Pelosi Is Wrong To Dismiss Trump-Epstein As A ‘Distraction’

Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi has a long, storied career filled with accomplishments.  If sometimes she didn’t get some needed things done most of the time she delivered. She did so in part due to incredible institutional knowledge, but also in part because of political savvy. The old saying about ‘Politics is the art of the possible’ comes to mind. Right now Trump is clearly politically wounded due to the Jeffrey Epstein mess he’s made. He’s “bleeding’ and it’s possible to open those wounds wider. That’s why Pelosi is dead wrong to dismiss it all as a distraction from more pressing issues.

I’ll freely admit to not seeing the connection between the anger out there even with working class MAGAs and the budget goings on Pelosi insists we should be talking about. Then a little while ago I read an opinion piece from Alternet by John Stoehr.  While the title refers to Trump having just made a big mistake and having no one to blame but himself it was clear Trumpty has company. Perhaps Stoehr couldn’t bring himself to call out the Speaker Emeritus in the title but he makes an awfully good case that Pelosi is blowing it when it comes to the Trump-Epstein matter.

Stoehr begins with saying the Epstein scandal is the best thing to happen to us in the Trump era as it has done a couple of things. It’s loosened the tight grip Trump has had on MAGA and even the Washington press corps. He goes on to say there’s finally some daylight between Trump and MAGA and that it’s causing a crisis of faith. His contention is that this offers hope. I agree. I don’t know that this will ‘bring Trump down’ because one of the tragedies of Trump is his Houdini like skill in escaping “death” so often in his business career transferred into his political one. Bluntly put he might be down but he’s not “out” and we have to help keeping the pressure on. To force MAGAs to look at/listen to Trump and actually doubt him.

Yes, Pelosi is spot-on to note the horrific things going on with the budget. Vital programs have been cut and the process isn’t over. All to pay for tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. Yet I look as history. The Reagan tax cuts for the rich. The Bush 43 tax cuts for the rich. Then Trump’s. THREE times before this latest legislative monstrosity average, working class and even poor Americans out there in those wide swaths of red counties (in blue states like my home state of Illinoi) and ruby red ones have bought into the bullshit.  That the tax cuts would pay for themselves via increase economic growth leading to more tax revenue.

It never made sense. If you cut taxes on those making the most money from the growth it will offset the supposed increased tax revenue!  Worse, the lost taxes because those who were getting all the benefits of the tax cut exploded the federal debt EVERY   SINGLE   TIME. Alas it gets even worse than that. Conservatives used those tax cutting for the rich bills to cut programs and services average and poor Americans have depended on.  THIS time even in red areas voters were looking at things, especially the Medicaid cuts that will lead to so many rural hospitals, THEIR hospitals closing and raising hell with their GOP elected representatives.

So again, Pelosi is right that we should keep hammering that point. However where she’s wrong is that doing so doesn’t mean we can’t also hammer Trump and the GOP over the Epstein scandal. As the linked piece explains there is an overlooked connection that explains not only what’s going on in MAGA world but how it gives us a chance to help connect the dots and do much more damage to Trump’s political fortunes.

Stoehrs says he was stunned to see Pelosi’s statement dismissing Epstein as a distraction. He cites her talking about whether it’s Epstein or Alcatraz it’s a distraction. That it’s off the what the subject should be which is what they’re doing with this budget that’s harmful to meeting the kitchen-table needs of the American people.  His criticism wasn’t harsh but clearly he was put out by her attitude because of what comes next:

MSNBC’s James Downie put it well: “The public is pissed about Epstein in no small part because he was a rich guy who got away with heinous crimes, because he deliberately cultivated rich friends,” he said. “That’s an inequality story. The only way it could be closer to ‘kitchen-table issues’ is if the files were tucked in a goddamn pocketbook!”

