There are many serious problems with the discourse around Epstein, as Anat and I discussed today. First and foremost is the tendency to gloss over the huge human cost to the particular people who were exploited by Epstein and Maxwell, and to only discuss such exploitation because certain privileged men get caught up in it.
Additionally, many analysts are making a dangerous mistake by interpreting the congressional vote to release the full Epstein files as a hopeful sign that Trump is becoming weaker. In reality, the ultimate power center is not Trump—it is the oligarchs who ensured his return to power and continue to support him, and releasing the Epstein files is of no moment to most of them. This is what it looks like when Trump wants something that’s only going to help him, and no one is backing him up lobbying members of Congress or other folks in MAGA on his behalf. We will likely see something similar soon with the Roberts Court on tariffs (a dynamic we’ve seen before and that I wrote about here).
We also discussed:
It goes elsewhere in the world as it goes here: a handful of extraordinarily rich people are making large parts of the world uninhabitable, people are doing what people do and moving to seek a better life, and authoritarians are making those people scapegoats while center-left parties eke out “not-losses” against them.
What it means that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene are standing up to Trump.
People often ask, “How should we be talking about this moment?” The first question to ask before that should be, “What is it you wish people believed? And what is it that you wish they did?” Rather than lowering Trump’s approval, say, we need people to understand the oligarchy problem and act in continuous, unrelenting resistance to all of the forces that empower and enable it. A clear frame is: This is a regime of the bullies, for the billionaires, and by the bribes, and Americans across races, places, and parties are saying no and standing up to it.
Calls to Action:
The We Ain’t Buying It campaign, asking people not to shop at major companies that aid and abet the regime’s evils—Target, Amazon, and Home Depot—from Nov. 27-Dec. 1.
Join Brave of US, a campaign to show and not tell that immigrants are awesome, and that all of us who stand up with and for each other for freedom are brave to do so.
This was Anat’s last Substack Live with me for 2025, as she’ll be working abroad. Stay tuned for other Weekend Reading Live events soon!
