The whole of society has gone batshit crazy these past 10-15 years. I'm so glad my career wound down into retirement as this was rearing it's ugly head. I had a public position and wonder what madness I might have had to confront. The whole fire/cancel/ridicule others because they favor/support or have a different idea is just so very nuts and antithetical to all I ever experienced in the preceding 50 years. This Bears fan knows that is completely unacceptable in all cases. Unless it's Green Bay fan we're dealing with.
I was expecting more agreement with this piece in the comments here. This Epstein stuff really makes people see red, and their emotion clouds reasoning.
I understand your point but this is a case where the 10,000 ft view has to be taken into account. Fair or not (I think fair) the public is not satisfied with how this entire story has been handled, and how much the “Epstein class” has managed to obstruct and avoid consequences for its involvement (or perceived involvement) in a massive at best human trafficking operation at worst bipartisan QAnon pedo-spectre evil operation.
They’re going to make anyone who’s even associated with the emails suffer if at all possible, fair or not, and while I can understand being uncomfortable with the actions of mass hysteria, this hysteria was brought on by a true class down gaslighting from the most influential people in our society.
TLDR: so many fuckers have been caught lying and facing no consequences that it’s natural for that anger to bleed down to anyone that can face consequence.
Instead of it being an indictment on the public I see it as an indictment on the people involved who are willing to sacrifice lower level comrades in exchange for the entire dam not breaking.
It’s easy to be a fatalist about this stuff, but there are organizations (e.g.
FIRE, historically ACLU) whose entire job is to push back against the tribal impulses of the majority. And they are successful!
Just because a mob wants something doesn’t imply there is any validity. All that talk of people being frustrated by elites caught lying and facing no consequences? I don’t buy it. It’s just a post-hoc justification for feeding a visceral tribal impulse to punish.
I mean sure that’s great that you don’t buy it but the public by any measure does, and while you call it the mob I call it overwhelming public opinion. This issue was a major campaign talking point in the previous election. You can downplay it all you want but it’s been years and has not gone away so at a certain point it’s called being in denial. You can act like the court of public opinion was invented in 2015 or whatever but it wasn’t. If a population does not believe in the validity of a justice system they are going to effect whatever they can. “Bad looks” have been grounds for resignations for a long time.
Just because someone says they believe something for X reason doesn't mean it's true. Look up the rider and the elephant metaphor popularized by Jonathan Haidt, and there are tons of data supporting it. So no, I don't buy that reasoning, and just because that's the reason people give doesn't make it true.
People give all sorts of post-hoc reasons to justify their preferred beliefs, which are based on emotion. Whoever is suggesting this is "justice" because the justice system failed with the whole Epstein thing is unprincipled and full of it.
Nobody is asking you to buy it buddy. I do not give a shit if you are convinced or not lmao If you are looking at the Epstein case and your take is the public reaction is the “unprincipled” part I mean then what else is there to say. Enjoy being right in the court of you!
Bipartisan polling, length/volume of coverage and audience data for that coverage, years of relevancy, the fact that legislation both here and worldwide has passed as a response, would you like to counter argue that the Epstein files saga is…..not a big deal that people feel broadly unsatisfied about?
"would you like to counter argue..." No, I want to know what I asked you, how you think you answer what the public wants because it's a very difficult thing to do. Opinion poll results can vary by small word choices and methodology and views, clicks, etc... don't map cleanly to specific calls to action.
I agree with all of that but I mean it’s a comment section buddy you want me to send you a full peer reviewed analytics report? Skepticism is healthy, ignorance is not. I stand by my characterization take it or leave it.
I am not someone who is ever on the side of cancelling, however, I do think making him resign from something as forward facing as the Olympics is fair. Maybe he has and I haven’t seen it, but why doesn’t Wasserman offer a defense of himself if all he was trying to do was fuck Maxwell? I think it’s a different story with his agency but if his clients both baseball and basketball were demanding it or they leave, then he kinda had no choice. I usually don’t agree with this stuff but being tied to Epstein is something that you kinda have to resolve on your time and then try to come back later, if you are indeed clear of any wrongdoing.
When you construct a sentence that includes something along the lines of, well… he should try and come back later if he is indeed “cleared of any wrongdoing” it should be said that there is no accusation of “wrongdoing” in the first place. You can’t be cleared of something that isn’t established. See the problem with moral panic?
“Innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t apply in a cancel culture environment. It’s flipped on its head. This poster is advocating for “guilty until proven innocent” and the burden is on him to prove he’s not guilty of some hypothetical wrongdoing? Orwellian.
“Being tied to Epstein” is the problem in your post. Guilt by association + ignorance. You even admit to ignorance and yet you think it’s okay he loses his job!
Being in the Epstein files is not something the public is fucking with right now. And it’s pretty hard to blame them. Wasserman can also go on the offensive if he wanted. He could ride it out and not sell his company if that’s what he wanted to do also. He has decided for whatever reason he doesn’t want to do that
D.A.D.D. (Don't admit, double down). A plausible and likely reason for his not responding is that there is nothing he can do or say that would appease people caught up in a moral panic (like you).
"Being in the Epstein files, "good grief, dude. Do you even know what the Epstein files are?
Hint: It's NOT a consolidated batch of files that exclusively is about coordinated sex trafficking.
I don’t have any moral panic. I just am not gonna get mad at people that don’t want anything to do with someone connected to the largest sex trafficking ring ever. I also think it’s a little ridiculous to assume nobody else can do his job for the Olympics but that’s a way smaller point in the post
This is a moral panic and a form of cancel culture. It takes a vague “connection” to a notorious sex-trafficking case and inflates it into a reason that no one should associate with this person or even let him work the Olympics.
Classic cancel-culture logic: withdraw social and professional support based on accusation and guilt-by-association. And it has the shape of a moral panic because the language (“largest sex trafficking ring ever”) turns him into a symbolic villain whose mere presence is treated as a threat to public morality, instead of asking carefully what he actually did and what a proportionate response would be.
With the exception of Rapinoe, the potential exodus is not coming from the athletic side. Think music and movies. The Wasserman Media Group has their hands in a lot of pies.
Wambach, not Rapinoe, right? Either way you’re right, and whichever women’s soccer player it is, both of them are post-retirement now anyway so closer to entertainment than sports themselves.
This hysteria is the nail in the coffin for any near future that isn’t idiocracy adjacent. Imbecility is bipartisan.
@Ethan — here is your buddy Kang finding it suspicious that they aren’t arresting some people to appease the mob (the notion that, after multiple investigations, there is nobody who deserves arrest is unthinkable—as is the idea that you don’t arrest people to appease a mob. ) https://x.com/jaycaspiankang/status/2024476132763222184
(In a functioning society Karen Bass, who was in Ghana when LA burned and otherwise mishandled the LA fires would have been the one who resigned long ago)
When did the democrats become puritans? None of us knows what was happening in his personal life nor should we care. There are so many more important issues to focus on today yet the Epstein files are still dominating the narrative. Maybe Ms. Bass should focus on rebuilding after the fire?
“People are saying Dr. Schmidt sees Jewish patients. Nothing against him personally, but I think I’ll have to find a different doctor until things die down.”
My Epstein conspiracy? There’s that video of him running around his kitchen. Granite countertops??? Straight edge, no bevel??? I’m supposed to believe a guy with hundreds of millions cant afford marble countertops? Its all a psyop
I am fine with Wasserman staying on as the head of the '28 Olympics Committee, mainly for the reasons Ethan pointed out.
However, I am just as fine with his clients wanting to depart his agency, citing his past behavior. They are the talent and it is their prerogative to seek different representation if they want. To take it a step further, It has been floated that some of his agents encouraged their clients to make a stink of this scandal publicly to pressure Wasserman to exit. I do not believe the Epstein issue was just going to blow over, the client departures MIGHT snowball, and Wasserman made the call to sell before the value of the agency potentially substantially decreased.
Wasserman will get a hefty payday but, similar to Donald Sterling, he will lose almost all of his power and importance, especially after the '28 Olympics are over if he remains in that role.
At the end of the day, it does not matter whether anyone thinks Wasserman should have sold the massive agency he helped "build," as Ari Emanuel would scoff at that notion. He made a business decision.
“He’s rape-adjacent!” thundered Bass, mayor of Ghana.
The whole of society has gone batshit crazy these past 10-15 years. I'm so glad my career wound down into retirement as this was rearing it's ugly head. I had a public position and wonder what madness I might have had to confront. The whole fire/cancel/ridicule others because they favor/support or have a different idea is just so very nuts and antithetical to all I ever experienced in the preceding 50 years. This Bears fan knows that is completely unacceptable in all cases. Unless it's Green Bay fan we're dealing with.
