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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   25196 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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There was no smoking gun of active collusion, even after the most exhaustive investigation since Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance.

"No smoking gun" doesn't mean something didn't happen, it could of course be hidden successfully. Controlling parents not finding the birth control their daughter put in her sock drawer doesn't mean she's not out having sex.

The act of a coverup suggests that something might have happened. Tons of encrypted messages, deleted communications and other roadblocks to knowing the truth makes the picture murky in both ways. It's harder to show guilt, but it's also harder to suggest innocence. From a legal perspective where they have to prove guilt, that works well. From a casual perspective where we can ask "what's with all the deleted messages?", it doesn't work as well.

I'm apparently the only "Epstein skeptic" here, I discussed it in an earlier CW thread. Regardless, there could be a deceptively simple explanation here as well: there is simply no exit strategy here.

There was an easy exit strategy! They could have just released the files as they promised to do multiple times before and during the election season. The only reason why Epstein is even a fiasco for them now is because they completely pivoted so hard from "we're gonna reveal this coverup" to "nothing to see here, ignore everything we said before".

Who cares about "exit strategy" when they never even had to make it into such a topic to begin with if they just did what they said! It is perfectly reasonable to wonder why they pivoted so hard, and that reason is pretty likely related to either people in the admin itself or a powerful third party who they wish to protect. The strategy is to not enter the burning building to begin with if you don't have a plan to get out.

"No smoking gun" doesn't mean something didn't happen,

Dude what?

Russell's Teapot for reference.

In looking at your string of comments in this thread, I'm starting to think you have a particularly nasty case of TDS or are doing a kind of slow-boil trolling that will eventually blossom reveal itself for what it actually is.

You're more than free to be an anti-Trumper here. Hell, I'm one. But claims like this one;

It's harder to show guilt, but it's also harder to suggest innocence.

Are the kind of equivocating nonsense that lead TheMotte to split from Reddit in the first place (and also, like, censorship and stuff). If you think that the Trump-Russia collusion story is valid, that's fine as well and I'd encourage you to highlight some evidence you find impressive or just do some good ole schizoposting. But, again, a lot of your argumentation is the kind of bad faith and literal Motte and Bailey style sophistry that is frowned upon around here regardless of your subjective beliefs.

Again, there was two years of digging through everything they could get their hands on. Yes, the deleted messages and encrypted apps leave some gaps, but the team still pieced together a pretty clear picture that didn't show campaign level conspiracy or coordination with Russia. It's more like the parent searched the whole house, questioned friends, checked call logs, and even found some flirty texts, but nothing that actually proved the daughter was sneaking out for secret hookups.

They could have just released the files as they promised to do multiple times before and during the election season.

It is perfectly reasonable to wonder why they pivoted so hard, and that reason is pretty likely related to either people in the admin itself or a powerful third party who they wish to protect.

The actual contents of the files are ancillary to the volatility of an international public primed for outrage.

American elites are a pedo cabal, the Epstein files is the grand unifying conspiracy that explains the world, and old Jeff was a Mossad linked predaphile blackmail kingpin puppeteering America towards Greater Israel. Any mention of sexual activity on Little Saint James island is evidence of minor sexual abuse. Absence of details means the real tapes have been scrubbed a long time ago. Exoneration means elite capture, silence is cover-up, and deviant Jews are overseeing the network.

That is the popular narrative. And it is epistemically bulletproof.

Best case scenario is we revisit this fiasco with a little more lucidity once it's ancient history.

The strategy is to not enter the burning building to begin with if you don't have a plan to get out.

Not the first, not the last ladder climber to yank his own rug just to make his rival trip. Recent events should be the most glaring exhibition of a consistent blind spot in Trump’s capacity for modeling downstream second and third order consequences.

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