Multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein stands accused of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. On July 18, US District Court judge Richard Berman denied bail,  ordering that Epstein be confined until trial.

The US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment is short and sweet: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

What would constitute “excessive” bail in Epstein’s case? Whatever it might be, no bail at all fits the definition, especially given what Epstein put on the table by way of a bail proposal.

There are two issues at stake:

In a 1951 case, Stack v. Boyle, the US Supreme Court held that “a defendant’s bail cannot be set higher than an amount that is reasonably likely to ensure the defendant’s presence at the trial.”

The Bail Reform Act of 1984 does provide for “preventive detention” without bail, but only if a judge “finds that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure … the safety of any other person and the community.”

What would assure Epstein’s appearance at court, and protect young women from further depredations of the type he’s accused of?

Epstein offered more than $100 million in cash bail. That’s a powerful incentive to appear for trial. Perhaps not enough for someone of his means. But there’s more.

Epstein also offered to submit to house arrest at his New York residence, with an electronic bracelet to track his every move, armed guards to keep him from leaving or prospective victims from entering,  prior approval by federal authorities for ANYONE to enter, and a court-appointed live-in trustee whose sole job would be to report any violations of the bail agreement to the court. All of that paid for by Epstein himself.

Furthermore, Epstein offered to de-register and ground his personal jet, and to  preemptively waive extradition from any country on Earth.

It’s difficult to imagine a bail arrangement more fully encompassing  the two legitimate objectives of bail itself.

That offer puts the lie to what Berman called “the heart of his decision” — his doubt that “any bail package could overcome dangerousness … to community.”

That leaves two plausible explanations for Berman’s decision.

One is that, like many judges, he just habitually defers to prosecutors (who in turn habitually use “no bail” requests to grandstand as “tough on crime”).

The other is that he’s already tried and convicted Epstein in his mind and sees no reason to wait for a jury to hand him the fore-ordained “guilty” verdict before Epstein’s punishment commences.

Either way, Berman should recuse himself from the case or be removed from it.

Why should any of us care about the plight of poor, poor, ultra-rich Jeffrey Epstein? Because this kind of stuff goes on every day in courts across the land, featuring poor defendants held on minor charges. We’re only HEARING about it because Epstein is rich and infamous.

If they can do it to Epstein, they can do it to you. So they shouldn’t get away with doing it to Epstein.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “No Bail is Excessive Bail, Even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 07/24/19
• “No Bail is Excessive Bail, Even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/25/19
• “No bail is too excessive, even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Duluth, Minnesota Superior Telegram [web and print], 07/25/19
• “No bail is excessive bail, even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Montgomery, West Virginia Herald, 07/25/19
• “No Bail is Excessive Bail, Even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 07/26/19
• “No Bail is Excessive Bail, Even for Jeffrey Epstein,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/28/19

The controversy around President Donald Trump’s recent tweets targeting “The Squad” — four Democratic members of Congress who are all women, all people “of color,” and all of whom Trump seems to think aren’t “from America” (one came from Somalia as a young woman and became a US citizen at 17; the rest are “natural born” US citizens) — largely centers around perceptions of his personal bigotry.

Is  Trump a racist? A xenophobe? A misogynist?  His public history, going back at least to the early 1970s, offers evidence for all three accusations. Some people find that evidence compelling, some don’t.

But to focus on Trump’s personal beliefs in any of those areas is to miss the point. He’s not an individual actor living out his life in private. He’s a public actor, leading a major political party, occupying the highest political office America has to offer, and campaigning for re-election to that office.

A decade ago, I began writing on a phenomenon I call “Peckerwood Populism” (“peckerwood,” a regional version of “woodpecker,” became first a slur used by poor southern black Americans to describe poor southern white Americans, then a self-descriptor and symbol proudly used by white racists). Here’s my description of Peckerwood Populist politicians circa 2009:

“While the average Peckerwood Populist is probably not affiliated with overtly white separatist/supremacist groups, he buys into that stereotype of the voter he’s pursuing. He’s pitching his product to blue collar white voters.  … I’m not saying that the average white, blue collar voter is a racist, a xenophobe, a homophobe or a neo-Confederate. For that matter, I’m not even necessarily saying that the Peckerwood Populist agitator is a racist, a xenophobe, a homophobe or a neo-Confederate. What I am saying is that the Peckerwood Populist agitator believes that … he can get his hooks into the voter by playing on those assumed sentiments.”