I was expecting more agreement with this piece in the comments here. This Epstein stuff really makes people see red, and their emotion clouds reasoning.
It turns people retarted
I understand your point but this is a case where the 10,000 ft view has to be taken into account. Fair or not (I think fair) the public is not satisfied with how this entire story has been handled, and how much the “Epstein class” has managed to obstruct and avoid consequences for its involvement (or perceived involvement) in a massive at best human trafficking operation at worst bipartisan QAnon pedo-spectre evil operation.
They’re going to make anyone who’s even associated with the emails suffer if at all possible, fair or not, and while I can understand being uncomfortable with the actions of mass hysteria, this hysteria was brought on by a true class down gaslighting from the most influential people in our society.
TLDR: so many fuckers have been caught lying and facing no consequences that it’s natural for that anger to bleed down to anyone that can face consequence.
Instead of it being an indictment on the public I see it as an indictment on the people involved who are willing to sacrifice lower level comrades in exchange for the entire dam not breaking.
Fair or not?
It’s easy to be a fatalist about this stuff, but there are organizations (e.g.
FIRE, historically ACLU) whose entire job is to push back against the tribal impulses of the majority. And they are successful!
Just because a mob wants something doesn’t imply there is any validity. All that talk of people being frustrated by elites caught lying and facing no consequences? I don’t buy it. It’s just a post-hoc justification for feeding a visceral tribal impulse to punish.
I mean sure that’s great that you don’t buy it but the public by any measure does, and while you call it the mob I call it overwhelming public opinion. This issue was a major campaign talking point in the previous election. You can downplay it all you want but it’s been years and has not gone away so at a certain point it’s called being in denial. You can act like the court of public opinion was invented in 2015 or whatever but it wasn’t. If a population does not believe in the validity of a justice system they are going to effect whatever they can. “Bad looks” have been grounds for resignations for a long time.
Just because someone says they believe something for X reason doesn't mean it's true. Look up the rider and the elephant metaphor popularized by Jonathan Haidt, and there are tons of data supporting it. So no, I don't buy that reasoning, and just because that's the reason people give doesn't make it true.
People give all sorts of post-hoc reasons to justify their preferred beliefs, which are based on emotion. Whoever is suggesting this is "justice" because the justice system failed with the whole Epstein thing is unprincipled and full of it.
Nobody is asking you to buy it buddy. I do not give a shit if you are convinced or not lmao If you are looking at the Epstein case and your take is the public reaction is the “unprincipled” part I mean then what else is there to say. Enjoy being right in the court of you!
Well, I guess I should know better than to try to have a discussion with someone intoxicated by self-righteousness and who loves a moral panic.
How are you measuring what the "The public" wants?
Bipartisan polling, length/volume of coverage and audience data for that coverage, years of relevancy, the fact that legislation both here and worldwide has passed as a response, would you like to counter argue that the Epstein files saga is…..not a big deal that people feel broadly unsatisfied about?
"would you like to counter argue..." No, I want to know what I asked you, how you think you answer what the public wants because it's a very difficult thing to do. Opinion poll results can vary by small word choices and methodology and views, clicks, etc... don't map cleanly to specific calls to action.
I agree with all of that but I mean it’s a comment section buddy you want me to send you a full peer reviewed analytics report? Skepticism is healthy, ignorance is not. I stand by my characterization take it or leave it.
“Intoxicated by self-righteousness” lmao I’m stealing that it rips
I am not someone who is ever on the side of cancelling, however, I do think making him resign from something as forward facing as the Olympics is fair. Maybe he has and I haven’t seen it, but why doesn’t Wasserman offer a defense of himself if all he was trying to do was fuck Maxwell? I think it’s a different story with his agency but if his clients both baseball and basketball were demanding it or they leave, then he kinda had no choice. I usually don’t agree with this stuff but being tied to Epstein is something that you kinda have to resolve on your time and then try to come back later, if you are indeed clear of any wrongdoing.
When you construct a sentence that includes something along the lines of, well… he should try and come back later if he is indeed “cleared of any wrongdoing” it should be said that there is no accusation of “wrongdoing” in the first place. You can’t be cleared of something that isn’t established. See the problem with moral panic?
“Innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t apply in a cancel culture environment. It’s flipped on its head. This poster is advocating for “guilty until proven innocent” and the burden is on him to prove he’s not guilty of some hypothetical wrongdoing? Orwellian.
“Being tied to Epstein” is the problem in your post. Guilt by association + ignorance. You even admit to ignorance and yet you think it’s okay he loses his job!
Being in the Epstein files is not something the public is fucking with right now. And it’s pretty hard to blame them. Wasserman can also go on the offensive if he wanted. He could ride it out and not sell his company if that’s what he wanted to do also. He has decided for whatever reason he doesn’t want to do that
D.A.D.D. (Don't admit, double down). A plausible and likely reason for his not responding is that there is nothing he can do or say that would appease people caught up in a moral panic (like you).
"Being in the Epstein files, "good grief, dude. Do you even know what the Epstein files are?
Hint: It's NOT a consolidated batch of files that exclusively is about coordinated sex trafficking.
I don’t have any moral panic. I just am not gonna get mad at people that don’t want anything to do with someone connected to the largest sex trafficking ring ever. I also think it’s a little ridiculous to assume nobody else can do his job for the Olympics but that’s a way smaller point in the post
This is a moral panic and a form of cancel culture. It takes a vague “connection” to a notorious sex-trafficking case and inflates it into a reason that no one should associate with this person or even let him work the Olympics.
Classic cancel-culture logic: withdraw social and professional support based on accusation and guilt-by-association. And it has the shape of a moral panic because the language (“largest sex trafficking ring ever”) turns him into a symbolic villain whose mere presence is treated as a threat to public morality, instead of asking carefully what he actually did and what a proportionate response would be.
The Mount Rushmore of Sex Trafficking Rings, plus KD Burner-Gate! and Parent Corner With Wesley Morris, Ariel Helwani, and Cousin Sal.
Maybe the worst comment I've seen on substack
With the exception of Rapinoe, the potential exodus is not coming from the athletic side. Think music and movies. The Wasserman Media Group has their hands in a lot of pies.
Wambach, not Rapinoe, right? Either way you’re right, and whichever women’s soccer player it is, both of them are post-retirement now anyway so closer to entertainment than sports themselves.
This hysteria is the nail in the coffin for any near future that isn’t idiocracy adjacent. Imbecility is bipartisan.
@Ethan — here is your buddy Kang finding it suspicious that they aren’t arresting some people to appease the mob (the notion that, after multiple investigations, there is nobody who deserves arrest is unthinkable—as is the idea that you don’t arrest people to appease a mob. ) https://x.com/jaycaspiankang/status/2024476132763222184
(In a functioning society Karen Bass, who was in Ghana when LA burned and otherwise mishandled the LA fires would have been the one who resigned long ago)
And here we have the other side of the "Republicans pounce!" framing -- "Pressure mounts"
As if "pressure" was some kind of natural occurring phenomenon not driven by human beings.
When did the democrats become puritans? None of us knows what was happening in his personal life nor should we care. There are so many more important issues to focus on today yet the Epstein files are still dominating the narrative. Maybe Ms. Bass should focus on rebuilding after the fire?
What did you think "Me Too" meant? Vibes? Essays?
It's not puritanical, they just want his stuff.
“People are saying Dr. Schmidt sees Jewish patients. Nothing against him personally, but I think I’ll have to find a different doctor until things die down.”
My Epstein conspiracy? There’s that video of him running around his kitchen. Granite countertops??? Straight edge, no bevel??? I’m supposed to believe a guy with hundreds of millions cant afford marble countertops? Its all a psyop
I am fine with Wasserman staying on as the head of the '28 Olympics Committee, mainly for the reasons Ethan pointed out.
However, I am just as fine with his clients wanting to depart his agency, citing his past behavior. They are the talent and it is their prerogative to seek different representation if they want. To take it a step further, It has been floated that some of his agents encouraged their clients to make a stink of this scandal publicly to pressure Wasserman to exit. I do not believe the Epstein issue was just going to blow over, the client departures MIGHT snowball, and Wasserman made the call to sell before the value of the agency potentially substantially decreased.
Wasserman will get a hefty payday but, similar to Donald Sterling, he will lose almost all of his power and importance, especially after the '28 Olympics are over if he remains in that role.
At the end of the day, it does not matter whether anyone thinks Wasserman should have sold the massive agency he helped "build," as Ari Emanuel would scoff at that notion. He made a business decision.