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With party discipline in Congress a lot stronger than it was in the Nixon era, there is nothing that can actually stop a second-term President who wants to brazen it out. If the Democrats take control of the House in the 2026 mid-terms (and they probably will) then Trump will be impeached and acquitted. At this point the number of plausibly impeachable things he has done is large enough that the actual charge doesn't really matter.
In terms of public opinion, I think Trump was just correct when he said he could wander down 5th Avenue shooting people and his base would continue to support him - his being an awful person if fully priced in by now and I don't see him turning out to be a kiddie-fiddler as well as all the other stuff is going to persuade anyone who isn't already persuaded. Swing voters know that Trump shouldn't be President, they are just open to the possibility that Dems are worse.
The more interesting question is how the right-wing media ecosystem changes if there is a serious feud between Trump and the Murdochs. Rupert was always an Old School journalist first and a conservative second, and from that perspective filing this type of lawsuit is an unforgiveable sin. Asking for $10 billion is a signal that this is personal for Trump too, rather than using meritless lawsuits as a polite way of requesting a bribe as he did with CBS. I expect this one to run until Rupert dies, and there is a strong possibility that Lachlan is close enough to his father that he will fill obliged to continue it.
Even worse, the company is now going to go to be split among his primarily progressive children, who are even more opposed to Trump than Lachlan is.
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I disagree. Trump’s awfulness had previously been directed at people the MAGA base also had issues with. Illegal immigrants, elite celebrities, Democrats, academics. In the Epstein case Trump is perceived as defending all of those people in the coverup. Now the Trump-branded awfulness is directed at his own supporters—that’s the difference. He called his own supporters losers and weaklings, using the very same rhetorical tactics to shut them up that the base chafed at so strongly when, only a year before, it was Democrats in power doing the same thing. (E.g. covering up Biden’s age-based incompetence with ludicrous claims, ‘cheap fakes’, etc.)
In addition, I think the MAGA base genuinely cares about seeing justice come to the children and young women victimized by this pedophile cabal. This sentiment runs deep among social conservatives. It relates to longstanding scandals/conspiracies involving Bill and Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Hollywood actors, rich financiers, and the other archetypal Republican villains for 30+ years. The base won’t let such a visceral scandal pass. This was a central promise of the Trump 2024 campaign. Trump has a real problem on his hands now.
I have a pretty hard time believing anyone with any real power cares about child sexual abuse qua child sexual abuse. And I don't mean this as a partisan claim. The Catholic Church of course had a big visible scandal, but left and right organizations alike prefer protecting power over protecting children. On a smaller scale, it's a common story (and I personally know examples, which, due to my social circle, likely all vote Democrat) for children to report their own parents covering up their abuse at the hands of an adult their parents apparently cared more about protecting than their own child. While reducing the abuse of children sounds like a great goal to, well, probably nearly everyone, in practice calls for it seem to only actually get used as a cudgel against the outgroup, and even then rarely to any significant effect.
I'm not disagreeing with you in broad strokes, but 'protecting young women's sexual purity' is much more of a right wing value. Obviously Epstein is dead and the MAGA base doesn't think he's chilling in Cuba with Tupac, though.
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No contradiction spotted.
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