Just over one year after winning the 2024 election, Donald Trump’s presidency is under severe pressure. The sordid scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is a totemic symbol of this. This one horrifying story has come to be associated with both the hopes and the mounting disappointment in Donald Trump.
For some time, this tough-talking chancer was able to pose as an opponent of the status quo. However, because Trump has not dealt with any of the problems of working-class Americans, he is now losing his popularity. This has not meant a revival of the liberal centre-ground, however, nor the tightening hold of ‘conspiracy theories’ on US minds. It is the latest stage of the development of the consciousness of a layer of the American working class.
Why has this story damaged Trump?
There is a great deal of discussion as to why this particular issue has damaged Trump so badly. Why would an association with Epstein damage Trump’s relationship with his base? In the past, Trump has quite openly spoken about sexually assaulting women. Aren’t Trump supporters, contend the sneering liberal commentators, amoral racists or simply stupid? Why would they care if Trump is associated with Epstein?
This view misunderstands the nature of Trumpism. Since the economic crisis of the 1970s, wages have remained relatively stagnant for the vast majority of Americans. At the same time, profits as well as the incomes of those at the top have exploded. Over time, this has gradually built up a burning resentment amongst wide layers of the US population. This was then accelerated with the fallout from the 2008 crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the latest round of inflation.
Increasingly, questions are being asked: ‘why is it that a tiny elite seem to be doing so well whilst the rest of us struggle to get by?’ The world seems increasingly unfair to many people, because it is deeply unfair.
It was in this context that an individual who appeared to rail against the ‘swamp’ could gain a big following. Trump ridiculed the entire hated establishment. Politicians, used to strutting around like peacocks, got their comeuppance. Now, they were being mocked as “Sleepy Joe” Biden, “Crooked Hillary” Clinton or “Cocaine Mitch” McConnell. They were being spoken about on TV with the same level of derision as they are spoken about on building sites.
It seemed as though Trump would genuinely fight against these people, and this drew a layer of the population towards him. Then, the entire establishment attacked him. The reason for this had nothing to do with a love of ‘democracy’. Instead, they worried that Trump, who cares more about his own personal interests than those of the capitalist class as a whole, would damage their system and harm their interests.
However, these attacks only strengthened illusions in Trump. The same people who had justified attacks on living standards for decades were the same people attacking Trump. In the eyes of a section of the population, therefore, it seemed that he must be doing something right! Trump was their guy. He knew how they felt. He knew that America was no longer ‘great’. He saw and heard them, and promised to “fight, fight, fight”, as he shouted after his attempted assassination last year. In the minds of millions of working and middle-class Americans, this was why a shadowy elite was attempting to bring him down.
How does Epstein fit into this?
It was in this general context that the Epstein scandal emerged. Jeffrey Epstein began life as a teacher and then later became a low-level junior assistant to a floor trader at the American investment bank Bear Stearns in 1976. Within the space of two decades, he came to own two private islands and had ties to British royalty, American presidents, Hollywood stars, and some of the richest people on the planet.
He came from nowhere and yet somehow became intimately connected with seemingly the entire establishment. To those already suspicious that ‘something’ is wrong, this would raise questions. The plot, however, would thicken.
In 2005, the parents of a 14-year-old girl told the police that she had been molested by Epstein. This girl pointed to the fact that she had been ‘recruited’ by two other girls. Soon, the police explained, there were “dozens of victims”. Later, they didn’t know “where the victims would end” and all of them “independently told the same story”.
When the police began to suspect that Epstein’s crimes were not limited to Miami, they searched his plane and found flight records which recorded female names along with the names of various rich and powerful people. In the main, in the words of one of Epstein’s victims, he targeted “stupid, poor girls”, who were manipulated into performing sexual acts for money that was used to pay for things like shoes and school clothes.
By 2007, federal prosecutor Ann Marie Villafaña had built up a case against Epstein. She urged her superiors to move quickly as she worried he was continuing to sexually abuse girls. However, her report was “stonewalled by senior officials at the Justice Department”.
