Written by oftwominds.com – Charles Hugh Smith – July 2025
You possibly can learn the unique article right here. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly25/watershed7-25.html
We’re being advised the Epstein Affair is previous information, nothing to see right here, transfer alongside–however I’m not so certain. It could possibly be the alternative of previous information, a watershed second in American historical past.
Watershed moments might be sudden, dramatic occasions that all of us expertise as “nothing is identical after this,” or long-brewing crises that we solely discern had been watersheds when trying again.
The Epstein Affair would be the second kind of watershed, solely acknowledged within the rear view mirror. In his publish Jeff Epstein, MAGA, and Monopolies, Matt Stoller made two noteworthy observations:
1. The MAGA motion–which incorporates many factions–hooked up nice significance to the Epstein case as essentially the most egregious manifestation of elite abuse of energy. To have the recordsdata buried but once more solely proves the highly effective who could be uncovered have but once more evaded being held accountable.
2. The scandal isn’t what’s been hidden, it’s that Epstein operated in plain sight.
Naomi Wolf’s essay, “The Community” within the Worlds of the Elites, reveals the big attain of Epstein’s recruitment of elites throughout the whole thing of America’s energy construction, what I’ve referred to as since 2007 (see diagram under) Elites Sustaining and Extending World Dominance.
This construction isn’t The Deep State, it’s far bigger and simply as entrenched, for it’s “the sum is larger than the elements” meeting of all of America’s elites and elite establishments of sentimental and onerous energy projection. (Smooth energy: cultural, institutionalized affect, non-military programs; onerous energy: army, diplomatic, monetary.)
Epstein’s operation was an off-the-cuff hub-and-spoke community of energy elites starting from politics to academia to science to media to Huge Tech and past.
The French phrase engrenages involves thoughts right here: generally translated as gearing, however extra appropriately maybe it additionally denotes being caught up in gearing that’s irreversible because of the design and mechanics of the system, after which being caught up in an inescapable collection of occasions.
In different phrases, Epstein’s hub-and-spoke community wasn’t an aberration, it was the optimization of the established order system. That is the taboo that can not be mentioned out loud. Now everybody who’s caught up within the gearing can be a participant in an inescapable collection of occasions.
My abstract of the Epstein Affair is: the elites aren’t above the regulation; there isn’t a regulation. That is what’s being displayed in plain sight, however we recoil at recognizing it, for it means democracy and rule of regulation are each handy fabrications deployed to keep up public compliance.
Recall Smith’s Neofeudalism Precept #1: If the citizenry can’t substitute a kleptocratic authoritarian authorities and/or restrict the ability of the monetary Aristocracy on the poll field, the nation is a democracy in title solely.
Donald Trump was elected to “drain the swamp,” however the Epstein Affair makes it clear that each of America’s political events are The Swamp. Neither get together did something however cowl up, misdirect or pointedly refuse to show the Epstein Affair to open air.
I perceive lots of you’re get together loyalists, so let’s conduct a thought experiment. Contemplate the central Asian nation of Corruptistan, which is presently experiencing an uncannily comparable scandal of a shadowy, well-connected “fixer” who collected $1.5 billion through 4,000+ wire transfers from unrevealed sources, who ran an enormous community of sordid sexual exploitation of minors together with many above-ground influence-peddling schemes connecting elites in varied fields.
Nominally a democracy, political energy in Corruptistan is traded between two political events. Neither get together has acted to disclose the fixer’s community or publicly examine the sources of his billions and affect.
So what can we name Corruptistan’s two political events aside from corrupt shields of systemic corruption? What if “get together loyalty” is simply one other con to achieve compliance for a system whose corruption is so profound that there’s nothing left of both democracy or the rule of regulation?
Maybe after we look again on the Epstein Affair, we’ll perceive that it broke the again of People’ religion of their political and regulation enforcement establishments. An important many People will not be get together loyalists; they voted for Donald Trump because the unbiased “outsider” who vowed to wash home, an unbiased who used one of many events as a handy platform.
If even an “outsider” is incapable of cleansing home, then it’s hopeless, and if the 2 events have failed us, then the place can we flip? That’s each an open query, and a taboo, for the company media is already churning out narrative management in regards to the 2028 election being a “contest” (heh) between flimsy cardboard cutouts of failed ideological covers for systemic corruption.
America’s elites aren’t above the regulation; there isn’t a regulation. However don’t say it out loud; it’s an unbreakable taboo.
