(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Epstein and ordinary Republicans [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-15
It seems inconsistent that there should be any fear, on the part of the Republicans, of the forthcoming revelation of what everybody already knows: Donald Trump was on Epstein’s plane, was going to Epstein’s parties, was raping children provided to him by Epstein.
Why would the revelation that Trump was raping children be of any concern to your typical Republican voter?
People who vote Republican don’t care about children and won’t sacrifice for them (as in want to pay the necessary taxes to provide for their care). They won’t protect them from labor exploitation or dangerous working conditions, provide them with medical care or a livable planet, or keep them from want.
But please, let’s not generalize or be unfair. There may be people who vote Republican who--while they lack concern for the victims of child rape--do in fact find it distasteful to associate themselves with the perpetrators of child rape.
Yet, for people who vote Republican, their favored candidates and politicians get a pass on just about any crime, from shooting someone on Fifth Avenue to massive corruption.
The question I’m interested in right now is: Why? Why is this hypocrisy so fundamental to the personal ethics and way of being of individuals who vote Republican?
Once again, my experience growing up in Chapel Hill, NC, in the 1960s, gives me a clue that will help make it clear.
That clue is white supremacy. Or rather the lie of white supremacy. Even more specifically, the shame of the lie of white supremacy.
This shame and lying was the the heritage, the baseline, the common thread, the fundamental organizational locus of Southern society during slavery. The lie and the shame continued into the Southern post-slavery society, and then, as migrants fled the ruined southern economy for other states, morphed into a Geist of its loyalists--that is, people who vote Republican--throughout the 50 states.
For people who vote Republican, the common daily act of perpetuating the lie, without admitting it or allowing it to be explicit, is the fundamental social currency. It is the underlying stuff that makes all other bits of social capital fungible. Shared whiteness is the common bond, the assumed common belief, the trust that makes transactions possible.
And Republicans’ affection for corruption, perversion, and performative cruelty is the guarantor of that trust.
How? Because the act of ignoring or condoning corruption, perversion, and performative cruelty is Republican solidarity itself. It is the way that people who vote Republican show their loyalty to each other and loyalty to the cause of defending white privilege.
The moral transgressions of the Republican elite are but grist for the mill--these transgressions are brought forth so that the everyday Republican voter can make a public show of defending the Republican elite with a recitation of what they know full well to be shameless lies and hypocrisy. (This includes castigating any opponents or defectors from the Republican fold as moral reprobates, in effect projecting the transgressions of their own heroes on to the opponents of white supremacy.)
Indeed, for people who vote Republican, the ability to be a shameless liar and hypocrite about rape and other forms of performative cruelty is qualifying. In the Republican social milieu, it is a favored ability, because it demonstrates the parallel ability to be a shameless liar and hypocrite about white supremacy. Among people who vote Republican, a personal performance as a shameless liar and hypocrite is, in fact, a bid for status.
This is what I learned growing up in Chapel Hill.
There is also, in that southern culture, a bent toward risky behavior--toward recklessness. Toward flirting with disaster. Playing with fire.
This drama-seeking love of risk is at play with the current iteration of the Epstein affair. Will the incontrovertible evidence finally be made public, and if it is made public, will it set off an avalanche of defections from MAGA? The manufactured excitement of this gambling diverts attention from the grief and terrible sadness of what was done to these children. It diverts attention from the moral emptiness of the elite perpetrators, and from the soullessness of each individual who votes Republican.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/15/2333602/-Epstein-and-ordinary-Republicans?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
