Fiction can be riveting, as the many lies that supported Representative George Santos’s political career have demonstrated. But facts can also be entertaining too—a point made by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into the New York Republican, released today.

The report is full of language that, even in the formal tone of congressional documents, is scorching. Here’s the short version: “Representative Santos’ conduct warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.” Furthermore, “Representative George Santos cannot be trusted.”

And here’s a longer version, too precise and cutting to quote in part:

Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit. He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit. He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign—and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported “repayments” of those fictitious loans. He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.

And this is all in addition to the already well-known fabrications on his résumé. The 56-page investigative report goes on and on like this, not stinting on details such as Santos’s use of campaign funds on OnlyFans and Botox. The whole thing is carefully footnoted with text messages and credit-card applications, and laid out in charts with everything but circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is.

The one thing missing is testimony from Santos himself. The subcommittee noted that though Santos pledged publicly and privately to cooperate fully, “that was another lie.” What he did offer “included material misstatements that further advanced falsehoods he made during his 2022 campaign.” The members considered issuing him a subpoena but decided against, reasoning that it would take too long, his attorney had already said that his client would take the Fifth, and beyond that—they add drily—“Representative Santos’ testimony would have low evidentiary value given his admitted practice of embellishment.”

[David A. Graham: The George Santos saga isn’t (just) funny]

Whew. Santos responded to the report’s careful findings by taking full responsibility and agreeing—to no of course he didn’t, come on. In a lengthy post on X, he called the report a “smear” and said, “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘Ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report.” He said that the investigation into him proved that the nation needs a constitutional convention. Santos wrote that he was dismayed to see such vitriol in “the hallowed halls of public service,” and whatever else you can say about the man, he has enough of a sense of camp that we can assume this was delivered with a hefty dose of self-aware irony.

But Santos did say that he would not run for reelection in 2024. This promise, like most of his, is not worth the pixels it’s printed on, but it’s also a formality; Santos could be expelled from the House as soon as this month, and he stood nearly zero chance of winning a reelection bid. He also faces a 23-count federal indictment in New York, and the House Ethics Committee voted to refer their report to the Justice Department, so he could be facing more charges in the future.

[Caroline Mimbs Nyce: A resigned politican’s advice for George Santos]

“Public service life was never a goal or a dream, but I stepped up to the occasion when I felt my country needed it most,” Santos wrote. What need was he filling for the country? Comic relief? As I have written, the Santos story is both funny and appalling: “If you’re unable to laugh at these stories, you should check your pulse. But if you’re only laughing at them, you should check your head.” Like the antics of a good jester, his act puts an uncomfortable mirror up to the audience—in this case, both the other members of Congress and the American people.

Santos is simply the most extreme version of a new approach by American politicians to dealing with scandal, showing the disappearance of shame from public life. At one time, a scandal-ridden politician would resign in disgrace and quietly leave the scene. Even President Richard Nixon, not one to shrink from a fight, resigned and slunk back to San Clemente. Later, politicians learned that they could apologize, perhaps with tears in their eyes, but obstinately stay in office—an approach popularized by President Bill Clinton and emulated by Senator David Vitter and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

[David A. Graham: Bob Menendez never should have been a senator this long in the first place]

But in retrospect, that looks like merely a transition phase to the new phase, in which an embattled politician doesn’t apologize, doesn’t resign, and in fact insists he’s a righteous martyr. The epitome of this approach is former President Donald Trump, who faces 91 felony counts for, among other things, trying to steal an election and absconding with highly classified material and then allegedly lying to the government, repeatedly, when asked to return it. Rather than back down, Trump is running for president again on a campaign of personal immunity from consequences and political retribution, and tells supporters, “They’re not after me, they’re after you … I’m just standing in the way!”

Others have adopted the Trump model, like Senator Robert Menendez. The New Jersey Democrat, who was found to have piles of gold bars and stacks of cash hidden in jacket pockets in his closet, insists that his prosecution for corruption is all just a scheme to get him because he’s a powerful Hispanic legislator.

And then there’s Santos. It is hilarious to imagine that a bipartisan group of House members, backed by reams of evidence, are persecuting him for reasons darkly hinted at but never detailed. No one believes that, not even Santos. But no one has to believe it. Unlike Santos’s other lies, he’s not telling this one because he thinks anyone will fall for it. He’s simply refusing to accept any sort of responsibility.

[Read: George Santos, the GOP’s useful liar]

Shame had a purpose. It kept some bad actors from public life, and it chased other ones from public life. With its decline, people like Santos will blithely charge into office and make a mockery of representative democracy. Bodies like the House Ethics Committee can fight valiant rearguard actions like this one, but they can’t and don’t serve much preventative function.

