Anand Giridharadas

You know, there's that proverb, it takes a village to raise a child.

I think we've learned that it takes a very powerful network to abuse so many children.

And so we're getting a glimpse of an absolutely barbaric

pedophilia scandal at the heart of Jeffrey Epstein's life and intimate circles.

But also around that, what I would think about is many concentric circles of networks, connections, friends, what Congressman Ro Khanna calls an Epstein class, one could say, that made that possible, that made what he did possible.

And we're getting a glimpse, I would say, of how our world, how our country is run.

And it isn't pretty.

This is the great mystery, you know, and I think because we live in such a partisan and tribal age, when these things started to come out, you had a lot of us doing what we normally do in this era, which is looking for revelations that would help our team and hurt the other team.

And there were a lot of people looking for the Trump connection who don't like Trump.

And there was people on the Republican and MAGA side trying to find which Democrats were implicated.

Yeah.

But that's such a facile way of looking at what we ended up getting, which is, as you say, a coast to coast, industry to industry, right to left, as far left as you can go, as far right as you can go, different professions, different ways of moving through the world, some famous, some obscure.

And as I wrote in the New York Times piece that I wrote in November, this diversity masks a deeper solidarity.

Because even if these people were on cable, you're sitting at home, you're watching cable at the end of the day, and you're seeing these two talking heads fight.

But that's for you.

That's the spectacle for you at home to keep you entertained.

What they're actually doing is revealed in these files, which is hanging out, breaking bread, colluding, sharing information, giving each other tips on deals, giving each other PR advice, making introductions to each other.

You have these moments in the files where Jeffrey Epstein is asking Steve Bannon for help.

getting, I think it was Brad Karp, into the Augusta National Golf Club.

And Steve Bannon talks about basically how hard, he's gonna help, he's gonna maybe see if he can do some looking around, but he's kind of explaining to Epstein how hard it might be.