Instead, a plea deal was arranged. Rather than being charged for sexually assaulting countless young girls, Epstein agreed to admit to just two charges of paying for sex with an underage ‘prostitute’, and to have his name put on the sex offenders’ register. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
This ‘prison’ was in actual fact a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade. To add to this, he was allowed to leave prison for 12 hours a day, six days a week. You may think to yourself: ‘I don’t leave my house for much more than 12 hours a day and six days a week!’
To top it all off, Epstein was released after serving just 12 months of his 18-month sentence and once released, a prosecutor under New York County District Attorney even argued that his sex offender status should be reduced in severity.
If a plea deal is agreed, to most people this would imply an exchange of some sort. Epstein, perhaps, agreed to give something in exchange for a shorter sentence. What it is that was exchanged has never been revealed.
Ten years after he was released, he was again arrested for sex trafficking. At this time, law enforcement agents searched his house and found “compact disks with hand-written labels including… ‘Young [Name] + [Name]’”. In other words, he had collected incriminating blackmail material. Why, then, has no individual ever been charged for using his ‘services’? How has perhaps the most powerful intelligence service on the planet not found enough evidence to charge a single person?
Released emails link Jeffrey Epstein on an intimately personal basis with a whole host of the most powerful individuals on the planet. These individuals maintained contact with him and plotted to help him after he had already spent time in jail for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and many also after he was charged for sex trafficking.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was planning a documentary, filmed on one of Epstein’s islands, to restore his reputation. Larry Summers, Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and former adviser to Barack Obama, asked Epstein (a convicted sex offender, remember!) for advice on pursuing a younger woman sexually. ‘Lord’ Mandelson, a key figure in Tony Blair’s government in Britain and now part of the House of Lords, advised Epstein that the only reason the scandal had gone “nuclear” was because he was tied to the man formerly known as Prince… Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
This is not to mention the sheer number of people associated with this case who have mysteriously died.
To anyone who possesses a nose to smell, this stinks. If you spend every day working extremely long hours for very little pay, hardly able to heat the house and dreading the next medical bill; if you then turn on the television and see a smug elite who own all the wealth committing horrific crimes and getting away with it, you will feel (quite rightly) that the system is rigged against you.
People compare the treatment of Jeffrey Epstein with their own experience. Epstein was ‘imprisoned’ for 12 months in a beach house, while those convicted of drug possession or petty theft are locked up in actual prisons for similar times, and in some cases for even longer sentences. All of this is proof in the eyes of many that there is one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us.
The “Epstein Class”
In the minds of a layer of the American population, a generalised distrust and hatred of the status quo and those who defend it has become embodied in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. One perceptive New York Times article explains that, whilst Epstein’s contacts seemed to be on opposing sides (the conservative Steve Bannon and the liberal Michael Wolff, for example), they are actually “on the same team. On air, they might clash. They tout opposite policies… But the emails depict a group whose highest commitment is to their own permanence in the class that decides things.”
Similarly, the Democratic politician Ro Khanna explains that, while he was speaking to Trump supporters as part of a fact-finding mission, he was asked time and time again, “are you on the side of the forgotten Americans or on the side of the Epstein class?” Both Ro Khanna and the New York Times represent the liberal wing of the capitalist class. Fundamentally, they defend the exact same hated status quo.
For his own short-term electoral reasons, Donald Trump used the Jeffrey Epstein question to bolster his own electoral chances. Shortly after Epstein mysteriously died in prison, Trump hinted it could have something to do with the Clintons. In the 2024 election campaign, he promised to release information pertaining to the case. Later, Pam Bondi, his choice for Attorney General, claimed she had a list of Epstein’s clients on her desk. In the short term, this worked. It enhanced the picture of this outsider standing against the rotten establishment.
Given the fact that he is a capitalist politician, he was never going to be able to keep the promises he made. Nonetheless, so long as he was not directly blamed for the problems, he was able to maintain his popularity. Now, with inflation continuing to bite and with America unable to extricate itself from conflicts abroad, and with Trump whipping up new conflicts as in Venezuela, his popularity has begun to decline.
