The Epstein Files: Two Plus Two Equals Five

Kryptonite for SuperTrump?

Image: Michael Kelso

In George Orwell’s 1984, the phrase two plus two equals five is used to illustrate the power of authoritarians to impose a false reality. That is to say, a Big Lie, told often enough with vigor, will override basic logic and become accepted as truth.

MAGA-types have come up against the Big Lie of Donald Trump’s intentions, and it is cause for division among the ranks of the faithful. As of when I’m writing this, Assistant FBI Director Dan Bongino has either quit or is thinking about it over differences about AG Pam Bondi’s handling of files concerning Jeffrey Epstein.

Via CNN:

• During a February 21 interview on Fox News, host John Roberts asked whether DOJ would release a “list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients.”

• “Will that really happen?” Roberts asked.

• Bondi responded: “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

• In other words, Bondi didn’t commit to releasing such a list, but she affirmatively indicated it existed and that it was in her possession. And the question was specifically about the purported list – not other files related to Epstein.

It’s important to note the distinction between investigative files and the so-called client list. The Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown reported that there was “no evidence Epstein kept a ledger or a list of clients who were involved with his sex trafficking operation.” (I think Brown is right, and she points out that there’s likely a truckload of investigative reports from several agencies.)

A big part of the MAGA rationale is that “they” are hiding a scheme involving kidnapping and exploiting young children. The ‘kidnapping children’ theme hails back as far as the middle ages, when tales of witches (or slave traders or abusers, or fosterage) led to mob justice often ending in executions. It reemerged in the 1980s as day-care sex-abuse panics culminating in criminal charges based on little or no evidence.

Matt Stoller, who writes about monopolies, followed the money.

• …the MAGA ecosystem has an economic basis: the pyramid scheme and influencer kickback culture. Pyramid schemes are an important, but little noted part of American business. There’s a recent book titled Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read, who goes into depth on the history of this sordid area of Americana. A key figure is GOP billionaire Richard DeVos, who created Amway. In the 1970s, he effectively legalized the pyramid scheme with help from then-Congressman Gerald Ford. The Federal Trade Commission was bullied into creating a rule that allowed businesses like Amway to flourish. It was also defanged in its attempt to police deceptive advertising. The Reagan Revolution and deregulation was in many ways a starter gun for a pyramid scheme culture.

• The result was a whole world of vitamin supplements hawkers, medical quackery, and get-rich-quick schemers that had a legal basis. When paired with crypto and gambling, that’s what finances much of the podcasting/influencer world today. That’s also the talent well from which Trump has drawn for his administration - Patel and Bongino are running the FBI, Dr. Oz is running Medicare, Pete Hegseth went from Fox News to the Pentagon, and MAHA is full of wellness influencers. These people are exceptionally good at surviving anything thrown their way, because the basis of that world isn’t truth, it’s just continuing to weave a more elaborate conspiracy. Again, the conspiracy is the point.

In the twenty-first century, conspiracy types have created and profited from a mythology about prominent wealthy figures (usually Democrats) kidnapping children for sex rituals and/or killing them for substances that were supposed to stop aging. This mega-conspiracy underlies an effort to sow suspicion of many institutions. After all, if the elites were hiding this terrible truth, they shouldn’t be trusted on anything.

Donald Trump was supposedly leading an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein that would destroy the elites. Could it be that Dear Leader was also involved in the coverup? There have been thousands of posts on social media platforms saying not-nice things about this situation.

(It’s always possible in a situation like this that many of those comments are being generated by AI on behalf of a foreign power, so keep a big grain of salt handy.)

On the July 4th holiday, the Department of Justice released a statement saying that no list of Epstein’s customers existed and confirming an earlier finding that he died by suicide while incarcerated. A “raw” video purported to show any comings and goings from the operations desk leading to Epstein’s jail cell was quickly discovered to be missing a minute, and to have been edited at least twice. And the cameras near the jail cell were operational for live views, but not in recording mode.

Suffice it to say there are enough holes in various statements about Epstein to convince a Star Trek Vulcan a coverup is in progress.

See: That Jeffrey Epstein evidence isn't missing - there's more than you can imagine

Young conservatives at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit this past weekend applauded speakers who made claims that there was more to be revealed. Tucker Carlson went so far as to repeat the long-standing internet rumor that Epstein collected dirt on behalf of Israeli intelligence that could be used to manipulate powerful figures.

Steve Bannon told the summit that the controversy over the files could cost Republicans as many as 40 Congressional seats in the next election.

