The Problem with the Epstein Files Distraction Discourse

Instagram is my social media drug of choice. I can’t say for sure that it’s happening elsewhere, like in the land of TikTok, but I imagine it is and that you, reader, may have encountered some of the same rhetoric I’ve been seeing and hearing both on- and offline.

“DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES”

“DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES”

“DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES”

“DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES”

repeats one oft-parroted sentiment across my corner of the Insta-verse, at least. “Here’s why the Epstein files are radicalizing you,” says another piece of content. Another: “You can’t bury the Epstein files under Iran’s rubble.” Yet another depicts “THE EPSTEIN FILES” in thick black lettering, partially covered by wheatpasted posters that read, “THE SUPREME COURT,” “ICE,” “BOARD OF PEACE,” “TARRIF$,” “GREENLAND,” “UFO FILES,” and “WAR WITH IRAN.”

The idea that the United States’ far-reaching geopolitical violence, its weaponization and bastardization of its own institutions, its cratering of the economy, its endeavors to strongarm the rest of what’s considered to be the “western” world into complicity with the plainly fascist agenda it shares with Israel are merely an effort to distract from the Epstein files is asinine at best. At worst, the Epstein files distraction discourse effectively aids and abets the violence it derides, undermining the many victims of Epstein and company’s hideous escapades in the process.

These crimes against humanity aren’t manufactured distractions designed to keep the Epstein files at bay. They’re simply the par-for-the-course behaviors of the old, rich, almost entirely white, and definitely entirely self-centered and competition-obsessed deranged men that have been in charge of the United States since its inception.

From the physical and cultural genocide of Native Americans in order to steal the land upon which the U.S. empire has been built to the catapulting of women into poverty by way of forcing childbirth in an economy in which it costs between $241,000–$513,000 to raise a child, belligerence is the name of the game. War for the sake of oil, profit, or whatever else serves the interests of those who benefit from the country’s military industrial complex is nothing new. The United States terrorizing its own people, as it has been most visibly and recently in Minneapolis and now Vermont, is nothing new. None of it is.

Sure, more (white) people may be experiencing these horrors than before. Sure, the specific forms and the details of these actions look different in 2026 than they did in 1776. Sure, the cruelty of the Trump regime has its own uniquely perverted flavor—rather than even attempt to disguise their atrocities like previous administrations have, the MAGA minions pump out odious dribble to defend their behavior instead. But the fact remains that the broad strokes are nothing new.

This is where the logic of the Epstein file distraction discourse falls apart. Are the files really a distraction if what they’re supposedly distracting from is simply the status quo?

The distraction discourse also neglects an inconvenient truth, which is that the files are effectively out. Not in their entirety, sure, but—seriously—who cares? Does it actually matter? What does it say about us if we have to have our eyes on millions of documents in order to believe what women have been saying happened to them for literal decades? Have we learned exactly nothing from the #MeToo moment? Insofar as we continue to demand documents rather than believe what more than 1,000 women, apparently we have not.

We already know what’s in the files. Rich and powerful men, from Trump and Clinton to Dan Ariely and Woody Allen, have been committing violent crimes against young girls around the world with impunity. The St. Louis-based journalist and author Sarah Kendzior has dutifully chronicled how much of this has been in the public domain for decades. The unfortunate truth of our current reality is that releasing the files is unlikely to accomplish anything more than has already been accomplished.

What the distraction discourse belies is an enduring belief in the United States and the institutions that constitute it as anything but corrupt despite the facts.

The presumption behind the distraction discourse is that, should they be released in full, something would actually come from it; that rich, powerful, and influential men like Trump—who has, as the distraction discourse does, supposedly developed in this narrow case, and this narrow case only, the ability to put his daintily fragile ego aside in order to watch his words and actually act strategically on a day-to-day basis for months on end in order to keep up the charade—would actually face some sort of consequence, accountability, or justice as a result.

The discourse presumes that the release of the files would inspire Congress to actually start doing its job as outlined in the now practically useless constitution instead of manufacturing political theater; that the felon in the White House would face justice for these abuses against women despite facing none for the many that have come before; that the Epstein files are so uniquely bad that their release would turn this corrupt country around; that the United States still has some ability to behave ethically as it bombs school children and deprives an entire island nation of the basic necessitates for survival.

I haven’t seen anything even resembling justice take place in this country for a long time—one could argue it never has. There can be no accountability in a justice system that rests upon a democracy that is no longer functioning, if it ever was at all. The release of the Epstein files cannot change that reality. It is certainly a nice idea, the notion that something so truly terrible could actually fetch accountability. I’d love to be wrong, but I don’t suspect that a system that has never produced justice, one that’s in the throes of collapse, will start doing so once some documents are published.

Meanwhile, as we’re prodded to not stop talking about the Epstein files despite the violence designed to distract from them, the actual motivations for said violence go unexamined. The U.S., its leadership, and its beneficiaries—none of whom are us, the people—continue terrorizing the planet and life itself without having to even providing an excuse for what they’re doing. Because the Epstein files distraction discourse provides them with one. And they didn’t even have to bother coming up with themselves.

The longer we erroneously insist that the release of the Epstein files matters, the longer we continue to center the distraction discourse, the more we distract ourselves from the fact that we’re living in a post-democracy, post-truth country in which institutions have failed. Justice cannot and will not come from anyone or anything besides us ourselves. We can’t demand justice; we have to create it.

The post The Problem with the Epstein Files Distraction Discourse appeared first on CounterPunch.org.