Jonathan Neale

This is the first of several articles that put the protests in Minneapolis in the context of swiftly moving changes and ruptures in the global system. This article argues that the conflict over the Epstein files is the largest single confrontation so far in a long global struggle against sexual violence by the powerful. It is also a direct threat to Donald Trump personally.

By early January Trump was cornered. He embarked upon a manic Killer Klown tour that has visited grief on Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and several American cities. One reason was to distract attention from the Epstein files. The other was to display enough power and kill enough people to terrify both the Epstein survivors and their supporters.

The next article will argue that the resistance in Minnesota is the continuation of a mass confrontations between the people and the police on the streets of more than thirty countries since 2010. In Article 3 I look at the global international alliance of extreme racist movements led by Trump, Putin, Modi, Netanyahu and many more. Article 4 is about tariffs, Greenland, NATO, Ukraine and the crumbling of American imperial power.

But this article is all about the Epstein files. Here I will break two long established rules of method in the study of international relations. The first is that international politics should only be explained by international relations. “Domestic issues” are not fundamentally important in great power conflicts.

The second silly rule of method is that sexual violence is wrong, but it is not important. Or rather, of course sexual violence is important. But it is not important in the way that oil, profits, the arms trade or global financial markets are important.

In this way of thinking, paying attention to struggles over the sexual abuse of young people is not only harrowing. It’s icky. It’s about scandal. Fundamentally, there is a hierarchy of seriousness, and rape is dreadful, but it is not serious.

Now let’s transgress those two silly rules.

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