Hi Andrew,
I haven’t even been following Epstein. I consider it old news as in everything I needed to know, I already knew. To what extent the current and former power players fucked kids is most certainly newsworthy. But the fact that they knew what Epstein was up to and did nothing is all I really need to know as a voter. And I knew that since about 2018 or so.
As far as the rest of it goes, it’s also old hat. The guy tried every attempt in the book short of an organized insurrection to stay in power. Now that he’s back in power, what did anyone expect? The interesting think-piece about it is how much of his power grab is overblown. Hysteria is systematically manufactured. Look at the Mueller report. His supposed collusion with Russia was all the news for over 2 years. The report comes out and it was almost a nothing burger. It may have been a complete nothing burger. I actually read the report but I forget if there was anything in it truly incriminating. I know most of it was complete zilch. Even the first impeachment was about 85% hysteria. I have no doubt Trump was going to or thinking about exhorting Zelensky and therein lies the 15% but, in reality, nothing happened. No plan was even set in motion. So lots of hysteria. Sorting out the hysteria from what’s actually happening is interesting.
My opinion isn’t the same as yours. I don’t think anyone is discovering anything. No one seems to care except those on the left already addicted to the daily news cycle and outrage machines. No one anywhere is learning anything. The left was already aware and already in an incredulous outraged state. The middle still doesn’t care. And the right has chosen to not care anymore now that they can no longer deny that their guy had no problems with sex trafficking for roughly two decades. So everyone who had already picked a side is still firmly on it.
For the record, I picked my side after the Iraq invasion. The republicans may have moved the needle in their direction with their more rational approach to Covid but January 6th, their subsequent continuing devotion to Trump, their belief that a woman doesn’t have the right to defend herself from a dangerous fetus (as all fetuses inherently are), and how easily they dismiss certain restrictions on the power of the state has moved it right back to where it was. I would say, nowadays, I’m now Team Massie and Team Paul over any other faction even though both belief a woman doesn’t have a right to defend herself from fetuses. So I’m really on no team but certainly have my opinions. The most important is that none of this new and everyone in the political sphere is crazy. And everyone outside of it is callous.