So much is happening! George Santos pleaded guilty, Trump is appealing his criminal sentencing, and the Democratic party seems more unified than ever.
Quick summary
Let’s start with the understatement of the year, there are a lot of moving parts in the political discourse in America right now. We’ll discuss them. If you’re new to the Half Life Crisis Today in America series, this is where I focus on key events that become turning points on the pages of American history being written in our lifetimes but tend to get buried as the news cycle chases the next shiny object.
George Santos
Former (Republican) U.S. Representative George Anthony Devolder Santos of Queens, New York, pleaded guilty on 19 AUG 2024 to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. This includes filing fraudulent FEC reports, unauthorized charging of credit cards, stealing identities, embezzlement of campaign funds from donors, fraudulent unemployment benefits, and lying on reports for the House of Representatives.
On August 19, 2023, Santos stated: “Pleading guilty is a step I never imagined I’d take, but it is a necessary one because it is the right thing to do,” Santos continued: “It’s not only a recognition of my misrepresentation to others, but more profoundly, it is my own recognition of the lies I told myself over these past years.”
I wrote a couple of articles on him January 2023, when his deceitful political career started, and another in December 2024 when Congress expelled him following a Congressional Ethics report I’m including the direct links to the articles for context. Note that from the first indications to today’s inevitable conclusion it took more than one year and seven months for him to admit wrongdoing. Although most of us realized this on day one.
Rep. George Santos – why should you care? - Half Life Crisis
Elephant in the Room – 2023 GOP Liability - Half Life Crisis
Political Bipartisanship is Possible! - Half Life Crisis
This was a non-inclusive list of Santos lies, in no particular order that I compiled back then. And I asked then, if you’re a GOP supporter, does this person seem aligned with your Republican values and virtues? I reiterated, because even Santos himself, with tears in his eyes, had to admit to his errors, and I applaud that. It does take courage for a person to admit they were wrong and accept the consequences for their actions.
- He lied about finishing High school, he got an equivalent diploma.
- He lied that he had a master’s degree from prestigious schools in finance and economics. He never actually graduated college at all.
- He said he worked at Wall Street, then they said that it was a company that he worked at had some ties to Wall Street, but even that was not true because that company in question was dissolved even when he was of high school age.
- He claimed that he had a lot of money, in reality he was not rich at all. And the sources of the money he put into his campaign are (were) under investigation, and there are even possibilities of criminal inquiries.
- He said he was gay, but he was also married before. Hey, that can happen… but why not even be upfront about it? Supposedly he’s married to another gentleman, but there have not been signs of this person appearing in the campaign. Also, apparently some news agencies were not able to find the marriage certificate.
- He lied about having an animal charity, apparently for a fundraiser. They charged $50.00 for attendance, and the charity did not see any money from it.
- He said his mother died in 9/11 – but then he changed the story a couple of times. I mean, who does that? Gawd!
- He said his grandmother was a holocaust survivor. Yet, she was not in Europe at all during World War II.
- He said he had employees who died during a mass shooting in a club in Orlando. That statement from Santos was not true.
- He said he was Jewish, then he said that he was “Jew-ish” – because he’s actually Catholic but he has Jewish heritage. According to genealogy records, that’s not true.
- He said he was a sports champion in Baruch college… he never even attended that place.
- One of his staffers was impersonating the new Speaker of the House, Chief of Staff – in order to raise money.
- He’s facing charges in Brazil for buying stuff with a false checkbook, or something like that. And yes, that case is under investigation, and there are criminal charges. AND there is extradition from USA to Brazil. Bottom line, he fled that country because of it.
Contrary to what many would do, I’m not the kind of person to hit a man while he is down, especially after this person has admitted to wrongdoing. He was charged with 23 felonies regarding fraud, he could be facing prison time of six to eight years. There is also a plea agreement asking for a $374,000+ in restitution. The sentencing is scheduled for February 7, 2024.
Bottomline, all the problematic behavior that Santos admitted to yesterday, was denied for months, and even defended by many GOP aligned supporters. The point is that when there are indicators of wrongdoing, these do not happen in a vacuum, they are very obvious, unless a person has an exploited bias that blinds them to the reality, or they downright know they are deceitful and want to get away with it.
While Santos was in office, although he was already identified as a liar with many alleged crimes under his belt, he nonetheless influenced politics. His legislative votes actually affected our nation. He was very obedient to align himself with the most controversial figures in our political discourse. There are many controversial figures in Congress still, but they were not as cavalier or as reckless as Santos was.
