I was going to write this about how we, the unwashed masses in the Democratic Party base, are often accused of being in our own little bubbles shut out from reality, and how the reaction of the Eight Cavers pointed to how they themselves, elites of the party, seem to be in a bubble. I am still going to include that, but a little something happened this week involving a dead guy who had a bunch of (nots0) secret secrets.
The previous link is to Cassandra’s excellent rundown of the Epstein emails, which dropped like a Big Mac on top of Donald Trump’s head this week. Cassandra covered that very well, but I am going to focus on something a bit different: how unimpressive our elites come off in them. Petty, misogynistic (of course), and, well, practically illiterate. No kidding, as a writer, I share the sentiments of sports writer Dan O’Sullivan.
Putting aside all the horrible shit in them: I cannot believe the global elite composes emails like fucking horses who somehow learned to crudely type. My emails read like Shakespeare compared to the lowercased, unpunctuated screeds written to the worlds biggest pedophile. Fucking write like adults!
— Dan O’Sullivan (@osullyville.bsky.social) 2025-11-12T18:21:17.360Z
Indeed. When I write an email at work, especially to someone in management, I take great care in making sure the spelling and grammar are immaculate. Because, well, I don’t want to come off as a moron. But these guys? If I wrote work emails that read like what these elites of America sent to each other, I’d be in the HR office.
Also, my goodness, do they sometimes come off as petty little children. An example:
Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) 2025-11-13T00:25:42.582Z
Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of Summers. I found his comments when he was president of Harvard about women in STEM to be disgusting. He constantly clashed with Black faculty and staff. For someone who has been part of Democratic administrations, he often sounds like a Republican on economic issues.
But you don’t have to be a Summers hater to think his email whining about the wokes to Jeffrey Epstein tracks. It fits who he is.
One of the elite institutions that comes off looking positively awful is the New York Times. Long-time financial reporter Landon Thomas Jr. had a close relationship with Epstein, and Epstein shared some pretty damning information about Trump, including in 2015. How much of this was known by Thomas’s bosses and when, in my opinion, should be the subject of an investigation. In Thomas’s defense, he does come off as able to construct a sentence on his side of the email exchanges.
In any event, the idea that the wealthy and powerful are also supergeniuses took a huge hit this week.
Something telling about all these leaks is that Epstein can barely construct an email and, for years and years, the people who made excuses for spending time with Epstein loved to say it was because he was such a brilliant guy. I think it's abundantly clear that's not why anyone spent time with him!
— EL BARTO ANTI-WORK (@elbarto.bsky.social) 2025-11-12T19:42:50.645Z
Now, onto another example of elite failure, the thing I was originally going to write about. For years, I would hear elite thinkers and politicians tut-tut progressives on TwitterX and later, on Bluesky, as people living in a bubble, out of touch with “the real world and Real Americans.” I do believe that senators count as elite politicians, and two of the Caving Eight who folded to Trump over the shutdown dropped opinions that are laughably out of touch with the current political reality.
The first one came from Maine Independent Angus King, whom I normally think highly of. This was some reasoning. I will leave it at that.
SENATOR ANGUS KING: "Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work. It actually gave him more power."
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) 2025-11-10T17:00:16.682Z
Given what happened this week with the Epstein email drop, King’s take aged in two days about as well as milk set out in the sun ages in two weeks. Also, Angus, you might be an independent, but you caucus with the Dems, and your base is Democratic. That base has been screaming for more fight, because guess what: Giving in to Trump actually is the thing that doesn’t work and makes him stronger!
The other is half of the New Hampshire portion of the Cavin’ Caucus, Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Okay, first off, this might be what your voters said 20 years ago, but not anymore. They want you to fight, Senator.
Shaheen: "When I talk to my constituents in New Hampshire, you know what they say to me? They say, 'Why can't you all just work together to address the problems that are facing this country?'"
The problem with both of these senators, and probably some of their other colleagues, is that they exist in a 1995 political world and not the one we have right now. And they are our leaders, enclosed in a cocoon of cluelessness.
In any event, not the best month for America’s elites.
The last word goes to Green Day.