Aside from that, she’s missing the bigger picture. The Epstein scandal has grown so fast that Trump now risks forfeiting the one thing that made him invincible in the eyes of many – that made it possible for him to credibly claim that he could shoot someone and never lose a supporter. That one thing is him being the exception to the rule.

Certain parts of that jumped out at me. “Inequality story” for one. I was born and raised lower middle class and until forced into early retirement on disability moved back and forth between middle class and working class during my adult life. I grew up with and have known Republican voters who have lived the same kinds of lives. One area of commonality is that we felt it was (because it IS) unfair the rich get away with so much that us regular folks would go to jail for. Or wind up financially wiped out over – with little hope of recovery.

I never understood how Baby Bush, “W” managed to sell himself as a “regular guy” to so many average folk conservative voters. At least he made a show of being regular at times in his life. Hanging out in the stands with fans at Texas Ranger home games when he ran that team for example.  And all that time on his ranch in Texas and all that brush clearing. It IS necessary and hard work if you didn’t know.  Is there ANYONE who can imagine Trump sitting in the cheap seats pounding hot dogs and knocking back beers with the fans at a major league game?  Or getting out there on one of his gold courses and mowing, even on a riding mower?  Or sitting around a campfire cooking and (again) knocking back some cold brews and sleeping in a freaking tent?

Trump never even bothered trying any of that stuff. On the contrary. He flaunted his wealth and privilege his entire miserable life and campaigned on his “success” and flaunted it even more. I will never understand how MAGAs came to believe THIS guy knew their lives, cared about how hard they worked and would be their champion. Even his business failures were forgiven including big ones like those bankruptcies. Trump played it, and not paying taxes as him being “smarter” than others (including his MAGAs) and was forgiven. Trump famously screwed around on his wives, and again was forgiven.  I literally have known guys who would nudge each other and do the wink-wink, nod nod routine about it being cools he could “get some strange” whenever he wanted.

Trump got away with a LOT. And MAGAs kept forgiving him. This time however, that willingness to forgive is in question. As Ursula noted earlier this week pedophiles are so reviled they even need special protections in prison!  Yet Trump hung out and parties with one for years. That too was forgiven for a time as Epstein got that sweetheart deal down in Florida almost twenty years ago.  Most of what he did remained hidden under the rug. Then that rug got pulled back during Trump’s first term. Outrage began to brew.  Trump’s Labor Secretary was forced out – he was the federal prosecutor who engineered Epstein only being convicted on a single STATE charge. And burying the evidence that would still have Epstein serving time in federal prison. And lying to all those victims.

As the story finally started to come out Trumpty threw his old pal, purported ‘best friend’ under the bus.  Barr’s job was to nail Epstein to the wall and keep Trump out of it in a sort of “I had no idea he was doing THAT stuff” narrative. However a lot of other very rich and/or powerful people had plenty to worry about.  Is it any wonder that when Epstein, supposedly on suicide watch was found dead in cell people, and not just tinfoil hat types questioned whether it actually WAS suicide?   Among Trump voters, MAGAs it became an article of faith the Clintons were behind Epstein’s death.  Trumpty recognized this which is why he flogged the whole scandal during the 2024 election.

I think a credible argument can be made that Trump figured Barr had “insulated” him from any real trouble. That the videos of them partying together could be explained away. Hell, he’d sold MAGA on so much other bullshit why not this too?  Not being one for details or reading complicated memos if Barr at some point pointed out that Clinton wasn’t implicated in any pedophile stuff or anything more than attending some gatherings and copping a few free rides on an private het Trump never found that out. He ASSUMED like his MAGAs did that Clinton, and even Hillary would be ruined by release of the “Epstein Files.”

Given the cesspool of ultra hard-core RWNJ FBI agents that has festered in the NYC field office for decades (even under Mueller who chose to protect the FBI’s reputation rather than clean house) if there was any “there” there when it came to Bill (or Hillary) Clinton we’ve have learned about it long ago.  Still, that that the Epstein files would FINALLY “get” the Clintons grew and Trump kept pouring on the Miracle Gro. My god, they were ecstatic after the election and one of the “Day One” promises was to release Epstein stuff.

