A "flailing" President Donald Trump has tried to use every tool in his kit to distract his supporters from their demands for the investigation and court documents known as the Jeffrey Epstein "files," a new analysis noted. He's accused former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton of committing crimes. He's alleged that former President Barack Obama should be indicted or arrested. He has called the Epstein matter a "hoax" and a "witch hunt."
Nothing is working.
Alex Shephard wrote in The New Republic that one major reason is that the story isn't coming from Democrats or even from the Democratic Party. These calls are coming from inside his house.
"Unlike with Russiagate, Trump is caught in a web that he and his allies helped spin. The fact that it is a thinly disguised attempt to distract from the Epstein story only damages its credibility further," wrote Shepard. The conspiracy about the elites drinking the blood of children while trafficking them was started by the right-wing fringe, and, like many conspiracy theories, there was a kernel of truth in that elites who knew Epstein were taking advantage of his efforts to find teenage girls he and his friends could rape.
Another problem is that during Trump's first term, numerous individuals worked from within to undermine him. That's not the case this time around.
Today, "the party is clearly and unmistakably marching in lockstep behind him," wrote Shephard. "And Trump’s Cabinet is stacked with arch loyalists who are using their powers to remake the federal government in his image; you won’t find anyone fitting the profile of, say, Rex Tillerson or Jim Mattis. Trump could credibly claim seven years ago that there were forces in the government using their powers to undermine him. He cannot do so now."
Meanwhile, the people Trump is desperately trying to turn into a foil no longer work. Obama is still incredibly popular. While Hillary Clinton is still there, she's largely quiet. Meanwhile, ex-President Clinton is nearly 80 years old, Shephard said.
Even in the case of former President Joe Biden, Shephard described as being in "exile" while he fights a stage-four cancer diagnosis. Trump also spent the last five years accusing Biden of being senile, so accusing him of masterminding some conspiracy to link him to the Epstein files doesn't add up.
The void in Democratic leadership leaves Trump without a target to attack.
"Put another way, the Democrats’ utter lack of leadership is redounding to their benefit in this rare instance: Trump simply doesn’t have a prominent Democratic foil to redirect attention to, so he’s playing old hits that a diminishing number of Americans want to hear," the analysis said.