I’m happy for Santos that he is owning up to his mistakes. The good news about the truth is that no matter how complex it is, all the twists and turns, no matter how multi-dimensional, they add up automatically. A lie, no matter how well-crafted, will always have blind spots.
Trump delaying his sentencing
Love of hate Trump is not the issue here. Bottomline, he was convicted on 34 counts of Falsification of Business Records in New York. His sentencing was supposed to happen in July 2024, but through some creative help from the Supreme Court, enabling Trump and only Trump to get “immunity” for crimes while in office, this forced the delay of the sentencing for his 34 crimes in New York until September 2024. And as we get closer to that date, his legal team issued a motion to further delay this sentencing, because it is now using this Supreme Court ruling as an argument.
Yes, I have to oversimplify a bit, because otherwise this article will turn into a several-volume book on all the legal twists and turns concerning Trump. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand the legal games being played, I’m an analyst, I see things from a point of view of indications and warnings. There are plenty of those, and they have been generally telegraphed for years. We are only seeing the application of efforts that have been in motion for years. It surprises many people, not me – it seems very obvious that putting sand on the gears was going to happen anyway. So, let’s summarize. Trump is facing 90+ Federal Criminal Charges spanning several jurisdictions. These indictments occurred, but they are also being stonewalled by his team. Bottomline, if there is a federal charge against a former President, although it is unprecedented on this level, it is not something any prosecutor would take lightly unless there were tons of evidence to support their case. In other words, we are not talking about an ambulance chaser type of case, these are very complex procedures.
Trump was already found in civil court of rape and fraud respectively. Some of his supporters argue that these should not come forth because of the statute of limitations… but did not argue because he did not commit those offenses. Think about that for a second. Trump is not saying he did not do it, he is rather arguing something akin to whatever he did was so long ago that even if he did do it, well, too bad because he already got away with it – back then.
But the reality is that his own mouth is what got him in trouble. For example, when it was found out that Trump was a rapist, for the E. J. Caroll case where he owes her more than 80 million dollars, it was not that he is getting to pay for his raping. Instead, he had to pay because he defamed her and his big mouth was not able to stand legal scrutiny.
For the civil fraud case Trump still owes shy of half a billion dollars because it was found out he stole from a bunch of people. That’s what fraud is, taking advantage of others by illegal means. This case put on display that Trump is nowhere near as rich as he claims to be. But what is happening in this case? His brand. He could not pay for it himself and had to resort to some shady deep pockets to get that money. Trump has burned so many bridges that a lot of larger institutions and law firms run the other way when he approaches them. There is a reason why he owes half a billion dollars for fraud.
And of course, the 34 felony counts for falsification of Business records. Even though it is better known as the “hush money” payment case. Which is more of a clickbait name than the actual situation, although it does stem from the fact, he got convicted for attempting to cover his short and cringeworthy sex encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels, while Trump’s third wife Melania was at home with Trump’s newborn baby.
In any case, on any rare instance if Trump speaks up in a court of law it did not go well for him. He only did that in November 2023 when he took the stand on his civil fraud case, where he and his adult sons were facing fraud allegations. Any other time, although Trump has publicly said in a few instances he would take the stand or testify under oath, he chickened out. Want examples? Sure.
- Muller Report
- First Impeachment Trial
- Second Impeachment Trial
- January 6 Commission
- E. J. Carroll defamation case (where he was found civilly liable for rape)
- 34 Felony Count on Falsification of Business Record
Regardless of if you love or hate Trump, this should make you think about his fortitude of character. Trump is not shy at all when it comes to attacking people, even private citizens when he was a sitting president, and speak his mind loudly and proudly. But whenever there is a need for him to say something under oath, where the scrutiny of his words could backfire… he simply chickens out. Why is that?
Follow up question, would you tolerate that chickening out from any other high-profile figure? For example, you don’t have to be a Hillary Clinton fan, but let’s not forget that during the Trump era, she was grilled by Congress more times than I can count. And she showed up every time and answered questions. And no, despite many of his political opposition (who had the majority of seats on some instances), were unable to prove their case against her. So, under that metric, what is Trump afraid of when he is supposed to speak out and “set the record straight” – on the witness stand, where it counts?
Let me finish this part by making a clear distinction between the court of public opinion and the court of law. The former panders to the biases of people who might like or dislike a person. The former is about scrutiny and strategy, but the fact is that you have to bring receipts to prove your point of view – or face consequences.
The truth, no matter how complex the intricacies are, everything adds up automatically. A falsehood, no matter how well crafted, it will miss a detail somewhere. Yes, I repeat it for a reason. On the first part of this article, I showed how George Santos admitted to all the stuff that was obvious for us to see. Is Trump going to admit to all the things many of us also identified to be just as obvious? Or is that another reason why he is not taking the stand?
The Democratic Party Gaining Momentum
There is a renewed energy between the democrats since Kamala Harris took the lead as the presumptive nominee, after incumbent US President Joe Biden dropped from the race on July 21, 2024, and immediately endorsed Harris. Harris selected Tim Walz, Governor from Minnesota as his running mate on August 6, 2024. And the democrat party is very happy with the ticket.
I have to admit that I am happy to see a message of unity that is becoming the main message from the party. The chant “we are not going back” – might be a bit longer that their MAGA opposition of “Make America Great Again.” And I say MAGA opposition, because there is no shortage of GOP folks who are energized and supportive of the new democratic ticket.
I’ve said on a previous article, and very overtly that the decision of Joe Biden to drop was a big gamble, and there were going to be a lot of unintended consequences. Although I am very happy to see the new ticket moving forward and energizing immense crowds in person and in social media, I stand by my word. And trust me, that is not something I am happy to report. My main concern was that this is opening a lid on a very dark side of America.
Sadly, it won’t take long for you to find countless examples for what I mean if you go to Twitter (X), and to a (not insignificant) lesser extent on Facebook. I’ve heard it is worse on TikTok, but I don’t use it. However, there are many people who do repost on other social media sites what they see there. And let me tell you, it is extremely prejudicial – and that is another euphemism to say extremely racist and filled with hate speech.
And I am sad to say this, I am not surprised at all this is happening. And if anything, it is still very tempered to what I know that will be coming next. Let’s understand how this is possible. Again, I’m an analyst, I do indications and warnings. And some of those indicators are usually hidden in plain sight and have been normalized. Some of the hateful rhetoric that would be career-ending for a politician, or a public figure are all too common. In fact, in some social media platforms they gain a lot of clout.
Trump forged MAGA by insulting his way to the top. In fact, there are even documentaries you can see on streaming platforms that summarize many (not all) the times Trump has insulted people on the private and public sector. And this includes extremely callous insults to other Republicans leading to the GOP primary in 2016 to some of his [today] most ardent supporters. Same people who by the way were warning us about what everybody else sees as problematic. The difference is that non-MAGA fans have not changed their mind about Trump.
But with the Democratic National Convention or DNC on full swing this week at the city of Chicago Illinois, the vibe is very positive for the Democrats. For the first time since forever in 2024 (or longer if you are counting), the Democrats are being more proactive rather than reactive to the Trump’s MAGA messaging. This gets under MAGA skin on many ways, mainly because their old tactics are falling short.
Case in point, the new ticket is calling MAGA “weird” – and this has been extremely effective, because it makes it a lot harder for the bulk of the GOP to embrace any antics, they were first condoning from Trump. Weird somehow gets attention and makes their otherwise poignant “bravado” look like a ridiculous sideshow. Even the memes or other propagandistic literature propping MAGA loses their edge in great segments of the population.
There have been however incitements of violence happening. Mostly we are seeing the first stages with the hate rhetoric that has fallen just short enough into a more overt divisive strategy. For example, since Harris is a mostly uncontroversial figure, the attacks started to move onto – unsurprisingly – her race, her gender, and her ancestry. This comes after they were grasping from straws attacking her laugh. Yes, you read that right. But it was not going to take long for them to attack the trifecta I’ve mentioned.
I’ve been very upfront that personally I am very supportive of Harris, and no, I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican. I hold each side accountable. I am an American Citizen, and I want what is best for our country. Like it or not, Trump has too many down checks that make it impossible for me to reconcile with him in good conscience. And if the shoe was on the other foot, I would be feeling exactly the same way for a different candidate.
These Trump down checks include but are not limited to 90+ criminal charges, twice impeached, civilly liable for rape and fraud, 34 charges of crimes, and that is not even getting into the actual red flags for a geopolitical arena. Also, I’ve seen their platform, and it is not very solid. However, and sadly, a lot of the talking points their loyal base gets to hear are redacted. They get tons of information out of context and they are by definition grievance politics. However, when you start scrutinizing the facts, they are actually backfiring on MAGA. That is why they keep these points laced with emotion in order to muddy up the waters. The truth in full context is inconvenient.
I’ve been trying to get these findings available to the Harris campaign, as I did to the Biden campaign before. The problem with the Democrats is that sometimes they do tend to get too excited about some momentum and miss some vulnerabilities that are right next to them. This is for example why they were mainly playing catch up to whatever MAGA has been throwing at them for several years. They were reactive rather than proactive. As I said before, they are getting much better, but they are not quite to the point where they can tilt the balances into their favor.
Sure, that it might see counterintuitive because of the huge response from many Democrats around the country. But remember that there are still millions of other voters who have zero idea about how the current political climate is affecting our country… or their lives. And yes, these might or might not vote, or would even vote for Trump because they know his name.
Trump’s worst enemy is himself, but also this same faux-bravado and petulance is extremely powerful to the MAGA base. Trump realized that if he acts as the victim, then he transfers this martyrdom to his base. In other words, he projects his faults onto their base and convinces them that an attack on him is an attack on them. Newsflash, it is not. Each person is responsible for their own virtues and their misdeeds. And Trump has gotten away with literally a lot more than any other president in the history of this nation.
But you see the way that it works is that if Trump concedes to a mistake, he is then automatically not perfect. And if he is wrong about THIS (insert whatever fault he would concede to), then what ELSE is he wrong about? And now if you were his ardent supporter who burned bridges because of THIS fault, and you did so many mental gymnastics to justify, then anything ELSE that could also be wrong would become a terrifying realization. Why? Because then the layers of the onion will show a lot of instances that you’ve burned bridges supporting something that was not correct, and you’ve invested a lot of time and money into supporting something that was wrong.
With MAGA the fact is that there are many layers, and it is a lot easier for people to go back into their echo chambers and get that confirmation bias, rather than getting out of the rut and face the consequences. Some consequences might be having to apologize for burning bridges with friends and family, others might be more financial like buying a bunch of merchandise or trinkets instead of paying other financial obligations. And that does happen, some people have bought NFTs or other things thinking they would make a great investment, just to lose some money – themselves – but Trump ended up making a profit.
These among other points are being also made by the Democrats with the new Harris-Walz campaign. This is an uphill battle for Trump, whose ticket is Trump-Vance – the latter being a new Vice President candidate because the MAGA folks tried to kill his previous Vice President during January 6, 2021. How do we know? There were gallows erected in front of Congress and Trump supporters dressed head to toe with MAGA regalia were chanting “hang Mike Pence.” And by the way, Pence did not endorse Trump this time around. Thought him being who he is might end up voting for Trump anyway.
But what it is interesting is that technically Trump is not allowed to vote himself as a convicted felon. And technically that should make him ineligible to hold onto a security clearance. But despite all that legal baggage and more the GOP nominated Trump for the ticket. I’ve argued that was a huge miscalculation and they did have other options for this ticket. But then again, if they are supporting somebody with 90+ criminal charges and a rap sheet longer than a space shuttle runway, then bad decision making is not a bridge too far.
The Republican National Convention or RNC when Trump accepted the nomination was filled with the same speeches recycling a lot of grievance talking points. I did not hear much policy, and yes, I had the misfortune to hear these speeches. With the DNC there is a huge contrast, and I don’t mean just because most people are not dressed in weird MAGA outfits like for the RNC, but because there is also a lot of policy – albeit it is spoken in a framing that juxtaposes the contrast with the MAGA plans. Particularly when it comes to Project 2025.
The momentum is expected to continue moving forward, it has been only one month since Biden dropped, and Harris has already broken records for fundraising, volunteering, and overall support – to include GOP folks jumping to vote for her and against Trump. My concern is the risk of violence, there are many who are itching for a “call” from Trump to take action. I’ll be dedicating a full article just to that topic, because there is a lot to explore in those regards.
In the meantime, I did not want to delay capturing these important moments in our American history, because between all the noise that moves the news cycle, this helps us capture those key events that will continue moving. Notice that I did not say much about J.D. Vance – because he was actually not a very good pick to balance the Trump ticket, and his flip-flopping made it very evident that he is perfectly fine with being a number two, rather than a needed balance required to speak truth to power if Trump wants to do something that goes against everybody’s best interests. HLC