A Different Point of View
Muhammad Naeem | CONTRIBUTOR
Definition of the word “hero” usually involves courage and sacrifice above and beyond the normal threshold. Classic meaning of hero is a “warrior that lives and dies in the pursuit of honor,” and fights with “brilliancy, efficiency, and ingenuity.” Then there are the superheroes; individuals that have been bestowed with extraordinary powers, who then fight crime and supervillains. In my opinion, the word hero should not apply to these superheroes, because they basically rely on their powers, which are usually part of their portfolio and there’s nothing special they do to get them. Thus, there is nothing extraordinary about their achievements.
My take on a hero is someone who lives a simple and ordinary life, goes through his days without anything significant happening and then comes face to face with some sort of adversity, where he then has to reinvent himself, rise up to the challenge, find ways to deal with any and all obstacles, and achieve a resounding win. These so-called superheroes, like the Superman, already have the power to fight. They don’t have to reinvent themselves, or fight with ingenuity, because they just use their powers, and we already know that they are going to win. Anyone in their shoes can win easily, given their powers. You can’t call them a hero, because, well, they didn’t really do anything special. They just did what comes to them naturally. There is no adversity, because they are already superior to their foes. A true hero has to go from ordinary to extraordinary to actually win.
Enter George Santos—stage right—my new hero! (You see what I did there, with the stage right, I mean. He is a Republican, so from the right. Get it!) I may even go as far as to call him a superhero, but in the true sense of the word, and not in the Marvel or DC sense. He was an ordinary man, living an uneventful life, who decided to run for Congress in 2020, and lost. Thus, the adversity was created, that he then had to overcome and win.
At that time, he was living with his sister, probably sleeping on her sofa or the floor. He was poor, making only $50,000 or less (which is still more than what I make), and he had no significant achievements in his life to speak off. He knew that voters don’t respect poor candidates, or candidates that can’t boast of having done great things. People only pay attention to claims of higher education, extraordinary wealth, and owning a lot of property, you know, like Donald Trump being a real estate mogul. He then embarked on a plan to reinvent himself and change into what I consider to be a true hero.
He invented a portfolio of 13 properties and claimed to own two mansions, a condominium abroad, and other business investments. In reality, he owed rental money, was sued in court to recover rent and other debts by different parties, and was practically bankrupt. Yet, he built an image, not unlike that of the orange Republican Demigod. It worked, with additional help of his employment claims with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He may not have been rich in reality, but he looked good on paper.
He never graduated from any college, but he claimed to have attended three famous and prestigious schools, and graduated at the top of his class, with scholarship for being a great athlete. Even though his athletic abilities could easily be questioned, people believed him. He was an election-denier, and MAGA crowd ate that up like dessert, along with his presence at January 6th insurrection. He was in with the Republican voters in a big way.
He was competing against Jewish candidates, so he became Jew-ish. Almost the same thing, right?! He even invented a Jewish heritage, where his grandparents turned out to be holocaust survivors, who also suffered at the hands of other political atrocities. It was a winning strategy, where he endeared himself to Jewish voters by standing above the other Jewish candidates.
Once the Republican side was placated, he then turned to the Democrats. He became gay, and the latest drag photos prove him to be right, maybe, who knows. He is half-Black and half-Latino. He was patient-zero for COVIDA. He survived having a brain tumor. He was a victim of many crimes. Democrats were all in, after all, he represented all the causes that the Democrats live to, and love to, fight.
Just to sweeten the deal further, for all voters, he played the sympathy card. His parents had survived the 9/11 attacks and his mother died from the effects. His friends were killed in the hate-attack on a gay club. There were those previously mentioned holocaust survival stories of his grandparents. How could anyone look at this candidate and not feel for him and for the struggles of his family? How could anyone not vote for him?
Even though, almost everything was fiction, George stood behind all of his stories and worked the crowds. He raised money by posing his friend as Kevin McCarthy’s campaign-manger. He pledged his soul to the Devil to raise funds for his campaign. He may even be under obligation to foreign agents, but do we really care?! This man went from being a nobody, to someone big. The whole world is talking about him. We have forgotten about the chaos that the Congress went through with 15 votes for the Speaker of the House, we have no special concern about the top-secret documents found in Joe
Biden’s garage, no one is talking about the Ukraine war any longer, even Donald Trump and Elon Musk—two other greatest liars the world has ever known, but not on-par with George Santos—have lost their shine in the face of the spotlight being on George Santos. Such is the achievement of this simple, ordinary man, who went from being a total loser, to a great winner, against all odds. He is a true hero. He is my new hero. There are calls for him to resign, but after all that hard work that he put into winning his congressional seat, why should he give all that up, just because “haters are going to hate.” He deserves all the benefits of having won a hard battle.
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