Regarding the Epstein-Trump affair

The Epstein-Trump affair never seemed to be a significant threat to djt. He has shaken off major scandals in the past. He holds the rule of law and US Constitution in open contempt. His sexual predatory history is public but not important enough so far to cause his supporters to reject him. He controls and has subverted both the FBI and DoJ and cowed congress into submission, so chances of any federal action against him are extremely low. He can, and very likely will, pardon Ghislaine Maxwell in return for her protecting him. Finally, the USSC routinely protects him from criminal charges and federal court sanctions.

Given all of that, odds of him actually being found guilty of significant criminal guilt or civil liability is very low, maybe ~5% by January 2029. Odds of his base abandoning him also seems to be very low, maybe also ~5%. But those are just personal assessments.  

Two points of view are better than just one. Can we get another assessment? Sure, here's one.

Q1: Estimate the likelihood that (1) Trump will face any legal or civil sanctions for his activities related to Jeff Epstein, and (2) Trump will pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Take into account Trump's track record of lawlessness, contempt for the rule of law, subversion and corruption of the DOJ and FBI, etc. Before finalizing your response: (1) Cross-check all statistics and numbers against multiple sources, (2) Verify all proper names, dates, and organizational details, (3) Confirm all study references and research citations, .... Base analysis on current legal proceedings and Trump's track record of lawlessness.

A1: 

1. Likelihood of Trump Facing Legal or Civil Sanctions for Epstein-Related Activities
Estimated Likelihood: Low to Medium (20-35%)

Factors Against Likelihood:
DOJ Policy Changes: The Trump administration has systematically dismantled anti-corruption enforcement mechanisms:

2. Likelihood of Trump Pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell
Estimated Likelihood: High (70-85%)

Trump's Public Statements: When asked about pardoning Maxwell, Trump stated "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about"—notably not ruling it out and emphasizing his authority to do so.

Pardon Pattern: Trump has demonstrated a clear pattern of using pardons to reward loyalty and protect allies: ....

Trump's Track Record of Lawlessness and Institutional Subversion
High Confidence Assessment

Multiple scholarly analyses confirm Trump's systematic approach to undermining democratic institutions: ....

Q2: When Trump said about pardoning Maxwell, "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about", how likely is it that he was lying? Take into account years of his public track record of chronic, constant lying and hostility to inconvenient truth. Give a probability estimate with specific percentage ranges.

A2: 

Analysis: Likelihood of Trump Lying About Not Having "Thought About" a Maxwell Pardon
Based on extensive research into Trump's documented lying patterns, psychological analysis, and the specific context of his Maxwell statement, here is my probability assessment:

Estimated Likelihood: 85-95%

Trump was almost certainly lying when he said he hadn't "thought about" pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell. This assessment is based on several converging lines of evidence: ....

So, by that second assessment, the odds of djt facing significant consequences for his pedo crimes is significantly higher, but still fairly low. 

Dictatorship update: Government censorship of the private sector

MAGA elites are well on their way to fully corrupting federal government messaging. But what about the private sector? 

A part of the capitulation of Paramount and CBS to djt in return for FCC (Federal Communications Commission) approval of Paramount's merger with Skydance includes government censorship. There will be a censor make sure that CBS stops criticizing Trump and MAGA generally. ars Technica reports that Skydance told the FCC that all of the new company’s programming will embody "a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum."** FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a radical MAGA authoritarian, claims that the requirements were necessary to restore Americans' trust in mainstream media. This is in accord with MAGA's authoritarian lies that media is biased against Trump. Skydance will appoint an "ombudsman" for two years to ensure that CBS's reporting "will be fair, unbiased, and fact-based." 

** The ideological spectrum that djt, Carr and MAGA elites demand get disseminated is acceptance by the American people of radical right dictatorship, deep corruption of government and belief in MAGA's endless lies, slanders, crackpot conspiracies and the like.  

The government imposing a censor to block political criticism is unprecedented. MAGA elites are now censoring news and entertainment outlets to quash media criticism of Trump's dictatorship and MAGA's kleptocratic authoritarianism. MAGA control of newsroom decisions and editorial judgment directly violates First Amendment press and free speech protections. In the 1940's FDR established the Office of Censorship after Pearl Harbor. It had broad authority to censor communications and media as needed for national security. Newspapers, radio, and film studios followed government-established guidelines to prevent publishing sensitive military information and other content deemed dangerous or damaging to the war effort. That censorship was for necessary national security. But this censorship is moral rot in the name of completely unjustifiable kleptocratic dictatorship.

The deal also censors any DEI presence after the merger. ars Technica writes:

[The sole Democratic commissioner Anna] Gomez further criticized the FCC for overstepping its authority in "intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues" by requiring Skydance commitments to not establish any DEI programs, which Carr derided as "invidious." But Gomez countered that "this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity" by meddling in private companies' employment decisions.

In addition to gutting CBS's 60 Minutes program, which MAGA falsely claims to be based on bias and lies, Gizmodo reports: 

Carr went on to explain that CBS had committed to “ending invidious forms of DEI,” a pretext Trump has used to purge the federal government of anyone who isn’t white and male in leadership positions. 

