Mr. Diva Goes to Washington

The diva from Queens has departed. George Santos was expelled from Congress on Friday. Not even a year into his term. 11 months of lies and stunts. He teased this last week with an ominous, cryptic threat.

What does Chapter II entail? God only knows. Undoubtedly a memoir. A talk show on Fox. There’s the definitely real, forthcoming HBO movie based on The Fabulist —the recent book about Santos’s zeitgesty rise. Or maybe he’ll run for President.

Let’s reflect on Santos, the first openly gay elected to Congress as a non-incumbent Republican, according to Wikipedia. He’s been charged with 23 felonies. He’s been accused of groin grabbing. He’s been arrested, mugshotted, released on $500,000 bail by mystery donors. He’s been married to a woman, he’s been a drag queen in Brazil, he’s been Catholic and then Jewish, then he’s been a renowned financier, he’s been married to a man named “Matt.” He’s made 9/11 about him, as any good American liar does.

He is only one year older than me. He is 35 going on 6,000 years old. He’s in the background of a Bosch painting. He makes me care about Congress. Is that bad? Probably. I guess I’m part of the problem. But now Santos is seeking to remind us of that Congress is full of hypocrites. He claims to have begun filing Ethics Reports against many of the politicians who voted to expel him, including those in his own party. On his final day at the Capitol, he went up to the pulpit in response to a Congressman from Ohio who called Santos “a crook.” Santos announced that was rich coming from said Ohio Guy considering that he’d has been accused of being a “woman beater.” He left the room quiet. Gagged. If a gay is going down, he’ll take everyone else down with him.

Santos’s infractions were just too loud, too hysterical. He was too Gay. Not gay as in “gay,” but gay as in Gay. He was too diva. Politics (yes, Politics) couldn’t make sense of it.

Here’s a poll the very heterosexual NYC Council Republican leader —whose profile header photo is a photo of him and his heterosexual wife and heterosexual children —posted on X formerly known as Twitter the day before Santos was expelled:

Here’s a followup:

That’s gossip!

When you’re a faggot, you don’t belong in Congress. You belong on Access Hollywood. You are a cunty sales associate at Nordstrom who also has a podcast. Get that gay a mic! I’d probably listen.

On Friday, he was voted out for good. As he exited the building, he apparently was asked if he would remain in D.C. to finish out his term, stripped of his powers. “Why would I want to stay here?” Santos asked. “To Hell with this place.” Then he slipped into a car and disappeared from the Beltway forever.

Now that he’s gone, we’ll undoubtedly be subjected to neoliberal cringe humor about his reign of terror, like this:

I will give this dud of a joke a pass, though, because Amy allegedly ate a salad with a hair comb and threw shit at her staffers. Allegedly Abusive Minnesotan Icon. Charlatan recognize Charlatan. We’ll also give Amy a pass to do her bad Mrs. Maisel impression because she was the only 2020 candidate who was willing to engage in true Diva Warfare with actual Sinister Gay Mayor Pete during the 2020 debates. Not one other Democratic candidate wanted to be the first to pick a fight with the lone homosexual on stage. Dorks! Klobuchar rejected that. She said, I will vanquish this fruit.

Santos is a liar, though. We must remember this! He is a crook. It is certainly scary that he got as far as he did. That he bewitched an entire district in New York City. That no one thought to verify his absurd claims. It is frightening, but it is not surprising. It’s not surprising because it happens all the time. It happened with Trump. It will happen again. Trump shook his tits off on SNL, then they got blamed for normalizing him. We, the people, got blamed for normalizing him. For making jokes about him. For not doing enough to fight tyranny. It’s our fault when demagogues win. And it’ll be our fault if he wins again, felonies and all.

It is actually our fault when we don’t research. As always, Mama, let’s research! No one in Santos’s district verified the facts of his life because no one actually cared. We only care when we’re told to care, and even then, it doesn’t matter. Fuck, this gay has me writing about politics — I’m not happy about that. I shouldn’t be waxing poetic about him. Gays shouldn’t be stanning him. His Republican ass was aiding and abetting in the downfall of democracy, or something. What politician isn’t aiding and abetting in the downfall of democracy, though? Personally, I’m not happy to see a gay Republican get attention. But I am happy to see equality at work. True equality is when gays can be awful, too. Gays can be enigmas. Complicated and chaotic and destructive and confounding. Confounding, like when Santos clip-clopped through the halls of the Capitol cradling an infant, then refused to explain who the infant was. No questions, please! He is a John Waters character. Although I’m not even sure he is that. He’s positively Rumpelstiltskin.

To call him camp doesn’t do it justice. He is something else entirely. He goes beyond standard Sinister Gay. To call him sinister, or gay, doesn’t even feel appropriate. I’m not sure he has an internal world. I’ve thought about what it would look like: empty, pillaged, devoured on a whim for sustenance. Emptying himself out would be a no brainer for him. Less energy to pull through this world. He needs to be light to sneak by. He is fully in the present. No past or future. He sheds his skin and turns into something more terrible. A stronger, fresher form. He is a serpent on Ozempic in a Jos. A Bank shirt. He is one single muscle with teeth and lips; blood cold, stretched out on a rock in the sun, absorbing the heat he can’t make for himself. He has no goals except for the sun.