Welcome to the flickering fluorescent void of the 24-hour news cycle, where the only thing thinner than the journalistic integrity is the skin of the participants. Recently, on CNN—a network currently existing in a state of permanent identity crisis—we witnessed the latest installment of the Great American Grift. The players: Scott Jennings, a man whose primary function is to provide 'conservative' cover for the indefensible with the weary smile of a middle-manager at a cardboard factory, and Leigh McGowan, a 'resistance' influencer whose brand of politics is largely indistinguishable from a theater major’s senior thesis. The topic? Jeffrey Epstein. Because, apparently, there is no horror so profound that it cannot be transmuted into a petty squabble between two people who get paid more in a week than you make in a year to provide exactly zero value to the species.

Scott Jennings, ever the vanguard of the 'nothing to see here' school of Republican apologetics, decided to suggest that we shouldn't 'get our knickers in a twist' over the Epstein saga. Let’s pause to appreciate the linguistic gymnastics required to use a phrase as quaint and grandmotherly as 'knickers in a twist' when discussing a global sex-trafficking ring that functioned as a playground for the world’s most powerful ghouls. It is a masterclass in the banality of evil—or, at the very least, the banality of the professional pundit. To Jennings, the systematic abuse of minors and the subsequent, highly convenient 'suicide' of the ringleader is just another piece of political furniture to be rearranged. It’s an inconvenience. It’s a talking point that needs to be neutralized so we can get back to the vital business of arguing about tax brackets for yacht owners. It is the ultimate expression of the modern Right’s moral vacuum: a world where everything is a 'distraction' if it happens to implicate your team's donor base.

But do not mistake my disdain for Jennings as an endorsement of his opponent. Enter Leigh McGowan, who responded to this display of casual sociopathy by adopting a 'haughty accent' to mock him. This is what passes for 'The Resistance' in the year of our lord 2024. When faced with the casual dismissal of a pedophilic nightmare, the grand strategy of the American Left's media apparatus is to perform a bit of amateur dramatics. It is the height of performative futility. McGowan’s choice to use a fake accent is the perfect metaphor for the modern liberal response to systemic rot: if you can’t actually dismantle the power structures that allowed an Epstein to exist, you can at least make a funny voice while the world burns. It is condescension masquerading as activism, a smug pat on the back for being 'better' than the man across the table while occupying the same digital real estate and feeding the same outrage machine.

This entire exchange is a microcosm of our collective cultural bankruptcy. The Epstein story is not a story to these people; it is a blunt instrument. To the Right, it’s a way to vaguely gesture toward 'elites' while ignoring the fact that their own golden calf spent decades in those same circles. To the Left, it’s a moral high ground from which they can look down upon the 'deplorables' while ignoring the uncomfortable reality that the jet’s flight logs read like a guest list for a Davos after-party. Both sides treat the victims as footnotes in a script designed to keep the ratings high enough to justify the advertisers' spend on pharmaceutical products and luxury SUVs.

We are watching the decomposition of reality in real-time. Jennings’ 'knickers' comment is an attempt to lobotomize the audience, to convince us that being outraged by the darkest corners of the ruling class is somehow a breach of etiquette. McGowan’s mockery is the aestheticization of that same outrage, stripping it of its teeth and turning it into a 'slay queen' moment for social media clips. Neither of them cares about the truth. If the truth were actually revealed, both of their careers would likely evaporate as the institutions they serve are exposed as the mutual-admiration societies they are.

There is no 'win' here. There is only the realization that the people tasked with explaining the world to us are fundamentally incapable of feeling anything other than the heat of the studio lights. They are avatars of a dying civilization, arguing about the tone of the scream while the building collapses. Jennings wants us to be calm because the status quo suits him; McGowan wants us to be 'smartly' offended because that is her brand. Meanwhile, the ghosts of Epstein’s crimes remain unavenged, buried under a mountain of punditry so thick and so useless that it could be used as insulation for the bunkers these people will retreat to when the public finally realizes they’ve been sold a bill of goods. In the end, we are the idiots for watching, the knickers are indeed twisted, and the void just keeps getting louder.