This may be the end of George Santos’s time as a member of the House, but Santos will be back. Perhaps it will be as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, or some lower-tier reality competition. Maybe he’ll try to reinvent himself as a conservative radio host, or as an Instagram influencer. Or he could try a political conversion narrative, positioning himself as a reformed man and a political progressive. The substance doesn’t really matter. The point is that hucksters like him are always going to be trying for their next act. So Santos won’t go away—and neither will the behavior he exemplifies, so long as shame is absent from politics.

By meeting President Joe Biden in San Francisco yesterday, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, made a tacit, and probably uncomfortable, admission that China still needs the United States, whether he likes it or not. That’s why the summit will likely reinforce his intent to overthrow American global power.

For now, the meeting was a win for Biden and his China policy. Biden’s foreign-policy team has argued that the United States can both compete and, at times, cooperate with China, while stressing that continued communication can prevent relations from descending into confrontation. This approach has often appeared overly optimistic: The two sides have continually sparred over Taiwan, technology, and human rights, and dialogue has frequently broken down.

[Read: Xi Jinping is done with the established world order]

The fact that the two men met at all is evidence that Biden’s strategy might have merit. Even better, Biden won some tangible (though minor) benefits. Xi agreed to restore a military dialogue with Washington and to help curb the illicit export from China of chemicals used to make fentanyl. Biden may even get a few pandas in the deal, as Xi indicated his willingness to once again send the rare bears to American zoos as existing agreements expire.

Xi’s change of heart is almost certainly attributable to the mounting difficulties he faces both at home and abroad. The Chinese economy is struggling badly, as private investment sinks and the property sector unravels. A relatively unimpressive turnout for Xi’s October forum to celebrate his Belt and Road Initiative—Russian President Vladimir Putin was the most prominent attendee—highlighted China’s growing international isolation from the world’s major powers. Chinese leaders must have calculated that they can’t afford to stiff-arm Biden much longer.

After his Biden summit, Xi even attended a dinner where he schmoozed with a large group of American businessmen. Foreign direct investment in China turned negative, on a net basis, in the third quarter of this year for the first time on record. Xi felt the need to make a personal appeal to woo that investment back. “China is ready to be a partner and friend of the U.S.,” he told the business leaders.

The problem facing Xi is that his words don’t match his actions. Just days before the dinner with American CEOs, Beijing’s finance ministry proposed extra cybersecurity checks on accounting firms dealing with Chinese corporate data—the latest in a series of security-obsessed measures that have spooked foreign business. The same is true in Xi’s foreign policy. China’s leader continues to deepen ties to Iran, which supports Hamas and other destabilizing groups in the Middle East. When Biden pressed him to use this influence to try to prevent the current Gaza crisis from escalating into a regional war, Xi appeared noncommittal.

If Xi wants American cooperation and American cash, he’ll have to do much more than chitchat. Restoring trust will require real changes in policy—among them, returning to market-oriented economic reform, distancing China from Russia, and working with Washington to ease crises in Ukraine and Gaza. Because he is unwilling to make such changes, Xi will depart San Francisco largely empty-handed. He failed to get the relief he sought from U.S. exports controls and sanctions that are biting the Chinese economy.

[Read: The China model is dead]

Xi’s attempt to charm at the Golden Gate is therefore unlikely to be more than a temporary expedient, meant to stabilize relations at a moment of need while keeping the long-term goal—a China-centric world—clearly in view. The Chinese government is already using the summit to bolster Xi’s global ambition, characterizing the Biden meeting as a victory of “Xiplomacy” and evidence that China is a responsible world power committed to the greater good. With the summit, “China has once again extended the hand of friendship toward the other side of the Pacific,” the state news agency, Xinhua, said. This type of messaging plays well in the global South, where China is attempting to build a coalition of support to challenge American primacy.

Throughout his tenure, Xi has made clear that he intends China to be self-reliant, free of vulnerabilities to the United States, and capable of shaping the world order to suit Beijing’s interests. That he had to come to San Francisco hat in hand is likely to convince him further of the necessity and urgency of his current course. The summit probably demonstrates not an improvement in U.S.-China relations but the best the relationship can get.

South Africa's Rassie van der Dussen makes a brilliant diving catch to dismiss Australia's Mitchell Marsh for a duck in their World Cup semi-final in Kolkata, India.

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America’s public schools owe a great deal to the efforts of 19th-century abolitionists and reformers. In a new story for The Atlantic’s special issue on Reconstruction, my colleague Adam Harris wrote about how Reconstruction shaped America’s modern public-education system. Reformers in the South such as Mary Brice worked to realize the then-radical notion that free, universal schools should serve all students. I called Adam this week to discuss the backlash faced by early efforts to build public schools, and how that opposition is still embedded in discussions about public education today.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

The one-state delusion Why activism leads to so much bad writing Why older socialists are quitting the DSA How the Negro spiritual changed American popular music—and America itself

An Antagonism That Lingers

Lora Kelley: I think a lot of people today take public schools for granted. I certainly consider them a stable constant in American life. So I was really struck by your reporting on how much opposition public schools, especially those serving Black students in the South, faced in the 19th century and after. Was the concept of public schooling in America inevitable at any point in the country’s history?

