So Says ET

Many conservatives in the 1980s believed that AIDS was God’s punishment for being gay. Ronald Reagan did not publicly talk about AIDS until the sixth year of his presidency. In 1986, when AIDS fatalities were doubling every year, Reagan proposed cuts in funding for AIDS research.

Even today, few of Epstein’s enablers are facing consequences—in this country, at least. America’s legal system insists on punishing regular people harshly for even the most minor crimes—currently merely for the noncrime of being an immigrant, or being someone who looks like an immigrant to one of Trump’s gestapo thugs. But the rich and powerful spent year after year manifesting nightmares straight out of conspiracy theories, and have faced zero consequences for these depravities. Trump’s Justice Department continues redacting the names of abusers. His administration transferred Ghislaine Maxwell to a cushy minimum-security prison, where she is reportedly waited on hand and foot by prison officials. It looks increasingly likely that the president will grant this convicted teen sex trafficker clemency in exchange for her publicly testifying that Trump—whose name is apparently referenced over one million times in the Epstein files—is squeaky clean. And, with very few exceptions, Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to protect these monsters.

This story is horrifying. But it’s also clarifying. The primary purpose of the GOP has been laid bare: to shield the wealthy and well-connected from facing justice for their crimes.