Donald Trump Belongs to The Epstein Class

And the Trump Regime serves them and their interests

I’m not sure who came up with the phrase The Epstein Class but it’s perfect for this moment. Few things bring out my inner class warrior quite like The Epstein Class does. We all know instinctively that the more wealthy and powerful you are, the more easily you can act with impunity. Especially if you’re white and male. But the brazenness of what we see in the Epstein files really lays it all out bare. It’s staggering how comfortable Epstein and his correspondents were in their email exchanges. The things they’d say and express, the actions they’d create a written record of. You only behave like that when you’re not worried about facing consequences of any kind.

Two Epstein-related news stories this week reinforce the role of wealth and power here. First is that we now have confirmation that the DOJ withheld files related to Trump, including multiple interviews with a woman who credibly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor. Journalist Roger Sollenberger first broke the story, which has since been confirmed by NPR, COURIER, and other news outlets.

Second, the Miami Herald, a news outlet that covered Epstein doggedly before anyone else even cared, is also out with an investigation and analysis detailing how Jeffrey Epstein sought to influence and infiltrate America’s justice system in his favor, a strategy that clearly worked for him for decades. As The Herald points out, “Epstein’s efforts to corrupt the justice system is important because, had some of these figures rigorously investigated and monitored Epstein, he may not have been able to continue to sexually abuse women and girls for another decade.”

There’s one set of rules for The Epstein Class and another for the rest of us. This is true when it comes to committing crimes, exploiting women and girls, even getting your kids into college. We all know this instinctively, but it’s still kind of a shock to the system just how openly The Epstein Class operated.

And then there’s the conspiracy theory angle of this, which continues to break my brain. Writer Hunter Lazzaro summarized how batshit this all is on his blog, Uncharted Blue:

“...we believed that the conservative peddlers of batshit theories must have of course realized none of it made any sense because we lived in social circles that just took for granted that our national and business leaders wouldn’t traffic cocaine or secretly murder accomplices or be important associates inside international sex trafficking rings.

What we failed to realize, at the time, is that in the social circles of the aforementioned conservative pundits, influencers, megadonors, and especially actual Republican elected officials making such claims, being enmeshed in international crime and elite sex clubs was, apparently, just your average Tuesday.”

I was thinking a lot about this last week when I was home in Kentucky, staying with family in Thomas Massie’s district (and seeing him talk Epstein all over the local news). One of the reasons I’m so familiar with right-wing conspiracy theories and disinformation is that I grew up around people who consumed vast amounts of right-wing talk radio, and developed some wild beliefs about the world and how it functioned because of that consumption. Only now it doesn’t seem so far-fetched. (Nor do Former Congressman Madison Cawthorn’s 2022 claims about being invited to cocaine-fueled orgies in DC.)

Congressman Massie, who likes to point out that he votes with the Trump Regime 91% of the time, is facing a Trump-backed primary opponent in his deep red district. He’s getting a lot of press attention and drawing crowds in his district, but it remains to be seen whether he can survive a primary challenge. The primary is in May and Massie’s win or loss will be an interesting data point on whether Trump’s continual stonewalling and cover-up on all things Epstein has hurt him with his MAGA base. I’m genuinely curious to see how the race goes.

Donald Trump is the perfect president for The Epstein Class, of which he is a proud member. Trump has made it clear that under his leadership, every aspect of America is for sale. You can purchase a pardon, grease the legislative and policy wheels in your favor, and donate to the Trump Presidential Library as a bribe. If you’re wealthy and powerful, Donald Trump believes that you should be able to act with impunity – so long as you’re willing to pay him the right price.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is clearly fed up with The Epstein Class and the power these folks hold over us. The release of the files has had consequences for royal families, public officials, business leaders, and academics worldwide. Over the long term, the release of these files will have an outsized impact on who governs and leads humanity, an objectively good development that I hope my own government here in the US will eventually replicate.

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ICYMI

How to Stop a Dictator (Vox)

“I’ve spent the past six months researching how to fight democratic backsliding as part of a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. What I’ve learned is that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Democracy is in fact a powerful motivating factor: When people are convinced that there’s a threat to their political freedoms, they can be motivated to go to extraordinary lengths to defend them.”

Nicki Minaj’s Social Media Propped Up by Thousands of Bots, Analysis Finds (Politico)

“The report, compiled by the disinformation detection company Cyabra, identifies a coordinated network of bots — more than 18,000 of them — that drove algorithms to spread Minaj’s posts on X.”

‘Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy Gives the Interview He Couldn’t During Its Release (The Hollywood Reporter)

“So you get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible. How were we supposed to know that this clown car in Washington was going to basically use the same book that we used? So I don’t think it’s prescience so much as the sad familiarity of fascism and the karaoke menu of things that you go through to do it. You could list them from the show, or you could list them from the newspaper.”

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Coda

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