Epstein, Shmepstein!
Keeping Our Focus, While MAGA Loses It
This story broke in Politico while I was writing this post:
Right-wing activist Laura Loomer warned that President Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein threatens to “consume his presidency” in an interview on Wednesday, a dramatic rebuke from a presidential confidante that illustrates the growing rupture in the MAGA coalition.
The almost appropriately spelled Miss Looner is calling for a special counsel, and I hope she gets her wish.
But, as usual, I agree with
, who cautions that while Democrats can’t ignore the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, they need to keep it in perspective.Make Trump’s Epstein Cover-Up Part of the Larger Narrative
Democrats can’t just repost videos from Right Wing podcasts, they need to work the Epstein scandal into a larger narrative. There is a reason why folks react so viscerally to Trump refusing to release the Epstein files.
Trump won because enough voters thought he would unrig the system, but now he represents the broken system and is wielding power to protect himself and his powerful friends. Trump’s refusal to release the Epstein files is connected to the billionaires in his Cabinet, the pay-to-play governance, the corruption and crypto schemes, and the tax cuts for his rich friends.
In an earlier post about Epstein, Dan Pfeiffer said something that echos what I’ve been writing about, and is worth reading, re-reading and passing on to your friends:
Most Trump voters knew they were voting for someone who lies, cheats, lines his own pockets, and can be a huge asshole. But for a variety of reasons, they voted for him anyway. Maybe he was better on an issue they cared about, like abortion. Or they thought the political system was so broken that they wanted someone who would set it on fire. Many believed Trump would fight for them in ways no other politician would.
To that I would add, as I’ve observed here before, that many voted for Trump because they think he’s funny.
For people who do not believe that government should play a role in improving people’s lives, correcting injustice or strengthening democracy, those are fine reasons for picking a President.
Or, if you’re a Texan, a Governor.
But for most of us, that’s not how politics is supposed to work, and we don’t like seeing how Donald Trump has hijacked politics and turned it into something smaller, and smarmier. There’s no platform or issue agenda beyond “owning the libs.”
Now that swimming in those cesspools has brought Jeffrey Epstein back in the spotlight, it is fun to watch conspiracy theorists who peddled stuff they made up on Fox News now have to clean up their mess as government officials.
(“I’ll just say I have notebooks on my desk,” thought Pam Bondi. “Who’s going to know?” Oops.)
But Dan Pfeiffer is right— the Epstein story is not the Thing, nor the MacGuffin, but the Way—the way into a narrative for Democrats that should come naturally to them.
“The issue is privilege,” the late, great Fred Harris said in 1976. Later, he wrote:
In televised presidential-candidate joint debates, in appearances on programs like Meet the Press and Face the Nation, in street rallies, great auditoriums, and in countless living rooms, I talked about how the gross and increasing inequality of income and wealth in America was our basic problem. I said, “Too few people have all the money and power, and most people have little or none.”
In terms of how economic and political privilege thwarts the will of the people, I called attention to the real day-to-day problems of people caused by “heavy and unfair taxes, bad or nonexistent housing, inadequate and costly medical care, inflated food, utility, and other prices, high interest rates, exorbitant military expenditures and waste, cynical and interventionist foreign policy, and low wages and unemployment.”
I talked about how rich farmers and others like them enjoyed huge government subsidies and how they and others were being given unconscionable tax breaks.
I mentioned Nelson Rockefeller, as an example; he’d admitted before a congressional committee that on his great income in 1970 and 1971, he’d paid zero individual federal income tax. I said, “We ought to sue him for nonsupport.”
And I always concluded my remarks by saying, “There is plenty of money to do what needs to be done in this country, if we take the rich off welfare.” That became our most popular campaign button: “Take the rich off welfare.”
Since then, Democrats from Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown to Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani have taken up that banner, and it’s still the frame for the conversation we should be having.
compares the MAGA reaction to Jeffrey Epstein to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief, and asks if after their anger, “will Denial, Bargaining, and Depression follow?”Will they ever get to Acceptance? I wouldn't bet on it. More likely, they’ll stick with denial. It’s worked so well for them before—January 6, the 2020 election, climate change, immigrants eating cats—it’s a long list.
Not our problem! Let MAGA commit hari-kari over Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats, return to your populist roots.
The issue is still privilege. Whether it’s the privilege to get away with horrific crimes, or the privilege to avoid taxes, regulation, legal barriers or fundamental principles of human decency, the way to talk about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein is to repeat that Epstein is just one more pal Donald Trump will pervert justice for (with emphasis on the pervert).
Jeffrey Epstein is MAGA’s obsession. Democracy is ours.