This past Saturday I did what every conscientious citizen should’ve been doing with their placid summer weekend: asking random people on the Jersey Shore about Jeffrey Epstein.
The journey began improbably, when it turned out the very first guy we encountered had literally been on a boat tour of Epstein’s island. And it ended with a big barrel of laughs, as another guy, Bob, proved to be one of most naturally funny people I have ever come across. He had me seriously cracking up. Along the way, other interviewees also provided some interesting commentaries. Just another day at the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ.
Why do I do this sort of thing? Not merely in search of cheap viral moments with a news peg, although I do personally think Bob deserves to go viral and then perhaps take over “The Late Show” on CBS. I would also argue there is genuine journalistic value in making a point to semi-regularly ask “normal people” what they think about major news events. Not only to gauge their opinion, but to sense how they’re processing information, and from what sources. One young woman told us she’d only heard about the Epstein controversy from a single video on TikTok, and therefore didn’t have a whole lot to add. Others admitted with admirable candor that they hadn’t formed any strong views one way or another, because while they might be vaguely aware of the controversy, they had not consumed enough information to comment intelligently.
And then there were others who volunteered their preexisting knowledge of “Pizzagate.”
I know there’s a whole genre of “content creation” where man-on-the-street interviews are used for lame stunts or ridiculous gossip. However, on principle, I think it can be a worthwhile endeavor. Here’s another such video I did recently, asking Staten Island residents on the Fourth of July about Trump bombing Iran. The answers were diametrically opposite to what we’d been told were the prevailing views within the “MAGA Base” — by which pundits generally mean a handful of outlier social media personalities and podcasters who are not meaningfully representative of anything in particular, except the curious incentives of contemporary media.
I’m still thinking through to what extent the popular storyline of Epstein-infuriated MAGAs being in rebellion against Trump actually has any long-term political ramifications, or if that narrative is just another invention of lazy media pontificators (both traditional and “alternative”) who love nothing more than to report on alleged “rifts” bedeviling MAGA. The jury’s still out, but I lean toward the supposed MAGA dissension being greatly exaggerated — a function of chronic over-reliance on algorithmically-curated social media feeds to extrapolate larger political trends. Are some Trump supporters angry and disenchanted — particularly those with outsized visibility online? Sure. Are they meaningfully representative of the wider GOP electorate? I have my doubts.
Although, I will acknowledge that Epstein resonates differently than other issues, like Iran or even immigration, because it impinges on what’s come to be a core tenet of online Right-Wing dogma: that society is perpetually governed by the omnipresence of Satanic child sex-trafficking rings, and their sadistic coverup. Trump was supposed to vanquish the Deep State and expose the pedophiles, but now he appears to be colluding with them, and may even be implicated himself. And it’s not as if he just politely informed the public that sorry, there is no master Epstein “file” after all — he’s repeatedly called the whole thing a “hoax,” and launched bizarre screeds against his own supporters. So, I could see this having some deeper long-term political impact that’s a bit difficult to quantify right now, although I still lean toward it having not nearly as much impact as many have over-eagerly suggested in the past several weeks.
Either way, it’s still interesting and amusing to ask normal people IRL about Epstein.
Here’s the new video on YouTube, if you prefer.
Videography and editing credit to Meagan O’Rourke.
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Author: Michael Tracey
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