Sound familiar?

At one time, overt Peckerwood Populism was the mainstream in southern politics, preached by segregationist Democrats and, as it lost popularity, “Dixiecrats.” As it became even less popular and less overt and switched parties (with Nixon’s “southern strategy”), its reach expanded outside the south and loomed large in American politics until at least as late as 1988 (remember the Willie Horton ads?).

Peckerwood Populism is enjoying a nasty resurgence in the Age of Trump (and Trump is far from its sole practitioner).

Why? Because the Republican Party has failed to expand its base. The core GOP voting demographic is still white, blue collar, and male. The party has failed to appeal to black, Latinx, and female voters to expand that base.

If you can’t expand your base, you win by working harder to get more of that base out to the polls. You throw them lots and lots of red, racist, xenophobic, misogynist meat.

That’s exactly what Trump is doing. Whether he really means the crazy things he says is (mostly) beside the point. He believes his base believes those crazy things. If he’s right, that’s a far bigger problem than Trump himself.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Peckerwood Populism is About Political Strategy, Not Personal Belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 07/22/19
• “Peckerwood Populism is About Political Strategy, Not Personal Belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 07/23/19
• “Peckerwood Populism is About Political Strategy, Not Personal Belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/23/19
• “Peckerwood Populism is about political strategy, not personal belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Columbia, South Carolina Panorama, 07/25/19
• “Peckerwood Populism is About Political Strategy, Not Personal Belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/27/19
• “Peckerwood Populism Is About Strategy, Not Personal Belief,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Cordell, Oklahoma Beacon, 07/30/19

Claiming to speak for “we the people,” the framers of the US Constitution offered it as a tool to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

More than 230 years later, is the federal government doing a good job of delivering on those purposes? A poor job? Or is it, perhaps, up to some entirely different job? Let’s look behind Door Number Three:

According to the late  political philosopher Anthony de Jasay, the modern state is a “redistributive drudge …. If its ends are such that they can be attained by devoting its subjects’ resources to its own purposes, its rational course is to maximize its discretionary power over these resources. In the ungrateful role of drudge, however, it uses all its power to stay in power, and has no discretionary power left over.”

How much discretionary power does the federal government exercise over your resources?

Well, in 2019, actors in the US economy, including you, will produce goods and provide services worth more than $21 trillion. Also in 2019, the federal government will seize and spend more than $4.4 trillion of that $21 trillion.

Nearly one out of every five dollars’ worth of wealth produced in the US disappears down Washington, DC’s gullet. That’s a lot of discretionary power, and it doesn’t account for state or local government expenditures, or for exercises of discretionary power that reduce the amount of wealth created in the first place.

How much justice, tranquility, defense, general welfare, and liberty does that much discretionary power buy? How much SHOULD it buy?

Personally, I’d say we’re well past the point where giving more discretionary power to the state serves the ends touted in the preamble to the Constitution, and far into a situation where the primary activity of government in the United States is using its power to stay in power.

From any debate between candidates for public office, one may collect a veritable basket full of promises.

But listen closely to the promises and you’ll find that unless the candidate is a Libertarian, they’re  always conditional: Give me more power, give me more money, and I’ll give you X.

Those promises are a pig in a poke: Elect that candidate and you may or may not get some measure of X, but that candidate will definitely get the power.

Even Republican candidates who promise tax cuts tout a “Laffer Curve” equation under which lower tax rates will supposedly produce more total revenue — and with it more discretionary power — for them.

Do you consider keeping politicians in power a project worthy of nearly one out of five of the dollars you earn?

If so, by all means keep voting for candidates who advocate an ever stronger and ever more expensive federal government. There are usually at least two such candidates on your ballot for any office — they’re called Republicans and Democrats.

If not, vote Libertarian. Or abandon politics altogether.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/20/19
• “Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 07/21/19
• “Power, not policy, drives our politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kenly, North Carolina Johnstonian News, 07/22/19
• “Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Cordell, Oklahoma Beacon, 07/24/19
• “Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Minden, Louisiana Press-Herald [web and print], 07/25/19
• “Power, not policy, drives American politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Columbia, South Carolina Panorama [web and print], 07/26/19
• “Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 08/01/19