Donald Trump has a character rather typical of a New York real estate mogul. He is a chancer and a gambler. He can manoeuvre and wriggle his way out of scrapes. However, he has conjured up forces that are beyond his control.
Trump initially tried to tap into the genuine class anger felt by ordinary Americans and use it to bolster his own popularity. Temporarily, this worked. A layer of the working class and the petty bourgeoisie, also oppressed by big capital, lined up behind him. Their anger was being refracted through Trump, but, ultimately, it wasn’t controlled by him. These individuals were loyal to Trump because they believed he was fighting for them.
Now this illusion is beginning to be dispelled, as is their faith in him. Rather than being seen as an opponent of the establishment, increasingly, Trump is being seen as one of them. This has crystallised in the Epstein scandal.
That Trump was known to Epstein and they were photographed together was already well known. But Trump’s double u-turn on the Epstein files – first demanding their publication, then dismissing them as a “hoax” and refusing to publish them, only to twist again and permit their release – has only fueled rumours that he is implicated in the files or is otherwise engaged in a cover up. Given that these files are only a fraction of Epstein’s material that was seized, and that many of the files are and will remain indefinitely classified, the idea of a conspiracy and a cover up will continue to circulate.
And, indeed, the Epstein files have proven that there is a tight-knit group that runs society, that protects its members, and that regularly engages in conspiracies against ordinary Americans. That Trump has been seen to be engaging in a cover up has clicked something into place for many. It is as if to say, ‘of course he has betrayed his promises, of course conditions are getting worse. He is one of them, he is part of the “Epstein class”’. And, indeed, he is.
What does this mean?
The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has the character of a political thriller. It can be easy to get caught up in the details. However, we must ask ourselves what this actually represents.
Fundamentally, what we have seen is ever-growing anger at the status quo. There has been pressure on living standards for many years. All those who are seen to defend this state of affairs discredit themselves. Public faith in politicians, the media, the Supreme Court, and police has tumbled in recent years.
In the main, the mass of the working class learn from their own experience. They realise what they are against by seeing and experiencing it themselves. For decades, politicians have promised change but have only made things worse, whilst the courts and the media have justified this. That is the reason they are discredited.
Despite knowing what they are against, the masses do not yet know what the solution is. For that reason, they are drawn to all manner of solutions. Some were drawn to Trump. Some were drawn to Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani. Others, for the time being at least, give up completely and seek to numb their minds to escape it all. Overall, though, we see a kind of process of approximation being carried out by the masses. One leader, tendency or party after another is tried. They fail and they fall. This represents a gradual learning on the part of the workers.
What is needed is for a political party – that is big enough to be heard and has the trust of the workers – that can explain the real root of the problem.
The Irish Times reported that, in 2020, “fewer than half of Americans… definitely rejected the proposition that ‘a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media’”. It turns out that this ‘conspiracy theory’ is not too far from the truth. There is a tiny section of the population that does control politics and the media. It is the capitalist class. And it turns out that many of them are associated with a child sex ring!
This horrible scandal has shone a crack of light on capitalism’s dark underbelly. This is a system that systematically crushes the vast majority of the population for the benefit of a tiny, pampered few. The reality of capitalism is that you work long hours in hard, unfulfilling jobs to make someone else rich until you are too broken to do so anymore.
The Epstein scandal is a microcosm of this broader reality. That is why it is acting to accelerate real class anger. From a vague sense of a shadowy elite that runs things against the interests of the majority, such a scandal is placing names on that elite, and is drawing the connections between them.
Far from a shadowy cabal, these are well known figures. They are the ladies and gentlemen who make up the capitalist class and their paid retainers. As time goes on, and experience is accumulated, it will become increasingly clear that it is the capitalist class who are our enemy, and that their power to abuse and their impunity flow from their wealth as owners of the means of production.
Twenty years ago, when the crisis of capitalism had not reached this pitch, the ideas of Marxism seemed alien to the vast majority of the population. Now, however, with the depth of anger and disgust at the status quo, people are increasingly looking for answers. They are increasingly open to our ideas.
