I would amend this slightly. We don’t live in a world of Epsteins and Bannons. They would like us to think we do; as they would like to be. But the truth is duller, and more comforting.
Nobody had heard of Jeffrey Epstein before Q made the Epstein files a force to be reckoned with. There’s no mistake that Epstein was a monster. He was mysteriously rich, and knew how to ingratiate himself to rich people (and steal from them, it strongly appears). But what power did he have, that money didn’t give him?
That’s not a small thing, and I’m not being glib. But for all his wealth and contacts, Epstein was not a mover or a shaker. He had contacts with many people, famous and behind the scenes, and he cultivated influence. To what end? He died in a jail cell which he was unlikely to leave again, except for another one. His name is now anathema, his memory a curse, his associations with anyone making them pariahs. This is a power, extending beyond death, but hardly one that others envy. If this is a world of Epsteins, why is his almost as despised as Hitler’s?
And Bannon? Bannon is a toady no one knew until Trump ran for office. In the record left behind, Epstein wasn’t too interested in the plan to attack Pope Francis through a spurious documentary. It was proposed while Epstein was imprisoned for the last time; he had other things on his mind. Bannon wanted Epstein to produce it (and provide the money). No one ever accused Bannon of being able to read the room. Or of being independently important, or powerful.
This is not a world of Epsteins and Bannons; it is a world much more closely aligned with Pope Francis. Bannons and Epsteins think they run the world because they associate with people with money; very large amounts of money. These people all think money makes the world go ‘round. And who can doubt it? Except the people with all the money are more convinced of their power and authority and importance, than the vast majority of the world which doesn’t have that money. Money is power, but it is not in any sense the only power, or even the ultimate power. The real power in this world is what Francis represented, the reason Bannon reacted so strongly to Francis, and why he wanted to ruin Francis in scandal if he could (he couldn’t). What Francis knew was the power of powerlessness.
And that’s what Bannon is really afraid of.
Because what Epstein (and in many ways, Francis) is that, if we give the people with the most money the most power, why are we doing that?
If the elite are that rotten, why do we tolerate them as powerful and elite? What are we tolerating, and why are we tolerating it? Far more dangerous questions than Francis led us to ask. Or are they? Take three stories from the gospels seriously, treat them as important, and where does the value system of money = power, stand?
The three I mean are Matthew’s parable of the sheep and the goats: “Lord, when did see you?” Luke’s beatitudes: “Congratulations, you poor!” And John’s sacrament that wasn’t, when John replaces the communion of Mark, Matthew, Luke and Paul, with Jesus playing servant to his disciples, and washing their feet. Serving the least among us are when we serve God. The poorest among us (the least also? Is that the measure?) will have God’s domain. And the first of all is literally the last and servant of all.
Pope Francis powerfully represented that ideal, that teaching, that spirit. No wonder Bannon was afraid.
It’s not a world of Bannons and Epsteins; and that’s what scares them the most. That the power they put so much importance in, isn’t that powerful after all. There is a greater power, and it is expressed in powerlessness.
