People have thoughts about Epstein

Right now, there seem to be two main issues that the news media and the public are talking about. The first one is the thuggish behavior of ICE agents attacking and imprisoning protesters, non-criminals, and even children. However, Donald Trump‘s administration is making it as difficult as possible for people to protest, film, or even write publicly about the illegal ICE activities.

The second issue the news media and many voters are talking about is the Epstein files. There, the Trump administration is having less success keeping the story under control. In recent testimony before Congress, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi tried her best to protect Trump and make the issue go away, at one point even saying that Americans should not be talking about the horrors of the Epstein files because “the Dow is over 50,000 right now.” However, every day, it seems additional prominent people become implicated in the Epstein story to one degree or another, from being friends or socializing with Jeffrey Epstein or riding on his plane, all the way to allegations of raping underage girls. In other countries, Epstein files revelations have taken down, demoted or sullied the reputation of high-placed officials and prominent figures, including:

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos

Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of the the popular liberal political blog Daily Kos, was a guest on the “Make It Plain” podcast with host Rev. Mark Thompson a/k/a Matsimela Mapfumo yesterday, and had much to say about how Democrats are communicating in the current political climate. Mostly, according to Markos (who usually goes by his first name, or his U.S. Army nickname “Kos,”) the Democrats are falling down on the job, which is hurting them at election time:

We’re in trouble if we don’t learn how to talk to people and focus on the issues they care about.

How not to feel

During Donald Trump‘s last White House term, many people woke up each day to some new outrage (e.g., the “family separation policy” that threw kids in cages), and lived in a state of perpetual shock. This time around, not surprisingly, Trump began his first few days in the White House with a number of orders and actions that are similarly hurtful to America. These include, for example:

–Illegally redefining the Constitution’s definition of birthright citizenship to try to declare many natural-born Americans non-citizens;

—Ordering thousands of military troops to the Southern border;

—Falsely classifying many career U.S. government employees as “political” hires, making them easier to fire, and possibly replace with Republican party apparatchiks;

–Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement;

–Eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and positions in the federal government;

–Granting pardons and commutations to hundreds of people convicted or prosecuted in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; and much more.

We know there will be many more such hurtful actions and attempts over the next four years. But we can also decide not to live in a state of shock and awe this time around. One man in the White House, for example, should not change the way we love our friends and family. Nor should it change our vision of what we want for ourselves, our loved ones, and our country.

We can also continue to work toward our goals over the next four years. We can regroup and get ourselves on a more positive, effective political path going forward. That might include, for example, less time focusing on Trump, even when it is to criticize and mock him, since that was not successful in the 2024 elections, and more time concentrating on what we want, and how to get there. And perhaps most importantly, we can regularly pull the plug on increasingly biased “news” reports about what is happening in the White House. Let’s make the next four years about us, not him.

Photo by Alan Levine, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/zWVcp0