President Donald Trump is used to having near-total control of both Republican members of Congress and his supporters, but like a “drunk trying to do jumping jacks,” his latest efforts to deflect from scrutiny over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein are “no longer working,” writes Salon White House columnist Brian Karem in an op-ed published Thursday.
“He has already tried to deflect this by going after (former President Barack) Obama, accusing him of treason, but Trump’s distractions aren’t working this time,” Karem wrote. “For the first time, maybe in his life, Trump can’t convince his crowd that man didn’t land on the moon.”
Trump, Karem writes, has been largely successful in moving past scandals, from his national security leaders using the messaging service Signal to discuss top secret military plans, to his strike on Iran that flew in the face of his pledge to tone down interventionism.
But with Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, Trump appears, for the first time ever, completely powerless to halt the media bombardment of stories highlighting the president’s past relationship with the convicted sex offender.
“He wants fascism without a fight,” Karem wrote. “He wants his way with minimal action. Even as a fascist, he’s a failure.”
Trump’s failure to control the narrative this time around is significant, Karem argues, as up until this point, his near-total control of the media landscape was air tight.
“The Trump train of trashy turmoil is so large on the cultural landscape in no small part because of the seriousness of our violent malaise,” he wrote.
“Remember when mass shootings, violent murders and war dominated our headlines? Not anymore. The potential genocide of the Palestinians barely gets a notice; equally deadly wars in Africa never get mentioned.”
The most recent attempt from the Trump administration to deflect from Epstein, a surprise presentation from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard alleging an Obama-led conspiracy to 'subvert the will of the American people,' didn’t go over well with the MAGA faithful, and landed “with a thud” among even more conservative critics.