Via Politico:

• Trump scrambled to defend Bondi against an intense backlash from his base over the Epstein files. In a lengthy Truth Social post — “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’” — the president defended Bondi and claimed without evidence that the Epstein files had been written by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other political enemies. Trump continued to lie about election fraud, and concluded by saying that Epstein is “somebody that nobody cares about.”

I wish I could say the MAGA sect would abandon the President over this. He’s lost control over the national political narrative. Look for increasingly desperate measures to steal the spotlight.

So, back to the question. 2 plus 2 equals? The antidote to Big Lies is constant repetition of the truth. And never accepting the Lie.

There are emerging pathways to spreading the truth. Be fearless in telling it.

The first are public displays of dissent. Whether its signs over freeways or pickets in suburban communities, any thing indicating that there are people not buying the bullshit could end up being the “aha” moment for someone who’s been not paying attention or starting to question their own political beliefs. I list events for the coming ten day period on Thursdays.

On July 16, Indivisible will be launching a series of three virtual events titled One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism, a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design.

The Good Trouble Lives On events at over a thousand locations nationwide on Thursday, July 17 will offer multiple ways of sharing truth. Here’s a link to information on a dozen of those gatherings in our region.

Later in the day on July 17, the Working Families Party Nationwide Welcome Gathering (a virtual event) is occurring. This group has been effective in local, state, and national actions, ranging from minimum wage increases to political campaigns. Find out which San Diego politicians have aligned themselves with this cause. ‪@caworkingfamilies.bsky.social‬

Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke by Hanif Abdurraqib at The New Yorker

• At the end of Youssef’s show, he paced the stage in the near-silent aftermath of rousing applause. Then he began talking about two things that had left him hopeful that week. I clocked a couple in the row ahead of me mouthing “Zohran?” Then there he was, onstage, waving, taking in a standing ovation. He talked briefly about his vision for a different New York, one where people could advocate for Palestinian rights without the threat of persecution. And then Youssef introduced Khalil, who got an even bigger, more raucous ovation. He smiled wide and threw up a fist, a gesture that many in the audience returned.

• Toward the end of Khalil’s short remarks, he looked at Mamdani as if it were just the two of them in the room, and he said, “I am excited about the possibility of raising my son in a city where you are mayor.” It was a stunning moment, one of those times when you could, if you were listening, hear a collective catching of breath before a fresh wave of applause. People made their way to the exits, some wiping away tears. I saw a friend, and we hugged. She said, “I didn’t realize I was crying, but now I can’t stop.”

• As beautiful as that memory was, what lingered in my mind was the final joke of the night, when Khalil said that he was honored to be standing with Mamdani, “a man so principled that ICE hasn’t arrested him yet.” He paused and then, with perfect timing, added, “You can tell they are thinking about it.” Mamdani laughed. Youssef laughed. I laughed in my seat. It was a classically funny joke, made by someone who had been snatched from the lobby of his building by ICE agents, a joke lovingly directed at a mayoral candidate who has been threatened with deportation by the President and other political leaders. The joke was funny because of what some of us in the room knew and because of what the person telling it had lived through. The joke was funny because, though some of us in the room wept often, our laughter outpaced what we know of the world, for a few seconds at a time.

***

The A-TEAM Fiasco by Brad Willis at Perspectives
We’ve tried replacing migrant farmworkers with Americans before. It didn’t go so well.

• Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz decided high school athletes could surely do the job during their summer breaks and created the “A-TEAM: Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower.”

• An ad campaign was launched to recruit 20,000 high schoolers, with slogans like "Farm Work Builds Men!”

• 18,000 signed up.
  Only 3300 showed up.

• The work was so brutal that many of the students began dropping out within the first two weeks.

***

SPECIAL: For Those of You Who Realize This is Bastille Day!

jacobin there, done that by Allison Epstein at Dirtbags Through the Ages
Jean-Paul Marat, the Oscar the Grouch of the French Revolution

• Corday gets Marat’s housekeeper to let her in by claiming she has a list of counter-revolutionary traitors for Marat to murder—as we know, his favorite thing. So she’s admitted into the Bathroom Office, at which point she lunges forward and stabs Marat in the chest.

• He dies, and that’s the end of the story of Marat.

• Except it’s not, really. Most people had hated Marat while he was alive, considering him (not wrongly) a stinky old weirdo who had no filter and never met a stranger he didn’t want to guillotine. But as soon as Marat had died for the revolution, he immediately became a hero and a martyr. A flurry of paintings and artwork making Marat out to be the Christ of the French Revolution flooded the scene