Watching this summer’s blockbuster, the Epstein Saga, it is hard not to be tantalized by the prospect that the biggest con artist in American history will end up hoist by his own petard. That the mob he stirred up and won over with conspiracy theories, misrepresentations, and fabricated vendettas will turn on him because they realize that he was, as former Senator Al Franken might have put it, a lying liar who lies.
At least that is what our sense of justice would lead us to believe is overdue for our sociopathic, allergic-to-truth, prevaricator-in-chief.
The ancient Greeks taught us that hubris always gets characters like Trump in the end. They over-reach and whammo. Trump is Icarus flying on his wings of fraud and as he climbs so high that he can no longer avoid the bright sunshine of truth, the bulls--t melts away and he plummets to Earth.
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What a big, satisfying splat that would make.
It is a particularly appealing image given that the deeper Trump gets into his second term, and the more his sense of invulnerability grows (Supreme Court immunity rulings are great fertilizer for cultivating hubris), the bigger and more outrageous his lies get. Take this week’s assertions by Trump and his nutjob Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that former President Barack Obama and senior members of his administration had committed treason with their assertions that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has long believed he can just bludgeon the world into believing that Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax, hoax, hoax. Even though, of course, as literally everyone with at least one functioning brain cell knows, it was not. Even current Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio attested this when he chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He thinks he can do the same thing with the Epstein case. But, at least so far, he has been unable to do so. It’s tantalizing. Could the Epstein cover-up be a lie-too-far for a man who has built his entire career by lying, and then coming up with new lies to get him out of the consequences for his old lies?
I’m skeptical.
Maybe the anger stirred by the current scandal may finally enough to break his spell over American politics—even among MAGA loyalists who previously had an unquestioning, unquenchable thirst for the crap smoothies that Trump has been serving up. Maybe the combination of creeping skepticism and a few more small penis jokes from the national treasures at South Park will be enough, finally, to bring the curtain down on the malevolent Trump clown show.
Maybe some sort of justice will be done.
But also, maybe not.
What’s more, and I really hate to break it to you when you are so enjoying seeing the big guy sweat, the past week has also served as a reminder that we’ve got bigger problems.
It’s not just the leaders in Washington, the White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court that are failing us miserably. We are suffering from a nationwide epidemic of leadership and institutional failure.
Recent days have provided further evidence that a broad cross-section of the people and entities that should be serving as defenders of our democratic society are willing—and in some cases eager—to sell it out to serve their own narrow self-interests.
They are the ones enabling and driving Trump’s grift and assault on our fundamental rights and values. They are the ones pushing for a government of, by and for billionaires, for fewer government services for the vulnerable so we might provide more bounty to the already rich. They are the ones who have been underwriting the empowerment of an American oligarchy, guiding their chosen president toward policies that gut our democracy, our health care, despoil our environment, weaken our enemies and promote, even celebrate, corruption.
Media companies, news organizations, universities, law firms and big corporations have all made it clear they are not truly committed to the values on which this country was founded—or to the role their success within our country ought to obligate them to play.
We have seen the leadership at CBS and Paramount trade away journalistic integrity and creative independence in exchange for a deal that will line their owners’ pockets. With regard to AI, we have seen tech leaders embrace policies that will restrict free expression in exchange for less regulation in the areas that most impact their bottom line.
My alma mater Columbia, a school every member of my family for five generations has attended and where I—like my father and my grandfather—have taught, shamefully bent the knee to Trump with a deal that undercuts academic freedom in America. Some defend the action as pragmatic and say the university preserved important prerogatives. But it agreed to constraints it never should have, and has left itself open to further intimidation from the anti-education thugs atop the administration.
Yes, many of those who could stand up to Trump have not. And make no mistake, many of them see Trump as a mere momentary vehicle to advance their interests.
Trump will someday be undone. It may be his hubris that does it, but there are plenty examples in history—rules of Greek drama notwithstanding—of singularly vile human beings who have thrived because of their crimes and sins.
But another lesson of history is that it is broad rot at the top of a society that ultimately brings down great nations and empires. When the few in power stop attending to the long-term needs of the countries in which they live, when they lose sight of the values upon which healthy national cultures depend, and when they start using their power for short-term gain or to advance narrowly self-serving ideologies, the gods do not mess around.
In those cases, a reckoning is guaranteed, and it is only a matter of time before it takes its toll—which, tragically, often is greatest not on those in power but on those they have neglected for too long.
That may not be justice. But it is the way of the world.