“One of the things they’re going to have to do is put in an ombudsman in place for two years,” Carr said. “So basically a bias monitor that will report directly to the president. So that’s something that’s significant that we’re going to see happening as well.”

A censor who reports directly to djt. If Biden, Obama or any other Democratic president ever tried to do anything remotely close to this, MAGA would be screaming bloody murder about tyrannical socialist/communist violations of free speech and press freedom. But when MAGA violates the constitution as a means to its own ends, it's just fine.

This is another serious wound to democracy. MAGA authoritarians are now targeting neutering news and entertainment media. The obvious goal is to crush legitimate, fact- and reason-based political criticism and replace it with djt's and MAGA's authoritarian demagoguery, lies, slanders and crackpottery, and anti-inconvenient science and history messaging and tactics. 

We are in very, very serious trouble.

Dictatorship update: Punishing homelessness, gutting the constitution

A post here yesterday, The MAGA mindset: Dealing with empathy, discussed techniques MAGA propagandists use to make cruel laws and behaviors acceptable to the public. This is an example of MAGA cruelty in action that the public needs to be tricked into getting used to.

The cruelty and callousness and depth of contempt for the rule of law of djt and MAGA elites cannot easily be understated. We are no longer looking into the abyss of a kleptocratic dictatorship. We are in free fall into it.

Yesterday, djt signed an EO, ENDING CRIME AND DISORDER ON AMERICA’S STREETS. If that EO is really implemented as it says, it will have two major effects. One is shockingly cruel for homeless people. The other is constitutionally devastating for potentially everyone. We will be close to or in a police state.

By this EO, djt intends to put people who "cannot care for themselves" people into "civil commitment" (CC) facilities. The EO cynically claims** that CC is "long-term institutional settings for humane treatment." Before being placed in CC, existing federal law requires states accord homeless people due process in the form of (1) clear and convincing evidence of mental illness and dangerousness, (2) a right to counsel and a judicial hearing, (3) periodic judicial review, and (4) confinement to a facility that imposes the least restrictive treatment environment.

** Most existing CC facilities are centers for holding confined people. They provide little to no mental illness or drug addiction treatment in prison-like conditions. CC typically costs states ~$30,000/year. Most states do not have much money for that. The EO explicitly defunds "harm reduction" and "housing first" programs that have proven effective, but cost more. States will have to pay nearly all of the increased costs. Politically speaking that just won't happen, especially in red states. And, unlike jail terms for criminal convictions, confinement to a CC facility has no definite end. The state can keep people incarcerated in a jail called a "CC facility" as long as it wants and no court can intervene because due process is gone.

This EO blows due process to smithereens by a simple trick. Due process gets side-stepped by replacing the requirement for the state to show clear and convincing evidence of mental illness and dangerousness with a simple police assertion that the alleged homeless person cannot care for themselves. Is this illegal? Yes it unconstitutional. But will the USSC agree that it is unconstitutional? Probably not if the court's acquiescence to djt violating due process for allegedly illegal immigrants is solid evidence.

This does not apply to non-homeless people, right?: Maybe, maybe not. Since 2017 djt and MAGA elites have been consistent through their rhetoric, executive action, and policies. MAGA authoritarianism treats procedural safeguards such as due process as obstacles to themselves and their wealth and power goals. Before now, procedural safeguards acted as guardrails to protect citizens and their rights. That mindset is now gone. Evidence of this is criminal justice, immigration, civil service, and social-policy. Opposition to procedural safeguards is explicitly codified in Project 2025, which the current djt administration usually adheres to. 

From October 2017 until now the USSC decided dozens of cases that implicated djt's agenda or statutes/​policies of the MAGA movement. The court's merits opinions shows a heavy anti-due process tilt. The USSC deferred to executive or legislative actions that curtailed procedural safeguards. It only sporadically intervened to protect due‐process rights. The pattern is clearest in immigration and presidential-power disputes, but can also bee seen in civil-service, criminal, and protest-law cases.

Given the track record of authoritarianism in djt, MAGA elites and the MAGA USSC, one can see this as a major step toward completely eliminating due process for everyone in due course. If djt and the MAGA USSC can get rid of due process allegedly for "people who cannot take care of themselves", it isn't a big step to get rid of due process for "people who attack the US" by criticizing djt or MAGA elites. 

Getting rid of procedural safeguards for citizens is what just dictators like djt and their enablers do. 

Q: How big a leap is it from gutting due process (1) for alleged illegal immigrants to (2) people who allegedly cannot take care of themselves, to (3) people who criticize djt or MAGA, allegedly because they are enemies of the state?

