Whether it’s universally acceptable, it is certainly broadly understood that a lot of people pad their resumes to some extent. People might make a job sound more important or complicated than it is by using a lot of words to describe it when the job title pretty neatly sums it up. Someone might use flowery language to place more importance on volunteer or charity work than what they’ve actually done.
This is fairly innocuous, even though it might be considered dishonest, depending on who is looking at the resume.
However, lying outright on a resume or job application is a bigger issue. A person is purposely claiming qualifications that don’t exist. This could be a problem for an employer because, if due diligence isn’t done, they might hire someone who isn’t up to the task. This could hurt the company or organization, other employees and the people the organization serves. It also raises questions about the applicant’s integrity. If a potential employee felt comfortable putting something that wasn’t true on their resume, how comfortable are they with bending or breaking the truth in the job they’ve been hired to do?
Now, imagine a resume that is entirely made up. What does that say about a person? What if that entire false list of qualifications exists because that person is seeking public office?
Enter George Santos, a New York Republican who was elected to Congress in last month’s midterms, helping the GOP flip a Democratic seat in the U.S. House. A New York Times investigation has raised questions about who Santos really is, because there’s little to no record supporting who he claims to be, beyond perhaps his name and party affiliation.
The list of potential lies is long, but a few of the highlights include no company records of him ever working for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, as he claims, and no records showing the existence of a charity he claims to have run. One place Santos definitely did work was Harbor City Capital, which was recently accused of running a Ponzi scheme (Santos has denied he had any knowledge of that).
There are no records of Santos enrolling in or graduating from Baruch College, as he claims. Santos also claims he attended the prestigious New York University. NYU has no record of him as a student.
He claimed four people who worked for him were killed in the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando. Forty-nine people were shot to death when a gunman opened fire in the gay bar in June 2016, but, according to The Times, none of them ever worked for any business associated with Santos.
Santos also has been evicted numerous times for not paying what totals beyond tens of thousands of dollars in rent, according The Times, and might not even live where he claims he does (West Virginians are certainly familiar with that one when it comes to politicians).
Rightly or not, it’s somewhat expected or even accepted that politicians lie. They want to get elected. They want to make everyone happy, which stretches them into all kinds of opposing directions, although their North Star is the donor class that helps them attain and retain office. To seemingly outright fabricate most everything about one’s background and get away with it through an entire campaign is slimy, although it speaks of the times in which the country finds itself.
Indeed, two major questions in this case that rankle are why and how, if all of this is true, did Santos get away with it? Did the news media fail? Did the public? Is everyone just too complacent with what they are told, or not engaged enough to care? It’s probably a bit of all of these things, sprinkled in with political machines that are not held to any standard of truth. West Virginia lucked out that a citizen had the wherewithal to file a lawsuit in the 2022 primary when it was learned a GOP state Senate candidate didn’t meet residency requirements. This happened again in the fall with an independent candidate running for state Senate. What would’ve happened if no one noticed?
Everyone’s guard is up when it comes to certain, flashpoint issues. Too often, though, pants are down as it pertains to basic things that really matter. And it does matter if someone brazenly lies about their past while seeking the public’s trust, because that person will have no problem brazenly lying in the future.