Adam Harris: It was never really inevitable. The idea of all people being educated, particularly Black people, was once out of the question for large swaths of the South. From the beginning of the nation, school had always been for well-off families. You had parochial schools, you had a lot of private schools, and subscription schools where families could pay based on the amount of classes that students attended.

Into the 1800s, multiple southern states passed bans on Black folks—both enslaved and free Black people—learning how to read, because there was this thought that if they did, it would engender rebellion and antagonism to the system. Black literacy was often viewed with suspicion, because the thought was that if enslaved people learned how to read even things like the Bible, because of the liberation theology that courses throughout the Old Testament and parts of the New Testament, they would rise up and fight against the power structure. If you think about some of the rebellions and revolts of enslaved people—such as Gabriel’s Rebellion and Turner’s Rebellion—these were largely based on folks who had learned how to read the Bible.

Lora: Do you still see traces of this antagonism toward Black literacy and education today?

Adam: This antagonism toward Black education still lingers. The public-school ecosystem today is relatively stable. But you also see vestiges of past discrimination in education systems, not just at the K–12 level, but also at the college level. For institutions in places with a low tax base, or places with high levels of poverty, the schools are less well-funded. That leads to an instability that bad actors naturally are preying on at this moment.

We’ve lately seen a push toward a rejection of history, because of the idea that if you tell the history in an accurate way, then it may lead people to question some of the assumptions that we have built into our systems. Telling the full, robust nature of what the Founding Fathers did, and what kind of people they were outside of their political exploits, is important to having a broad understanding of history, and an understanding of why things are the way they are. If we’re looking at America as a project—trying to perfect this democracy, trying to work toward a more perfect union—then questions can start to lead to actions to try to change those flawed pieces of the system.

Lora: At the end of your article, you wrote, “In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, the most serious effort to date at realizing Brice’s dream nationally.” Do you see Mary Brice’s legacy being undone in education today?

Adam: Over the past several years, we’ve seen a lot of stories about the resegregation of public schools, where you have areas that effectively created new school districts, taking resources away from students in Black and brown communities. We’ve seen the Supreme Court strike down race-conscious admissions, which effectively blunts an already limited tool to make higher education more equitable and accessible to a broader range of people. Taken together, this moment—and the push to walk back some of the gains of the ’60s and the ’70s—is an assault on Brice’s legacy.

I often think about how, in his last address as a president, George Washington implored Congress to fund education. He talked about the way that education is how we build national character and how we build good citizens. We’ve known how important education has been since America’s founding. We’ve seen visionaries pushing for a more equitable education system. That is a goal that remains worthwhile, and it’s under attack.

Related:

How Reconstruction created American public education What The Atlantic got wrong about Reconstruction

Today’s News

Israeli troops entered al-Shifa Hospital in pursuit of hostages and Hamas fighters who they claim are operating in tunnels underneath the complex, which could not be independently verified. Hamas and the hospital deny the allegations. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in person for their first conversation in a year. The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer testified in court yesterday about being drawn into right-wing conspiracies.

Dispatches

Up for Debate: Has alcohol left humanity better or worse off? Conor Friedersdorf gathers readers’ opinions.

Evening Read

Millennium Images / Gallery Stock

Why So Many Accidental Pregnancies Happen in Your 40s

By Rachel E. Green

After she turned 42, Teesha Karr thought she was done having kids. Six, in her mind, was perfect. And besides, she was pretty sure she had started menopause. For the past six months she’d had all the same signs as her friends: hot flashes, mood swings, tender breasts. She and her husband decided they could probably safely do away with contraception. But less than a month later, Karr felt a familiar twinge of pain in her ovary—the same twinge she’d felt every time she’d been pregnant before.

Karr felt embarrassed. “Teenagers accidentally get pregnant. Forty-two-year-old women don’t usually accidentally get pregnant,” she told me. But, really, 42-year-old women accidentally getting pregnant is surprisingly common.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

That joke isn’t funny anymore. The law of worst-case scenarios The future of obesity drugs just got way more real.

Culture Break

Taken in Kibbutz Be'eri (Photography by Jerome Sessini / Magnum for The Atlantic)

Read. “Safe Room,” a poem by Agi Mishol and translated by Barbara Mann.

“Now that death creeps all around / and the pecans are bursting their shells, / I hide within Hebrew.”

Watch. Season by season, For All Mankind (streaming on Apple TV+) has become less a tale of an alternate future than a meditation on historical memory.

Play our daily crossword.

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

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