I hate when bombing civilians and stripping rights distracts from the only issue that matters smh 😔

Pretty much. Like I said elsewhere, fascists only pay attention to Epstein when they're upset about other things, with it merely being a conduit to express general dissatisfaction that they otherwise wouldn't admit. Facts aren't the important part for fascists; it's all emotional.

At the heart of the "we mustn't be distracted away from the Epstein scandal" crowd is the naive belief that we have simply yet to find the perfect argument that, when shown to the frothing genocidal fascists, will somehow magically turn them 180 degrees and renounce american fascism.

I see it exactly the opposite. The focus on the Epstein files feels much more like an admission that they won't listen to rational, logical arguments, and replacing those efforts with rhetorical tactics that do seem to be effective; namely, moralistic outrage.

We've seen that some of his base does respond to the Epstein fishiness. It's driving a wedge between subsets of his base, and I personally know several former MAGAs that have really soured on Trump over it.

I was agreeing with your argument but you seem to come to the opposite conclusion as me.

These fools already vote against their own interests. They had pensions, union jobs, government funded infrastructure, benefits. They voted to give all of that away and embrace fascism because they were emotionally manipulated to do so. You can give a Truml voter all of the facts you want: climate change, vaccines, immigration, taxes. They aren't moved by any of that. The people who would be moved by that already know better and never would have supported Trump in the first place. I understand a lot of people here fall into that category, but we must be careful not to fall into an echo chamber and ignore just how dumb and irrational huge swathes of Americans are because that's how we got into this mess.

If you want to dislodge Trump's current supporters, you need to attack their emotions. Bombing thousands of Muslim kids in the middle east doesn't move the needle, but a dozen or so good white Christian girls who had their precious virginity stolen from them? (I don't mean to belittle the suffering of the victims, just to illustrate that this appeals to mysoginists and Christian nationalists). That gets clicks, that drives outrage.

i think there's also this small "hey, this is the one thing that everyone agrees about" element to it

the naive belief that we have simply yet to find the perfect argument that, when shown to the frothing genocidal fascists, will somehow magically turn them 180 degrees and renounce american fascism.

This is also why the left infights so much, they are so desperate to have intellectual fights and showcase their logic and reason in a way that matters that all you can really do with that is just pick at other leftist's takes and beliefs.

We probably could have made a lot better progress in effecting change in our country if we all digested the reality a lot sooner that we are NOT arguing our way to a better outcome, that all we could really hope to do is change narratives and change the way the right feels about topics.

But they are (used to be?) not indifferent to powerful pedophiles running the country

Hate to break it to you, but they are completely indifferent to that, as long as it is their pedophiles running the country. Are people new here? Are you really so oblivious as to how fascists words work that you naively take them upon it?

At best, it was a way for them to express frustrations using language they understand. However, what's actually driving their anger is usually the economy, so it isn't Epstein that actually makes the difference. It's also a moot point anyways because nothing will restore rights short of Trump dying, as he's never gonna leave office before that happens.

What this meme is about is people callously acting like Epstein is the only issue that matters, bringing it up when something genuinely terrible happens. It treats these issues like they don't matter, like the problem with the GOP is nothing more than political team sports. It makes my blood boil when lives are genuinely being ruined and all some people care about is the well established fact that he's a pedophile.

People can complain about Epstein, but that need to stop bringing it up in unrelated conversations about Trump.

totally. the Epstein files is our bridge to the people who don't think all the extrajudicial violence is real, or worse, they think it's thwarting sex traffickers in league with Epstein and his associates rather than being enacted by a main associate.

we have to resist the extrajudicial violence, but we have to make it abundantly clear that extrajudicial violence is being used as weaponized distraction because it is. it's the best way to stop it

Trump got convicted of rape in court. There's the pictures and letters he sent to epstein. He has said publicly he wants to fuck his daughter, and admitted to peeping on young girlds changing. He's had so many other scandals. Why is this one more special? His supporters will either pretend the files were altered, or deflect in other ways.

That's not to say the files don't matter, but they won't change much at this point.

That makes a lot of sense to me, actually.

No dingus, we just can't DO anything with the Epstein case, the king owns the judicial branch and his kingdom doesn't care about it. It's a dead-end while we CAN in fact fight on the front of demanding the admin hold to the constitution for freedom of speech, because without that we won't even SEE things like the Epstein scandal.

It's not the same, you just have to soothe the butthurt that we can't keep calling everything else bad that happens a "distraction" because the other things that are happening are real and bad and they will destroy us.

They always were.

Please be parody please be parody

EXACTLY!!!

Then hammer about the regime and political environment as a whole. Zoom out to the bigger picture, and let the details blend together. Focus on the neverending stream of one dangerous step after the other, and the rapidness of it.

That there's non-stop news about new horrible things that are happening should be immensely alarming. Don't focus on individual trees that are burning, focus on the forest that's on fire.

And yet, forcing Epstein into every conversation only marginalizes the people who each particular issue affects. If people claim that trans people getting our rights taken away is a distraction from Epstein, it makes me feel like my life doesn't matter. If people act like our freedom of speech getting taken away distracts from Epstein, I feel like they're ignoring the real issue. It has a time and a place, not every time and every place.

So then post articles about it, or write them yourself. Don't hijack threads about Trump designating trans people as terrorists, or Trump deporting people from South America to fucking Africa.