All Those Wonderful Secrets
A peek at how predators speak to each other
Late last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article that shed quite a bit of light on the relationship between wealthy pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and alleged serial sex abuser and President of the United States, Donald Trump. The story involved a collection of letters written to Epstein on his 50thbirthday. One of those letters was written by Trump himself, and it included a sketch of a naked woman that served as the backdrop for a very personal message from one predator to another.
The contents of Trump’s letter were written as if they were lines in a script showing a conversation between him and Epstein:
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note started.
“Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.”
“Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.”
“Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
“Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.”
“Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?”
“Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.”
“Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
This text was written inside a drawn outline of a naked girl, with Trump’s squiggly Sharpie signature placed in the lower pelvis of the silhouette, mimicking pubic hair.
While the red hats have spent the better part of the last ten years telling us what we know about their Dear Leader is untrue, this letter is difficult to deny. While not a straight admission of the sexual deviance and criminality we have all come to know Trump and Epstein for, this scripted conversation is still one of the creepier things I’ve ever read.
However, the nausea I felt when first reading it came as a relief, since disgusting stories like this one have become so common in the Trump era that I sometimes feel like I’m being desensitized to this kind of cruelty. Reading this conversation between predators is the first time I can remember feeling relieved about wanting to puke.
Of course, Trump immediately denied writing the letter and drawing the picture, and he then announced his intention to file a $10 billion defamation suit against the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal. The number is supposed to be shocking, but it isn’t. If he sued for eleventy-trillion dollars, it wouldn’t matter, because Trump will drop the suit long before anyone has to turn over any documents or say anything in front of a judge with perjury attached. The suit is just an old PR trick that no longer fools anyone.
Trump’s entire life seems to be one wonderful secret after another. Story after story has come out about the lengths he will go to in order to silence anyone who opposes him or tries to wring some kind of justice out of his wrinkled orange frame. He pays people for their silence, uses publishers to “catch and kill” stories he doesn’t like, and since he has become president, he even uses the US government and our own justice system to silence the very people looking for justice. Irony, just like decency, is something Trump doesn’t seem to understand, but the rest of us sure do.
To some this story is a long-awaited confirmation, and for the red hats and longtime Q-nuts, it’s a really hard look in the mirror, but it should not be forgotten that each and every one of the “wonderful secrets” these two predators shared is someone’s little girl.
And anyone still on the Trump Train after knowing this might as well be an accomplice.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.
He had help writing this message. Perhaps Ms. Maxwell?
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
The anagram of enigmas is gamines.
Definitions For Gamine
noun
o A girl of impish appeal
o A homeless girl who roams the streets
o An attractive and usually thin and small woman or girl who often shows a playful desire to cause trouble