The administration kept easing it, and MAGAs started getting impatient. Bondi shooting off her mouth sure didn’t help. And then Trump popped the balloon he’d inflated with gases from his own rectal emissions. MAGAs winced at the smell and there was no “who did it” but rather fury at Trump for being the culprit.  Their initial reaction was a feeling of raw, pure betrayal. It’s true that the bulk of them are trying to somehow rationalize what’s transpired these past couple of weeks but NOW they have questions. MAGAs, at least a significant number of them are actually questioning whether they can trust what their Trumpty says as gospel!  And some, as noted in the blocked out section above are of a “he’s just another rich/privileged a-hole who gets away with stuff I would be in huge trouble, even maybe prison for.”

When the author of the linked opinion piece says there’s linkage, that this IS a ‘kitchen table’ issue he’s right. People already struggling know it’s going to get worse. They know that for those who are running the country the problems they face won’t be an issue. THEIR lives and lifestyles won’t be affected in the slightest.  Rich people including Trumpty will go merrily along enjoying, and even flaunting how good they’ve got it. AND if THEY cheat the system or even commit criminal acts they will get away with it!

Now MAGAs are actually at times thinking Trumpty isn’t different, or that he’s the “exception” after all.  They TRUSTED him and he’s betrayed them. Like so many people in small towns at those kitchen tables have experienced before some rich pillar of the community LIED to them. Got public funds promising to upgrade a facotry/plant while negotiating to move operations somewhere else. THAT is the connection Stoehrs seems to be pointing out. And it’s one that if we do it right we can use to further weaken Trump.

‘Just another rich/powerful’ person who promises to be on our side and then screws us”, or who “pulls sh*t none of us regular folks can get away with and walks away scot-free’ can be  a powerful message.  A kitchen table message.  Like i said people including MAGAs have already been hurt by the economic impact of what he’s done and will continue to do. They even know it’s going to get worse. Trump went so far as to admit it, to tell them there’s be some pain they’d have to endure but in the long run it would be worth it.

MAGAs didn’t like it, but many accepted it. Well, some of it. (small town/rural hospitals have already close and plenty more say it’s just a matter of time) But it would be worth the pain because the Epstein files would be released. The Clintons, Soros and all kinds of people they hated would finally be flogged and crucified. Now Trump has denied them and because of that they might be seeing those videos of him and Epstein more clearly. Or his comments about his daughter, Wannabe Princess Ivanka who for so long Trumpy publicly lusted after, even when she was on camera with him! (take a look at he sitting on his lap when she was quite young – she sure as hell wasn’t a happy kid) Or Trump bragging about walking in on naked or half-naked contestants at his beauty pageants including TEEN as in under 18) ones? Or the Access Hollywood tape?  And so on.

Now we’ve just found out he had Bondi do a crash program to pull in a thousand FBI agents to flag (and scrub?) any mention of his name in the 100,000 pages of files the DOJ accumulated. Trump is panicking because he ASSUMED Barr had already “sanitized” the damned files.  Barr never had to.  Now Trump know it but he’s at a loss what to do about it.

MAGAs were willing as I said to follow his orders and endure financial hardship because he had other ways to reward them. The full Epstein files and the presumption it they would destroy Democrats was THE big payoff. So they will sit at those kitchen tables trying to figure out how to make ends meet, and not at least be able to experience the pleasure they were promised they’d been promised.  That’s why Speake Emeritus Pelosi is dead wrong.

This isn’t a distraction. It’s an OPPORTUNITY!

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Zoomers, if you can spare some change to keep the Little Political Blog That Could trekking through cyberspace, we appreciate it. This has been a dim and grim year compared to others before it. All we’re trying to do is survive until things get better. Thank you. Ursula

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