At moments of massive social breakdown, when we are in the process of discovering to our horror that something evil has been going on in our society that much of the elite class was in on and that regular people were not told about—and this is surely such a moment—it’s a first and natural reflex among the people who are paid to ponder these things to ask where "we" went wrong. How can "we" have allowed this? And more importantly, how, knowing what we know today, can "we" be anything less than zealous in our pursuit of the whole truth?

Well, I say, excuse me, but who is this "we"? I’m not part of that "we." You’re not part of that "we." That "we" is a very specific "they": It’s elites who believe they live in some atmospheric level beneath which the law and morality evaporate. With respect to Jeffrey Epstein, this elite, so perfectly dubbed "the Epstein class" by Senator Jon Ossoff, included representatives of both political parties: You had Bill Clinton and Larry Summers along with Donald Trump and Howard Lutnick. We don’t know exactly what these men did and did not do, and we need to be careful about such speculation, even with respect to Trump. But at bottom, they and many others consorted with someone they had to know was evil.

Now, finally, we are in the phase where we’re searching for answers. But again, with that last sentence, the "we" problem arises again. What "we" is searching for answers? That "we" includes me; and, I presume, you; and most of the media; and a sizable majority of the American people; and it includes Ro Khanna and a number of congressional Democrats and one admirable congressional Republican, Thomas Massie.

But by and large, it does not include the people who lead the Republican Party. It does include—credit where it’s due—many rank-and-file conservatives, who kept this issue bubbling on right-wing podcasts and in chat rooms. But it doesn’t include their leaders. In fact, their leaders—following their infallible Dear Leader—are actively blocking the search for answers. So, no—"we" haven’t lost our sense of shame. Trump and Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and James Comer and dozens of other Republicans who have the power to dig for answers have lost theirs.

Trump, obviously, wants the issue to go away so badly that he now may even start a war to distract us from anything Epstein-related. Bondi, the most cowardly and corrupt attorney general in modern history (yes, worse than John Mitchell!), presumably knows the truth and obviously doesn’t want it out. Ditto Patel.

And as for Comer, neither he nor any other Republican member of the House Oversight Committee bothered to show up for former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner’s closed-door testimony this week. Comer topped that by telling Sean Hannity Thursday night: "What we have seen from the millions of documents that have been released is that Donald Trump is completely exonerated in the whole Epstein saga." And although nearly all GOP House members voted for that Epstein transparency act, no Republican in either the House or the Senate besides Massie has shown the slightest interest in unearthing the facts.

So that’s the "we" here who have no sense of shame. Not us. It’s just Republicans, who obviously either are terrified that there’s something appalling in those files about their president or know it already.

I remember when Republicans used to lecture us all the time about the disappearance of shame in our culture. Newt Gingrich did it, while he was cheating on his second wife. Reagan education secretary and national scold Bill Bennett did it constantly, pumping out bestselling books about how liberalism had destroyed shame through its pernicious celebration of individual difference. Then we learned that the quality of shame completely eluded him every time he walked through the doors of a gambling casino, and that kind of finished him off as an arbiter of social morality.

Today? They’re the ones with no shame. Many have observed, in the wake of the amazing arrest in the U.K. of the sybarite formerly known as Prince (Andrew), that accountability seems to exist everywhere except the United States. Some observers also point to the sentencing this week in South Korea of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose demise Americans would do well to pay attention to.

On December 3, 2024, accusing the opposition party of engaging in "anti-state activities," Yoon declared martial law. He suspended political activities, including convenings of the national and local legislatures, and he placed restrictions on the press. Fortunately for South Korea, it was all over within days: Yoon was impeached on December 14, arrested the next January 15, and on Thursday he was sentenced to life in prison.

How did South Korea manage to deliver justice so swiftly? Because a number of members of his own party opposed him. On the night Yoon declared martial law, the leader of the National Assembly called an emergency session; a quorum quickly gathered, and the assembly voted to condemn Yoon’s declaration. The vote of 190 members that night was unanimous, and it included 18 members of Yoon’s own party.

Once upon a sweet old time, it was utterly impossible to imagine such a political crisis in the United States. Today? Alas, the only part of the South Korea story that’s hard to imagine in the United States is 18 members of Trump’s Republican Party opposing him.

That’s the "we" that those of us who love this country—in the only meaningful sense, of wanting it to live up to its potential and its highest ideals, including holding everyone equal before the law—need to be wary of. They will always put Trump before country. And certainly before the girls, now women, so viciously violated by Epstein and whatever members of his "class." Shameful indeed.

To complement The New Republic’s March 2026 issue, "What Should the Democrats Do?" our writers examine how the Democrats can reestablish themselves as the party of and for the people, hone their messaging, and push the electorate to be more progressive.

Last week’s quiz: Hail to the Thief: On some of the lesser presidents in honor of President’s Day

1. Who is the only president to have been kicked out of his own party while he was in office?

A. Martin Van Buren

B. John Tyler

C. Chester Arthur

D. William Howard Taft

Answer: A, Van Buren. He was William Henry Harrison’s running mate on the Whig ticket in 1840 but was never really a Whig. The party passed a banking bill; he vetoed it. Then it went back and passed a banking bill addressing his objections; he vetoed that! They gave him the boot.

2. Which president delivered the longest-ever inaugural address?

A. James Monroe

B. Andrew Jackson

C. William Henry Harrison

D. Franklin Pierce

Answer: C, Harrison. It was 8,445 words long and took him 105 minutes to read. It wasn’t that cold (49 degrees), but he famously wore no topcoat, caught pneumonia, and died. 

3. Lincoln was the first bearded president. Andrew Johnson, who took over when Lincoln was shot, was clean-shaven. After him, how many presidents in a row sported some sort of facial hair?

A. Four

B. Five

C. Six

D. Seven

Answer: C, six. Then came the clean-shaven McKinley, then two sporting mustaches (T.R. and Taft), and nary a whisker since. See for yourself.

4. Which president suffered from esotropia—that is, he was slightly cross-eyed? You can sort of tell if you look hard at the most ubiquitous photo of him. 

A. James Buchanan

B. Andrew Johnson

C. James Garfield

D. Benjamin Harrison

Answer: A, Buchanan. This is the picture I mean. 

5. Warren G. Harding, in letters to his longtime mistress, used the code word "Jerry" when he was referring to what?

A. The White House butler who arranged and covered for their assignations

B. His wife’s lover, a prominent senator

C. His chief bagman in the Teapot Dome Scandal

D. His penis

Answer: D, his thingy. Carrie Fulton Phillips was paid $5,000 a month by the Republican National Committee to keep it zipped. