On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump bought full-page advertisements in four major New York newspapers. The message read: “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY.” Amid the public hysteria surrounding the Central Park Five, Trump called for the scaffold for the teenagers who were under suspicion. The youths were accused of a brutal assault, but were later proven innocent. Trump has never apologized for that witch hunt or for the false accusations.

The death penalty for those at the bottom of society. Different rules apply to those at the top. In the more than three million documents recently released in the Epstein case, Donald Trump’s name appears more often than Harry Potter’s name in all seven Harry Potter books combined. We are talking about tens of thousands of references. Jeffrey Epstein himself wrote in an email that he had met “very bad people,” but “no one as bad as Trump.” Let that sink in for a moment.

There has been no raid by ICE forces on the villas in the Virgin Islands or on Trump’s golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, despite testimonies of human trafficking and abuse at those locations. No security forces are sent to Mar-a-Lago. Security forces are sent to working-class neighborhoods.

On the day Renée Good was murdered in Minneapolis, ICE published a press release stating: “ICE Arrests Worst of Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Pedophiles, Violent Assailants, and Human Traffickers.” That is the language: our forces are not deporting people; they are removing pedophiles and monsters.

For the sake of clarity: ICE’s own internal figures undermine this official rhetoric. Fewer than 10% of deported migrants have a serious criminal prosecution on their record. For the vast majority, no offense whatsoever has been established (not even a traffic violation). The political debate is not conducted with facts, but with carefully constructed myths about “criminal aliens”; myths that are necessary to justify a domestic war front.

Far-right hate sites, whipped up and amplified through the networks of Musk and others, speak of “illegal pedophile criminals”. That outrage disappears the moment abuse of power at the top comes into view. When the Epstein files come up (a tangled web of wealth, status, and political connections) supporters of “America First” suddenly fall silent. Justice then suddenly becomes “complex”. And now that millions of pages from the file have been released, attempts are being made to create the impression that there is “nothing new” to report.

As soon as the spotlight is turned upward, the hysteria dissipates. It reveals the true nature of all those right-wing knights: they want harsh repression for those at the bottom of the ladder, while those at the top are allowed to move in a world that is virtually free of punishment.

In the thousands of Epstein documents, one can read how the upper class interacts strikingly casually with a convicted sex offender: emails about “wild parties”, jovial “jokes” about underage girls, intensive contacts that continued even after convictions, and a network in which influence and money serve as grease.

Trump’s inner circle also appears in this correspondence. In November 2012, Elon Musk emailed Epstein asking when the “wildest party” would take place. Howard Lutnick, the current Secretary of Commerce, claimed in 2005 to have severed all ties, yet still visited Epstein’s island in 2012. Steve Bannon, guru and ideologue of international far-right extremism, exchanged hundreds of messages. They discussed politics and real estate. Epstein made houses and airplanes available. They joked that Epstein was “the most expensive travel agent ever,” adding: “massages not included”.

Has the term “crime cartel” ever appeared in bold on a front page to describe these networks? No. That label is reserved for gangs at the bottom of society. The upper classes “network”, “party”, and “get massages”. And they get away with it. In 2007, an indictment was ready that described in detail how Epstein abused dozens of minors. The material was there to lock him up for years. In the end, a “deal” was struck. The most serious charges were dropped, and Epstein served only thirteen months in prison. After his release, the abuse continued.

That is why the Trumpian fixation on repression feels so cynical. In those circles, it is not about “protecting children” or “fighting crime”; it is about installing a permanent state of racism. That racism has an economic function: it makes more brutal exploitation possible. At the same time, power organizes itself in the shadows. In the salons where legal cases are quietly diluted and where billionaires protect one another, a culture of impunity reigns.

At the end of May, Peter Mertens’ new book, “Monsters and Vassals: Europe in Trumpian Times”, will be published. This text is a short excerpt from the book.

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