Backlash

The Epstein Files slow-walk has a hidden agenda

© 2025 Jop Van Velthuis, used under a Creative Commons license

Just a small thought, here, that I’ll tease out — you see what you think.

You will recall the emergence of #MeToo some years back and I hardly need to tell you what it was about. You will also remember that it so changed the usual way of dealing with male-on-female crimes and misdemeanors, however briefly, that some famous men caught up in the uproar suffered consequences. Often these were modest, like Louis C.K.’s vacation from the public eye, now well over; sometimes the penalties were stiffer, but mostly in terms of the perp’s public image — like, Matt Lauer got canned but certainly has not since missed any meals, nor luxuries of any sort.

But many others among the accused, like Ryan Lizza, barely missed a step. It might be argued that women who made #MeToo call-outs suffered more than the men — shit, Moira Donegan had to pay a guy a bunch of money just for passing along what other women had told her on the Shitty Media Men spreadsheet.

In fact you might say that, while #MeToo indeed fulfilled its purpose by making women who’d had this kind of trouble aware that they weren’t alone and didn’t have to be silent — though their success in seeking redress was obviously not guaranteed — it also stirred the resentment of males who felt they now had to be more careful about how they treated women and considered that an intolerable burden.

Now, think about what’s going on with the Epstein Files. Since Pam Bondi and her fellow henchmen got humiliated into releasing these, they’ve been coming out in clots, giving us the occasional pleasure of seeing the worst people on earth, such as Elon Musk, Alan Dershowitz, and Larry Summers, pop up in them.

But though we know enough about Epstein’s pedophiliac racket to connect the dots — especially with those who kept hanging out with the guy on his jet and his island after he was first convicted of sex with minors and trafficking them — you may have noticed that the files released thus far are mostly not dispositive. That is, you couldn’t convict these guys on their evidence.

I’ve thought about this and have come to the conclusion that, despite all the embarrassment, pressure, and even legal requirements (which, we all know, Trump’s people are used to ignoring), no Epstein Files would ever have been produced if there were any chance that any of Trump’s buddies — like Melania director Brett Ratner — could be nailed by them. And, though I suspect they might leak enough hairy material to give Bill Clinton and a few other political opponents a hard time, I don’t think they’re all that interested in manipulating it on a partisan basis.

I think the Epstein Files are being deliberately employed as a rebuke to #MeToo — not to show that women weren’t exploited, criminally and otherwise, by men, but to show that it didn’t matter that they were, so long as the men are under the protection of power.

It fits the Trump M.O. of basically showing off how no legal, regulatory, or moral limits apply to him and his squad. And it does double duty by extending that air of invulnerability to one of the few constituencies that are not losing faith in him — the hardcore misogynists. Trump may be fucking up enough on the economy, on ICE, war and peace, etc. that even many Owning the Libs enthusiasts no longer find the joke funny, but men who hate women and are in a constant baffled rage that women don’t respond to their hatred with offers of sex and devotion may be stroked by the Epstein files in two directions — first, their paranoia is excited by the ridicule and opprobrium to which their sex creep heroes like Musk are exposed; then, their hope is encouraged by the fact that these guys remain rich and powerful despite being obvious sex creeps.

Why do you think Bari Weiss didn’t immediately dismiss newly-hired CBS News on-air talent Peter “Low-carb pussy” Attia after his Epstein exposure? Is he that important to her mission of destroying the Tiffany Network?

Nah. She and the rest of her ilk just want you to know that the moment when it looked as if they might be sufficiently embarrassed to associate their enterprises with someone like that, lest their stink adhere to them and turn off the public, is long past. They no longer even bother to make it look good.

The immunity is the point.

What do you think?