Go Big

We—that is, those attached to the Constitution, the rule of law and democracy—have a golden opportunity, if we have the confidence and skill to grasp it. We can re-make politics in this nation as they have not been since 1932. We can reverse the Reagan revolution that ended the New Deal and put a tiny elite in the most dominant position this country has ever known. And we can take a giant step in that direction this year.

Yes, it can be done. Indeed, it has been done before, when the robber barons of the “Gilded Age” were cut back to size by the progressive movement in the early 20th Century, and again when the New Deal took power from the plutocrats. In both cases, the primary weapons were ones that we can wield today: votes.

We have always had the capacity to use votes to bring a more equal, humane and, yes, prosperous nation. However, for many years racism and appeals to a simplistic version of patriotism and propaganda from media bought and paid for by the rich have rendered real change impossible as a practical matter.

So, what has shifted? In one word: Epstein. Not just the exploits of one degenerate, but the way that his extraordinary reach shines a spotlight on the existence and power of an elite that we all knew existed, but that almost all of us have accepted on some level as inevitable. The presence of that tiny group of people, possessed of extreme wealth and/or power distorts the way we try to convince ourselves that society should work.

If we pull back a bit, we can see that, widespread as his evil was, Epstein was really a symptom more than a cause. Sexual abuse and exploitation were not all that he was engaged in, maybe not even the main thing. He maneuvered himself into being part of that minute ruling class that trades favors, uses power in every imaginable way, and works its preferred position to make immense amounts of money, which is then used to exert more influence. As much as possible—that is, most of the time—they answer only to each other. They include national leaders, billionaires, and those who head the unimaginably huge corporations that dominate the world’s economy and more and more of our lives. Not all members of the class are corrupt, like Epstein and Trump, or sick like Epstein and Trump, but most of them are united in believing that they have the right to rule and that, in the end, any benefits we get from that rule are gifts and not ours by right.

The revelations about Epstein’s depredations—and the extraordinarily incompetent attempt by what passes for the United States government to hide and elide them—have expanded exponentially the number of Americans who are thinking about the elite and viewing them as enemies to be opposed actively.

We need to remember that the first group of people to make a political issue over Epstein and what he represented were not Donald Trump’s opponents, but his supporters. They were the people sure that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex-trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. (a place that did not even have a basement). That nuttiness bloomed into the QAnon “movement.” Then, during the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to release the Epstein files. (In clip in the link you can see Trump saying that the Biden-Harris administration was running the nation into a world war, but that would not happen under him. Curious, indeed.) Almost surely, Trump thought that his followers would forget his commitment, as they have forgotten so many other promises. As we have seen, he was wrong.

I am not going to re-hash the history of the past year that has brought us here. Suffice it to say that we have got to the point where a major headline in The New York Times this past week read:

The Epstein Files and the Hidden World of an Unaccountable Elite

The search continues in the documents for ironclad criminal conduct, but the story of a sexual predator given a free ride by the ruling class has already emerged.

And then, the former Prince Andrew, brother of the King of the United Kingdom, was arrested over his involvement with Epstein, underlining the contrast between the United States and other nations over how Epstein’s friends and associates have been treated.

We are now only a little over half a year until the midterm elections, but there is still time for us to raise our sights from obtaining a bare majority in one or both houses in Congress to defeating the Unaccountable Elite, making them take responsibility for their actions, and returning control of the nation to its people. That is a great challenge, but it is one that Democrats should take up, because no one else has a chance to make that happen.

First, Democrats need to make theirs the anti-elite party. That will mean more than calling for the release of the Epstein files, or differing with Trump’s policies. It will mean moving away from those members of the Unaccountable Elite who count themselves as Democrats. Not locking them out of the party, which is not possible, but dedicating ourselves to responsive government, and making clear that most of those who call themselves Democrats reject the idea that there should be a favored class. Very simply, we must assure that votes, not money, decide matters. That will be very hard, particularly given the Extreme Court’s dedication to the mistaken principle that money equals speech.

Then, Democrats need to get tougher. We need to stop always talking in measured terms. We need to stop looking to make deals, to getting government to work so long as it is controlled by those who hate government. We need to learn to say no, and to mean it. We may not have a congressional majority yet, but we need to exert such power as we do have—something at which congressional Democrats have notably failed in the past year.

Democrats need to recognize that Trump’s unpopularity is hard-earned, and resolve to work absolutely full-bore to make him more so. Instead of writing off his supporters as too dumb, or blinkered, or racist to understand what the country needs or where their interests lie (and there is a lot of such thinking among Democrats), we just need to be happy about what support we can glean. Fifty years ago (it seems like yesterday), I worked for Fred Harris, a former Democratic senator from Oklahoma—yes, you read that right—running for the 1976 Democratic nomination. His slogan was, “Too few people have all the money and power, and the rest of us have very little of either.” He also used to say that the members of his coalition did not have to love each other, they just needed to understand that they had the same interests. Still true. Democrats need accept those messages in their heart of hearts, and then spread them across the length and breadth of the land.

Some may note that Donald Trump is not on the ballot this year, but it will be entirely possible for Democrats to make every Republican—every single one—answer whether they support Trump, or to make clear where they stand by refusing to respond. To start with the questions should be something like:

—Do you support the global elite of which Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein have been members?

—Donald Trump [Hint: never, ever call him President Trump] and his family have enriched themselves by more than 1.4 billion (with a “b”) dollars since he was elected for a second term. Do you think that the president of the United States should view his office as a way to make a fortune for himself and those around him?

—Donald Trump said that he would deport criminals who were here illegally, but so far only a tiny percentage of those who have been picked up have criminal records, while thousands and thousands of them have been hard-working people who hold jobs, pay taxes and help their communities. Do you think that’s a good idea?

—Do you agree that the rich pay much too little in taxes, and most of us pay too more than we should?

—Do you agree that the law should be the same for everyone?

—Do you agree that Donald Trump’s mental condition is deteriorating? [Insert example, such as this.] Does that worry you at all?

These are only a few questions, more or less off the top of my head. Others may be better. But those are the kind of things Democrats should be asking, loudly, every day.

Democrats should also be calling for new measures, like top tax rates of, say, 75% on incomes over $5 million per year. (When I became a lawyer, in 1970, the top rate had just been reduced from 90% to 70%, and there were no mobs in the streets demanding that it be lower.) A law that all voluntary contributions to the United States government must go to the general funds of the Treasury and must not be spent other than as appropriated by Congress—thus ending Trump’s ability to extort money from the Unaccountable Elite for his pet projects—would also be popular. Surely you can think of other, equally worthy examples.

The point is that, even as democracy is under attack, we have a real chance to make a huge change in the way our country is governed. We need boldness and steadiness to make that change real. Let’s resolve to make it so. Oh, and tell everyone you know.

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There’s a strong temptation to end this with Florence Reece’s great labor anthem, Which Side Are You On, but somehow this appeals more:

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