The world may never know what is inside the so-called “Epstein files.” What is clear is that the contents are damaging enough for the president and his human flak jackets to call the whole affair a “hoax”, recess Congress to prevent a vote on releasing the materials and send the deputy attorney general to visit Tallahassee, Florida, to speak to the convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who was subsequently moved to a “cushy”, celebrity-riddled minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.
As the conservative pundit Bill Kristol noted over the weekend: “[Richard Nixon] said of Watergate, ‘I gave them a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish.’ Trump may have given us a sword. We should use it.” Kristol is right, to a point. Liberals, progressives and never-Trump Republicans must not let voters forget Trump’s festering, open wound without neglecting the kitchen table, cost-of-living matters that hurt them last fall.
In 2007, a far sharper and far more spry Joe Biden delivered a quip so clever and cutting that it ended another man’s entire political career. Rudy Giuliani was never able to recover after Biden observed how it seemed “there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11”. The line was funny because it was true; it was lethal because it exposed the emptiness behind the former New York City mayor’s tragedy-fueled candidacy.
This is the challenge for Democrats: how do they maintain a spotlight on a scandal that reveals Trump for who he is in a way that finally resonates with his base without appearing to exploit a tragedy , à la Giuliani? They must ground the abstract conspiracy in everyday terms relatable to the average American.
It goes like this: Trump protects elites.
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Mallory McMorrow of Michigan, a Democratic Senate candidate, is already reading from this script. In recent weeks, she has demonstrated mastery in pairing Epstein with broader anti‑elite rhetoric. In one vertical video, she emphatically declared:
This is exactly why there’s eroding trust in our institutions, because until we confront the rot that exists in our institutions, until we hold everyone, everyone accountable under the same set of rules and laws, we will keep living in a country where there are two systems of justice, one for the rich and powerful, and one for everybody else. We deserve better. Release the files now.
Trump’s friendship with Epstein is a proof point for elite favoritism and all of us who oppose the orange god king must use it to condemn inequality and unaccountable power within the GOP ecosystem.
It all seems obvious when you think about it. Republicans serve the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Stop the presses. What else is new?
But the Epstein scandal frames the story in a way that makes people pay attention and when you combine it with the fact that they are massively cutting taxes for the Epsteins and the Trumps while cutting Medicaid and other vital services for everyone else, it has a resonance that the simple “Oligarchy is bad” message doesn’t have
And, as Nixon said, Trump has handed the Democrats a sword and they need to use it.
I liked this picture from the US Senate today. They all stood before this poster as they made their speeches demanding that the files be released. The Republicans blocked it, of course:
“…it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side.”