THE FAR RIGHT IS A PROTECTION RACKET

Every reasonable person in America recognizes that George Santos is unfit to serve in Congress and ought to resign. How is Santos responding to the pressure? By joining a gang:

On his first day in Congress, Representative George Santos of New York spent most of his time alone, isolated from his new colleagues. But by week’s end, he had found his place: alongside members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, including Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

As a growing number of fellow Republican representatives called for his resignation, Mr. Santos dug in further, appearing last week on “Bannon’s War Room,” the podcast of Stephen K. Bannon....

For seven minutes, Mr. Santos chatted with Mr. Gaetz, who was filling in for Mr. Bannon....

Questions about Mr. Santos’s alignment with hard-right groups had already been raised after he attended a gala in Manhattan last month at which white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists were also guests ... which was held by the New York Young Republican Club, a conservative group.

But Mr. Santos hired the group’s executive secretary, Viswanag Burra, as his operations director....

Mr. Burra ... has a number of ties to provocative right-wing figures. He previously worked as a producer on Mr. Bannon’s podcast and ... once worked for Mr. Gaetz.

He also recently served as a spokesman for Carl Paladino, a Buffalo-area real estate executive and politician with a track record of racist and homophobic comments.

We know that Santos sought the protection of Kevin McCarthy when his life of lies became public knowledge. But it's widely believed that McCarthy might not be Speaker for long, so Santos has found new allies whom no prominent Republican wants to alienate -- it might lead to being called a "RINO" or a member of "the Uniparty" on Tucker's show! -- and who'll find him work (maybe his own podcast!) even if he's forced to step down.

The far right is, among other things, a protection racket for the ethically dubious. Affiliate yourself with it and you'll have so many supporters that no "mainstream" Republican will dare to challenge you. Matt Gaetz certainly knows that. If you're in the media, you'll have a locked-in audience that will ignore your moral failings. Think of Jeffrey Epstein associate Alan Dershowitz. Or think of Matt Taibbi, whose self-reported history of sexual misconduct destroyed his career when he published a book the same month the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the #MeToo movement went global. Taibbi is now a right-wing shill, and is untouchable. Good career move!

Even if Kevin McCarthy is defenestrated, his successor will probably be too afraid of the wrath of George Santos's allies to ever demand the pathological liar's resignation. After that, assuming Santos makes good on his promise to step down after one term, he'll probably get a six-figure job -- for real this time -- with the New York Young Republican Club, or with some similar group, assuming he's not working full-time in the right-wing media. One way or another, he'll be set for life.