There are still some centrist Democrats in Washington who want to be seen as above politics, rather than of politics, and so take great care to make sure you understand that the Epstein scandal is “bull—-,” and that they have nobler things to do, like serving the American people.
It so happens that that’s what the president would like us to do, focus on how well the economy is performing, for instance – or on the allegations that Barack Obama cheated on the 2016 election, whatever that’s supposed to mean. In other words, Donald Trump would rather we pay attention to something else. Anything but the Epstein scandal.
Fortunately, I think this holier-than-thou attitude among certain moderate (and unnamed) members of the Democratic caucus is not representative of the whole party. Even Nancy Pelosi – the centrist’s centrist – has come around. Last week, the former House Speaker said the Epstein scandal is “a distraction.” However, this week, she voted along with other House Democrats to release the Epstein files.
Here and there are hints that ambitious Democrats recognize that the Epstein scandal is the best frame in which to shoehorn virtually all their allegations against the president. Even if the facts of the Epstein case are never fully known, the scandal itself still remains the most constructive means of convincing not only a majority of the people, but his own people, that Donald Trump isn’t what he appears to be.
If we boil down the Epstein scandal to a word, it might be “weakness.” MAGAworld was willing to overlook virtually any crime Trump had committed with the understanding that he would, as president, use that power to bring to justice people who were, in MAGA’s eyes, “the real criminals.” Who those “criminals” were can be found here. Anyway, it’s safe to say MAGA gave Trump the power, then he … didn’t use it.
I think, as far as MAGA is concerned, the psychological ramifications of weakness are deeply hidden beneath all other considerations. Right now, there’s focus on details, like the fact that Trump gave Jeffrey Epstein a birthday note in which he appears to joke about their shared interest in sex with underage girls, and the fact that Trump’s goons at the Justice Department are now trying to get Epstein’s accomplice, who is currently serving the rest of her life in prison on child-sex trafficking convictions, to declare that Trump never knew Epstein and Epstein never knew Trump, in exchange for a presidential pardon.
But MAGA isn’t a detailed-oriented bunch. They supported Trump for 10 years, because he was supposed to be the biggest and strongest and of the big and strong, a man of action willing to break all the rules to “restore justice,” because all the rules had been corrupted by “the real criminals.” Yet when it came time to act – to release the Epstein files, thus exposing a cosmic conspiracy against America – Trump choked.
As far as MAGA is concerned, every question about the Epstein scandal is downstream from the fact that Trump didn’t use the power he was given to do what he was supposed to do. Even if Trump manages to paper over the scandal – by getting convicted child-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to say nice things about him, for instance – he still can’t explain his impotence. Indeed, the more he papers it over, the more he deepens the appearance among his own people that he’s weak.
This weakness, and the implied fraudulence within it, could be the foundation for what some might call a “permission structure” in which GOP voters are allowed to complain about Trump without seeming liberal or woke or some other thing that’s taboo in their communities. They might vote for a Democrat or, likely, stay home on Election Day.
Without this permission-structure, the Democrats would have a much harder time reaching GOP voters. As long as the president was the ultimate victim of a conspiracy against America, and the ultimate hero ordained to save America from the greatest of evils, no amount of suffering would divide them. The Democrats could talk all day every day about rural hospitals closing and Medicaid vanishing as a result of Trump’s big budget bill, and GOP voters would never blame him.
But with a permission-structure in place, or a semblance of one, GOP voters might start believing the Democrats or even better, they might start believing the evidence of their own eyes. The consequences of Trump’s policies – mainly his tariffs and “one big beautiful bill” – will be felt hard. GOP voters and their families will suffer. However, instead of complaining about their suffering, and looking weak to their peers, they might find ways to complain about Trump’s weakness in the face of their perceived enemies, therefore, remaining loyal to their cause.
They can say they didn’t leave Trump.
Trump left them.
But the Epstein scandal has potential to widen in such a way that the president’s base is no longer our primary focus. Indeed, it is the ideal framing for attracting virtually anyone with a generalized sense that something is deeply and perhaps irreversibly wrong with this country. I think it would be especially effective for people who do not follow politics except as a form of entertainment. (The so-called Joe Rogan crowd.) It can be short-hand for the fact that the rich and powerful regularly act outside the boundaries of the law while the rest of us watch our hopes and dreams go up in the smoke. In the case of Epstein, young girls were groomed, consumed and thrown away.
In other words, people believe there is a conspiracy against America, because there is a conspiracy against America. The difference is that some of them believe the bad guys are Satan-worshiping Jews who drink children’s blood and sell girls for sex, while others believe the bad guys are rich white men like Trump who act with total impunity.
A new poll released by Fox on Wednesday shows broad public awareness of the Epstein scandal as well as broad public skepticism of the Trump administration’s handling of it. “Only 13 percent think the government has been open and transparent about the Jeffrey Epstein case, while more than five times as many, 67 percent, disagree – including 60 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of maga supporters. One voter in five says they haven’t been following the case.”
Trump is weak, but within that weakness is a deep moral cancer that requires broad acts of liberal reform through democratic means to restore justice and heal the republic. The longer the Epstein scandal goes on, the more the president brings needed attention to that cancer. As Lindsay Beyerstein said, he is literally trying to get a woman who is “a pedophile, a sex trafficker and a perjurer … to vouch for him.”
Sadly, some centrist Democrats see the Epstein scandal as “bull—-.”
They should, however, see it as a means of achieving a noble end.
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