One month ago, Jeffrey Epstein appeared to be the most important electoral player in the United States of America.
Judging by mainstream media coverage, podcast chatter, and the comments of politicians on both the left and the right, you’d have thought nothing was more important than the saga of the deceased sexual predator: CNN mentioned Epstein 2,220 times over the last four weeks; MSNBC, 2,871.
And no wonder: It was a way to smear President Donald Trump, after his administration declined to release (despite his campaign promise to do so) what have come to known as “the Epstein files.”
Trump’s term was finished, his coalition fractured, his agenda terminated, shouted pundits from both extremes, after Trump himself dismissed the frenzy as a “hoax” based on crackpot-generated hype.
But the hysterics were wrong.
Even as the brouhaha was at its height, polling showed the Epstein story was more of a tempest in a Twitter teacup than an actual concern of the American people.
And now it’s clear that once again Trump was right — not just about the feelings of his most ardent supporters, but about those of the country at large.
CNN reported this week that Google searches for “Epstein” are down 89% from three weeks ago — and that it’s no longer the top term input alongside “Donald Trump.”
“This is, from at least a political point of view, quickly turning into a dud of a story,” the network’s Harry Enten noted.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating has held steady, and is significantly better than it was in August of 2017.
And the percentage of Americans who say the Epstein case is America’s “top issue”? That number in CNN’s latest poll was a grand total of . . . zero.
Once again, Trump knew better than the pundits and podcasters and politicians — because he knows why his base voted for him.
He knows this country isn’t truly thirsty for a fictional Epstein list, but for a real shot at the American Dream for the hardest-working Americans.
Trump won the 2024 election not with cultural or symbolic issues like releasing Epstein’s client list, but on a policy agenda of using the tools at the government’s disposal to protect the value of labor.
He promised to end the free flow of illegal immigrants through the southern border, millions of whom secured jobs that drove down the wages of working-class Americans — and he immediately did it.
More than 1 million foreign-born workers have exited the workforce since January, a recent study found, while 2.5 million native-born Americans entered it. Turns out, they were taking American jobs.
As a result, the wages of blue-collar Americans have already started to climb, which makes perfect sense — a tight labor market is always good for workers.
Similarly, Trump’s tariff program will incentivize the return of US manufacturing, a stick to prod the corporations whose offshoring destroyed entire Rust Belt counties to reinvest in the American worker.
Who cares about Jeffrey Epstein when you have more money in your pocket each month?
The elites, that’s who.
The Epstein scandal is a luxury belief shared by podcasters who make money off content and Democrats who want Trump to fail. (Oh, and Hunter Biden, whose continued accusations could earn him a defamation lawsuit courtesy of Melania Trump.)
It’s the equivalent of climate activists blocking traffic or Nancy Pelosi kneeling in kente cloth after George Floyd was killed — something the privileged engage in because they have no real-world problems to worry about.
Democrats hemorrhaged working-class voters for decades as they catered to their base of over-credentialed college-educated elites.
They adopted a series of policies that actively harmed the working class — like open borders that slashed blue-collar wages, or climate standards that drove up the cost of driving and powering homes, or Defund the Police, which sentenced working-class people to live with rising crime.
They could do all this because the well-off were immune from the negative consequences of the Democrats’ bad policies, and sometimes even benefited from them.
The same is happening on the right, but in reverse: Podcasters who make loads of money off viral, conspiratorial content are immune to the positive consequences of Trump’s economic policy — ergo the luxury of obsessing over Jeffrey Epstein.
Many Americans are still feeling the squeeze of inflation, and the effects of some Trump decisions remain to be seen.
Yet in the last eight months the southern border has been closed, corporations and foreign countries have committed trillions to US manufacturing, Iran has lost its nuclear capabilities for years to come, criminals are being deported, trans athletes are being kicked out of girls’ sports, and peace in Eastern Europe could be on the way.
Jeffrey who?
Batya Ungar-Sargon is the author of “Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.”
