The United States is a country defined by yawning inequality, institutional decay, and a feral elite that operates a vast criminogenic enterprise featuring corruption, rape, torture, sexual deprivation and apparently cannibalism, as evidenced by the latest Epstein drop. Indeed, the stories coming out are horrible and sickening, confirming some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories you might imagine.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

The revelations point to elite class of monsters who have abandoned any fig leaf of morality or respectability. It is not merely cultural degeneration or a loss of values. It is something darker: an elite that operates outside any recognizable moral limits and yet continues to govern. It’s an elite composed of pedophiles, satanists, murderers and cannibals.

And, of course the list of monsters is bi-partisan, with Democrats and liberals featured just as extensively as Republicans and conservatives. There’s Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Bill Gates and Noam Chomsky, but also Musk, Dershowitz, Bannon, Trump and even the creator and past owner of 4chan, Chris Poole. Poole, known as Moot, was in contact with Epstein, and possibly opened up the board /pol/ after meeting with him.

Perhaps that’s why the Biden Administration refused to release the vast trove of incriminating documents, emails and texts. That, and for a lot of insiders on both sides there’s a reluctance to acknowledge the role of a secret network of elite wielding power, that would disprove their pretense of meritocracy.

Future historians will ponder the timeline for elite lawlessness and impunity but I’m sure that Watergate, Iran Contra and the Wall Street bailout will feature prominently. Indeed, there are some indications that Epstein’s fortune originated in the nexus of bad actors involved in 80’s scandals like BCCI and Iran Contra.

Matt Stoller has been on a tear, connecting Epstein to the larger transformation of American life. “While all the specifics of Epstein’s network are not known, and while conspiracy theorists often have crazy views, they have correctly fingered that the world of meritocracy and formalized systems is increasingly a fraud. And that the real government lies elsewhere…Epstein was an entrepreneurial broker across multiple public and private bureaucracies, helping organize ‘under-the-table’ deals among the legal, business, intelligence, and political elites to allow them to escape the rule of law and traditional conflict of interest restrictions. It’s statecraft to allow a superclass to systemically escape the formalized rules.”

It’s important to ask how did we get to such a state?

Look in the mirror.

Americans have largely acquiesced to the sadism of our oligarchical monsters. Epstein simply followed the logic and morality of neoliberalism, where government has been hallowed out so that a new order, epitomized by an apex predator like Epstein, could emerge.

Since at least Reagan, US elites have financialized the economy, blowing giant asset bubbles, crushing workers and destroying the middle class, while Americans have been distracted and diverted with identity politics. A bi-partisan elite collaborating with the wealthy, offshored and outsourced US manufacturing. This increased profits by financializing the economy: you could have the profits without the production and without dealing with unions. American elites, basically looted the productive economy, while destroying any countervailing worker power. In exchange they destroyed their empire, because the real basis of the American empire was industry and technology rather than financial flimflammery. Offshoring and outsourcing made American elites filthy rich but it set the stage for Trump and the acceleration of American fascism. 

Epstein simply took full advantage of the depravity of our feral elite, but in the process he has forced us to confront the monsters who rule us.

Update: It been obvious for a while that Epstein was an Israeli agent running a Mossad honeypot operation to blackmail US politicians, economists and businessmen. In the latest FBI report documents of Epstein files, we learn that “Trump has been compromised by Israel” and “Kushner is the real brains” behind the presidency.”

But now the corporate media is claiming that he was really a Russian agent working for Vladimir Putin.

Remember kids, it’s always Russia-gate.