By underreported, I don't mean "nobody mentions it when it happens" in the sense of news reporting. What I mean is, there is no really deep reporting on what i

By underreported, I don't mean "nobody mentions it when it happens" in the sense of news reporting. What I mean is, there is no really deep reporting on what it means in terms of long-form journalism. And I mean this internationally and apolitically. There is very little serious discussion about what scientific, technological and economic illiteracy means when it is found in positions of power, and why it is that the new orthodoxy is simply to resist correction. We have these discussions (belatedly) about judges and lawyers, especially in the light of the Post Office scandal in the UK (and in relation to the Lucy Letby trial, where there appears to have been a simple, astonishing agreement between the prosecution and the defence to not use statistics). But we do not talk enough about how leaders on all sides are content to keep pushing the same uncorrected points, again and again, and it's not disqualifying. Politicians can simply choose not to "recognise" the correction, to use the parliamentary term, and that is sort of where it stops. I do think the Epstein story is interesting because it is one of those things where perhaps the base understands that someone in office has lied to them, regardless, because the story directly contradicts itself now. But I think it's survivable. If he doesn't complete this term it won't be the reason given, at any rate; his very obvious cognitive and physical decline will be.