We Dems often suck at messaging, but now we have the perfect opportunity: The Epstein class.
With this simple phrase, it connects so many dots.
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Calling it the Epstein Class puts it all in perspective.“The Epstein class is a group of people with extreme wealth who have donated to politicians and been part of a system where they think the rules don’t apply to them, and they have created a system that has shafted a lot of forgotten Americans."
— Coop (@linjurz.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T11:29:18.989Z
The Epstein class means the oligarchs who are OK with kidnapping, trafficking and raping children, with being above the law, and stealing everything they can from the current population as well as crushing the future generations with debt.
And people are starting to use it. The phrase has been used by Ro Khanna, and repeated by the not-always-very-brave Washington Post
I have heard it being used, so it’s catching on.
Just a few of the many examples that fit into this:
Pardons — both pay for play and also, get away with it:
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Trump announces a “full and unconditional” pardon for Juan Orlando Hernandez, a former president of Honduras sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking and weapons offenses.
My latest on Trump’s continued abuse of the presidential pardon power:
youtu.be/M3VzVlHhQM8?...
— Katie Phang (@katiephang.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T03:08:21.600Z
and
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Former nursing home executive and convicted fraudster Joseph Schwartz was pardoned by Trump earlier this month.
Schwartz secured the pardon after paying two other convicted fraudsters nearly $1M to lobby Trump on his behalf.
Everything is for sale. youtube.com/watch?v=NflcWXdV-B0&feature=youtu.be
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2025-11-24T23:31:13.201959Z
and
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Want to know what a presidential pardon costs?
$1 million.
Paul Walczak was convicted of tax fraud. His mother attended a $1 million per person dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
Weeks later, Trump pardoned him.
The presidency has become a pay-to-play criminal enterprise.
Your government. For sale.
— Hussein Hallak (@darkal777.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T05:47:29.164Z
Washington Post did a piece on the corruption back in June:
The Big Beautiful Ugly Bill
This one is really vile, and have to applaud those who refused to ruin the word “beautiful” and to call it what it is, ugly.
Economically it’s a disaster, but great for billionaires — or let’s not forget, The Epstein class.
Some of the tax breaks for the uber wealthy Scott Neuman NPR
Lower tax brackets During the first Trump administration, Republicans in Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which temporarily reduced the top marginal tax rate from 39.6% to 37%. This change was originally set to expire at the end of 2025.
But now, the 37% top rate is set to continue indefinitely, applying to income above $626,350 for single filers and $751,600 for married couples filing jointly.
Bonus depreciation "Not everybody can go out and buy a private jet — but if you can, now that private jet is deductible in year one," Nitti says
Big Ugly Bill Steals from Poor to Give to Rich House, Ranking member
CBO analyzed the combined effects of the tax policies and spending reductions and found that working families will experience a net loss in household resources, while the ultra-rich will get richer. Specifically:
- Families already struggling to make ends meet lose the most. Households in the lowest income decile, making $24,000 a year or less, lose about $1,200 every year, mostly due to deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. That amounts to over 3 percent of their total income, a devastating hit for people who can afford it the least.
- Everyone in the bottom twenty percent of the income distribution, or those making less than $43,000 a year, will see a net decline in household resources.
- Middle-class families get next to nothing. For those in the 5th and 6th decile, or the middle of the distribution, they will experience a resource gain of only 0.8 to 1 percent. That is barely enough to keep up with rising costs due to President Trump's reckless actions.
- The ultra-rich get a windfall. Families making over $700,000 a year will see a $13,600 boost, almost entirely from tax cuts. That figure does not even count the massive estate tax giveaways for the ultra-rich.
It also works to reduce many of us to serfdom with provisions large and small. This will make many women poorer (Stacy M Brown, Milwaukee Courier)
The Trump administration has declared that nursing is not a professional degree, striking directly at the heart of America’s healthcare workforce and landing hardest on Black women, who make up nearly 13 percent of the national healthcare labor force and almost 10 percent of registered nurses. The administration frames the move as a technical adjustment to loan classifications. For Black women and the communities that rely on them, the consequences are far more severe.
“This is a gut punch for nursing,” Patricia Pittman of George Washington University stated. “Education from ADN to BSN and beyond is the single best way to retain nurses, especially in underserved communities.”
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, nursing, physical therapy, physician assistants, and other frontline health professions have been stripped of professional degree status. Students in these fields can borrow only $20,500 per year with a total cap of $100,000. Students in law, dentistry, medicine, and other protected fields can borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 total. Nursing students report tuition and clinical training costs that far exceed the new caps, leaving many unable to continue their education.
Not only does it hurt many in underserved communities, it sucks for health care, too. But the Epstein class is doing well!
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Expiring ACA tax credits will hit small businesses especially hard. Meanwhile, 74% of small business owners are worried that their business won’t survive due to Trump’s tariffs.
Trump is crushing small businesses while doling out tax breaks to his big corporate donors.
Priorities.
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T18:01:07.160568Z
The Epstein ballroom
While the government was shut down in order to starve Americans and to destroy our health care, the felon destroyed part of the White House (OUR White House) in order to create the Epstein ballroom.
Who is funding this ballroom?
The fact that the felon does not care about affordability, not even for his voters, who thought the face-eating leopards would not eat their faces, is seeping through. And we can blame it on the Epstein class.
Builds on what Bernie Sanders and AOC have been saying in their “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies. The message works well, but the word oligarchy does not. The expression the Epstein class is much easier for people to say and people also know what it means.
I think what Sanders did was great. He spoke to a lot of people in red areas, places where their own Congressional representatives were refusing to meet with them.
He pointed out, too, how the wealth has been traveling upwards for decades.
Note, not the graph used by Sanders, am just using what I found in the image library.
All this can be grouped in the one message, the felon and the GOP are working for the Epstein class. To reiterate, to repeat:
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"There is a growing sense that an elite group of wealthy people is running the world without accountability to the law, and that the Trump administration is protecting and even advancing the people in that group." It's the "Epstein Class." November 30, 2025 open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
— Colleen D Swain 💙 (@colleen4content.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T15:03:48.871Z
It is the way to phrase it (and actually should appeal to some on the right, who thought there was an Epstein class all along, even though they were wrong about Hillary Clinton and the pizza restaurant).
Spot on messaging. Nearly all the stories, with perhaps the exception of the felon’s mental and physical decline, fit. And it gives a way to go forward even after he’s gone.
The Epstein class. The best branding for these vile people.
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