[I’d planned to write about boats and camping today. Alas, the Epstein arrest intruded on my thoughts. Please forgive the digression.]
Nobody is shocked to discover billionaires sometimes use their immense power to indulge in socially unacceptable activities. Nor is it news that a few cross the line from unethical to illegal. What interests me is how it fits with my thesis of last week.
Just days ago I proposed we’re in a cycle of greater corruption than some unremarkable baseline. (Linked here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) I half jokingly suggested future historians will look back at this era and say “we all know politics was corrupt as hell back in that time”. Historians say that exact thing about certain times American history but usually only safely distant times. (Of course, very few Americans actually know our own history.)
For the folks in the future, it won’t be a big deal to say something like; “The early 21st century was divisive time. Corruption and other factors lead to a partial breakdown in the normal ways of doing things.” Unfortunately, we have to live through it. I suspect the current strangeness in the air is confusion and maybe a bit of cognitive dissonance. We’re seeing the sausage made from inside the grinder. I ended by optimistically hoping the populace is gradually recognizing and starting to deal with unpleasant facts. It’s gotta’ be done sooner or later.
[As always, this is just my rumination: YMMV, past performance is no guarantee of future returns, check with your doctor before thinking about history, professional driver on closed course, known to the State of California to cause cancer in snowflakes, etc…]
My timing couldn’t be better. I discussed “the current period of widespread corruption” just days before they arrested billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on charges of sex trafficking minors! How does this relate to my thesis? I think it’s very much on topic.
In a different era, the Epstein event might be a generic criminal case. Unremarkable; “rich guy/rock star/celebrity does something illegal and gets tossed in the hoosegow. Ho hum.” However, this era is not other eras. Epstein’s mess is playing out exactly like one would expect for a time of widespread & deeply rooted corruption.
For example, it’s just getting started and we already know there will be months of revelations and tons of unsavory allegations (some of which will be true). We joke about making popcorn and watching the show but that’s precisely how a society processes corruption after it has gotten out of hand.
The media is a big part of the mess. They’re scampering about trying to choose the proper “narrative”. They’re not interested in Epstein himself or his alleged victims. They’re obsessed with bending the situation to their political advantage.
A fact oriented press might say “Epstein’s an alleged criminal so lets dig into the facts about Epstein” but that ‘aint happening. Both sides are trying to use it as a tool. One side is desperately trying deflect likely entanglements and tie it Trump. The other gleefully hopes it’ll snare Bill Clinton.
I think Trump’s a long stretch. Folks have been trying to “take out” Trump since the day he changed from Democrat supporter to Republican candidate. If there were solid facts to take out Trump, he’d already be gone. (Also they’ve “cried wolf” for years; Russia, Russia, Russia, impeach even before the swearing in ceremony, he’s mentally ill and should be removed, the walls are closing in, this time we’ve got him.) I also think Bill Clinton is a stretch. There’s slightly more circumstantial evidence against Bill but a noticeable lack of solid proof. Though, it’s not a sign of a healthy society that folks are looking for flight records from Epstein’s plane while parsing Bill Clinton’s suspiciously lawyer-like statements on the matter.
The Trump versus Clinton largely unproven but salaciously attractive and somewhat believable horndog fest is only one part of the corruption train. We’re already discussing how and why Epstein skated on a set of similar offenses a decade ago. Is that corruption? Why not? Was the prosecutor told to “back off”? By whom? Was it the powerful protecting their own? Some wonder darkly about theoretical and conjectural blackmail. Nobody seems to reject the idea out of hand. How would blackmail look different from the outcomes we’ve already seen? Will the new prosecution team hold up? Will they fold like the last one? Who’s on the team? Who decides the team? The Team is in a Blue State, does this mean they can pin it to Trump?
There’s even a few people wondering “where’d Epstein get all his money?” If it was something relatable and transparent like “he ran a chain of fast food joints” it wouldn’t even be a question.
Another hint toward systemic corruption is Epstein’s Wikipedia page. It was immediately rewritten! It was edited for content in real time; right in front of everyone’s nose! How cheeky is that? One side was busily editing. The other side was busily archiving screenshots.
Meanwhile concerns of the last month are ignored. The first presidential visit to North Korea? Forgotten. It’s a huge (“yuge”?) accomplishment but a weak partisan club. Epstein’s situation is dark and complex and spiced with money and 50 Shades of Grey; an ideal political weapon! Depending on how true the stories are, it’s somewhere between “yucky” and “Caligula with a jet”. The point I see is that very few postulations are totally “clean”.
In other eras it might play out without fanfare. “Arrested a perv, lots of evidence, had a fair trial, tossed the dude in jail, that’s what cops and courts do. Duh!” But not in 2019.
The big betting is even more deeply related to corruption. Everyone is drawing lists of who’ll get hammered should Epstein start naming names. Many suppose he was only arrested for the purpose of getting names. (Another sign of corrupt times. We’re quick to assume an alleged criminal was arrested only as a means to some other end.)
Even the evidence chain of custody is questioned. What evidence exists and who’s trying to bury it? Does anyone simply assume nothing will get covered up (either sealed officially or “lost unofficially”)? In times past we might think “The Epstein information is locked up in the DA’s office and that’s what the DA is for. The evidence will be used properly in a court of law as it should.”
Here’s the big reveal: not one single outlet is offering conjecture that Epstein is clean as a whistle and has done noting illegal. There’s not a single person entertaining the idea of innocence! Everyone asks how deep it’ll go and who’ll get swept up but we can’t even pretending it’s a fluke.
That’s the key. Everyone assumes the true situation is dark and twisted because recently that’s the way of many things. Nobody thinks he was arrested simply because he committed a crime and we track who’ll gain or lose political power; it doesn’t occur to us that he’s just a lone perv because that’s not this time’s situation. There are webs of corruption and everyone knows it. If there was a serious development of the last decade it would be that nobody bothers pretending otherwise.
That said, airing untoward information and trying to work it through the courts is a good thing. The first step toward healing is admitting you’ve got a problem and I think we’re getting close.
In a hundred years, no matter what the outcome is, it will be as dry and boring to people then as Tammany Hall is to us today. We’re a big country, and unless it affects us directly all these crime, politics and corruption stores are sort of like having a fender bender in a ’69 Lincoln Town Car — all the interesting stuff happens *way out there* and is maybe worth a brief look but will generally be ignored.
It doesn’t help that everybody has their 15 minutes of being sexist/racist/Hitler these days either, such that both Mother Theresa and Pol Pot would have moral equivalency.
Well, we elected the government we got. Ever wonder why we can’t seem to un-elect them? I’m leaning towards all the decent and competent people having no desire to join the game.
– Max