New York's Congressman-elect George Santos and the commodification of the political

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to news article, “George Santos admits to lying about college and work history,” December 26, 2022:

Santos either did or did not know that his statements were false; he admits they were misleading. That he merely made a “poor choice of words” suggests that he thinks statements made to get votes are a public relations matter, and a politician may behave like a private company seeking financial gain.

That he might have done so unwittingly suggests that he lacks the mental sharpness to understand the detailed legalese of the legislative bills he will be voting on. In the first case, he clearly lacks commitment to the Constitution he must swear to in taking office. In the second, he is incompetent to uphold the Constitution in this capacity.

That such things are not decisive in disqualifying him suggests that politics has become so fully commodified that understanding and using language to write new laws or representing his person and opinions to the public are only as important as needed to make a sale. Politics can easily be reduced to a set of economic transactions, as voters choose candidates much like choosing what things to buy, while candidates only need to sell themselves to those buyers.

But it has to also be something more than that, irreducible to it. This includes the use of discourse as rationally oriented to an idea of truth, which is a public and not private good in essence. In an era still defined partly by Trump, who did so much to pioneer this way of thinking about the political, it is in danger of becoming little more than a commodity exchange.