation.” Too bad he was thrown to the wolves, with the approval of his less conservative colleagues in New York.
The only silver lining here is that 112 Republican members of Congress voted against Santos’ ouster. One of the most outspoken “no” votes came from Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who believed Santos’ ouster “goes against the principles of our institutions.” Donalds may have been referring to the shameful fact that Congress, including his Republican colleagues, voted to expel a member who has not yet been convicted in a court of law.
This further underscores the recklessness of the Republicans who voted to overthrow Santos. They took selective action against a conservative-voting Republican congressman who has consistently aligned himself with his party’s slim majority. Furthermore, they chose to expel Santos even before he was tried and formally found guilty of any crime. What a shame such a moral stance!
