When I started listening to the podcast about George Santos I did so because I thought it would be funny with amusing stories of Santos’ scams. Many of them were funny. In many cases the victim of the scam deserved to be duped. But there is also a dark side to the scamming. It is not all fun.
Naomi Fry made the point that the scams could be used to critique not just the scammer but even society. Yet, at the same time, “It also means that there is so little to enjoy in contemporary society that it’s almost as if we as audiences fully aware of being scammed are also begging please make this fun for us.”
We love scams of course. We laugh at how George Santos gets away with outrageous scams. They are fun. But there is a dark side too. This is profoundly true. For example, one of Santos scams involved a dog who was owned by a poor homeless man. The dog was sick and Santos was to help him set up sort of a Go Fund Me plan to raise the money for the proper care of the dog. But according to Vinson Cunningham one of the panelists of the podcast he pocketed the money, did nothing for the dog, and left. The tumor kept growing and, in the end the dog died! That’s not fun.
Cunningham wanted to critique the scammer, but what was important was not the individual, “but the system in which they flourish.” The people are really mad at the system not just George Santos. According to Cunningham there is not a person bad enough to eclipse the context.” In fact, in a way Cunningham appreciates Santos, for “at least he has a figured out a way to expose the deeper nefariousness of the swamp from which emerges.”
Of course, once you are in this heart of darkness you will have people ask, as Cunningham suggests, “how different is George Santos from Marjorie Taylor Greene?” Or Donald Trump? The answer of course, is not at all. If scams are everywhere as many suggest, then all is permitted. Even if God is still alive, all is permitted. Dostoevsky got it wrong. As Naomi Fry added, “I think the obviousness is a relief too. The lies are so flagrant and the performance is so outrageous, and the shamelessness is so galling that there is a release and a relief that is associated with the relief.”
A scam such as the bailout of those who caused the financial crisis in 2008 while ordinary working people got screwed, “shows us,” the New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham said, “the structure of the con. Once you realized how powerless we are against the forces that create such scams, all you can do is watch it burn.” At that point you are in the heart of darkness which is the scam. And you can’t escape.