Republicans in change are thrilled with Santos. He's doing a lot for their movement. He's moving the goalposts of acceptable lies and fraud by a sitting member of congress with an R next to their name. My mother is a racist and a homophobic bigot, but every time someone mentions Santos, her hatred for brown people and gay people is overruled by her seething hatred for democrats, so she'll cite Elizabeth Warren's lie about being Native American as the moral equal to him stealing money from a veteran's dying service dog.

Bonus: Santos' arrest for fraud, embezzlement, grand theft, and campaign violations is inevitable. That means Republicans will be able to test the limits on calling said arrest a "political witch hunt." Despite the man being a proven fraud who has left a mountain of evidence in his wake, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and countless other people can claim the charges are trumped-up by liberals and rile-up the base with more whataboutisms like "what about Hunter Biden?" and any number of other non-equivalencies. They couldn't have dreamed-up a better candidate to really test the limitations of how many crimes their cult will overlook, and the character of the person committing those crimes. A nobody congressman who is gay, foreign, a pathological liar, a massive fraud, and a genuine criminal? PERFECT!

George Santos is going to be arrested and convicted. It's a certainty. Republicans know this, and they can't wait! Because if they can get their base to believe it's a witch hunt, they really don't even have to do what little pretending they do anymore. They can go full Mussolini!