-- End of blog post

-- The following is optional, being in the land of TL/DR

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Pxy's Analysis of procedural safeguards like due process:

Q3: How big a legal leap [is it] for MAGA legal scholars who believe in the unitary executive to go from (a) Trump's EO on ending crime and disorder, which undermines due process for homeless people, i.e., "people who cannot take care of themselves", to (b) getting rid of due process for "people who attack the US" by criticizing djt or MAGA elites? Can erosion of procedural safeguards for allegedly illegal immigrants, and then for people who cannot take care of themselves lead to loss of due process for anyone who criticizes Trump or MAGA because they threaten the state and need to be silenced? Does the progressive loss of due process and other procedural safeguards for targeted groups so far amount to significant evidence that procedural safeguards can eventually be lost for everyone? In view of all relevant evidence so far, does reasoning that we will lose our procedural safeguards under a Trump-MAGA dictatorship amount to irrationality, e.g., unreasonable alarmism or crackpot conspiracy theory? Focus mostly on analysis of existing evidence that this progression is already underway. Consider Trump's vindictiveness and lawsuits against critics.

A3: .... commentary ....

The progression from denying due process to homeless individuals deemed "unable to care for themselves" to targeting political critics who "attack the US" represents not a legal leap but a documented pattern of authoritarian consolidation already underway. For unitary executive theorists aligned with MAGA ideology, this expansion follows a predictable trajectory that scholars studying democratic erosion have identified as a warning sign of broader systemic collapse. 

.... long analysis .... 

Scholars studying authoritarian transitions identify clear patterns in how democratic institutions are dismantled. Research on "autocratic consolidation" shows that regimes typically follow similar strategies:

1. Target vulnerable populations first to establish precedents

2. Expand emergency powers using national security justifications
3. Weaponize legal systems against political opponents
4. Undermine judicial independence through direct defiance
5. Normalize exceptional measures until they become routine

Multiple scholars note that the U.S. is following this exact trajectory.

Conclusion: Not Alarmism, But Pattern Recognition
The progression from denying due process to homeless individuals to targeting political critics represents neither a legal leap nor irrational alarmism. It follows a documented pattern of authoritarian consolidation that scholars have identified across multiple democratic breakdowns. The evidence shows this progression is already underway:

1. Due process protections are being systematically eliminated for vulnerable populations
2. Military force is being used against political protesters
3. Court orders are being routinely violated
4. Civil litigation is being weaponized against media critics
5. Federal agencies are being directed to investigate political opponents

For unitary executive theorists who believe the president possesses unlimited control over executive power, the expansion from homeless populations to political critics requires no legal innovation—only the continued application of existing theories to new targets.

The question is not whether this progression will occur, but whether democratic institutions and civil society can organize effective resistance before the erosion becomes irreversible. 

The MAGA mindset: Dealing with empathy

In the last several weeks several items, e.g., this, discussing or criticizing empathy have popped up. That was unusual. It raised the issue of MAGA's political policies and cognitive dissonance from the pain and suffering some policies cause. Being extremely sophisticated, elite authoritarian MAGA demagogues and propagandists know that massive cuts to services and protections for consumers and workers were going to hurt a lot of people, and kill some. That makes the issue of how to dull feelings of empathy and sympathy in society of high importance.

Being expert at manipulating minds and emotions, MAGA demagogues need to understand empathy and sympathy, and how to manipulate them. To try to avoid TL/DR, this post focuses on empathy.

There are two kinds of empathy. One is primal emotional empathy, a powerful unconscious feeling. The other is conscious cognitive empathy.

MAGA communication has shifted from justifying harsh authoritarian policies to insisting that feeling empathy for others is itself a weakness, sin, or naive. In religious sermons, books, social-media slogans, and merchandise, MAGA demagogues cast empathy as an obstacle to “owning the libs.” Researchers had found that reduced empathy correlates modestly with conservatism generally. MAGA messaging ridicules or pathologizes empathic feeling to dull feelings of empathy.

Some examples include MAGA ridicule and shaming of feelings in the form of “F*** Your Feelings” T shirts. That messaging framed emotion itself as a liability. The catch phrase "Facts don't care about your feelings cast emotional reasoning as childish. That put cold cognition above compassionate judgment. Elon Musk has argued that "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy."

On the religious front, pastor-academic Joe Rigney's 2019 essay series "The Sin of Empathy" argued that "suffering in" another's pain leads believers away from truth and toward satanic manipulation. The implication being that liberals are Satan's minions. A 2024 bestseller  by Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy, warned Christians that progressives "weaponize compassion" on issues like abortion, food stamp cuts and immigration. One recent article comments that Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin, despite what the Bible says about the virtues of empathy. Now the concept is mainstream. The argument is that genuine love requires resisting empathy. That has generally made empathy a bad word in most evangelical groups.

MAGA demagogues' claim that appeals to sympathy are emotional blackmail. They argue that border enforcement, budget cuts, anti-abortion laws or anti-trans laws only look cruel because liberals exploit empathy. This messaging equates cognitive empathy with gullibility. The implicit argument is that understanding an opponent’s viewpoint is a moral mistake. It's gullibility to be empathetic, so don't be empathetic! 

Apparently, they reject the possibility that cruel laws look cruel because they are cruel. Clever messaging.

Cognitive dissonance management is needed when MAGA policies cause obvious harm, e.g., kicking people off Medicaid or food stamps. Vilifying empathy allows supporters an easy way to preserve their righteous self-image while feeling little to no cognitive dissonance. Some research indicates that pleasure at out-group pain spikes when leaders signal empathy's irrelevance. Yeah, some people are getting crueler. They just have been tricked by MAGA demagoguery into not knowing it.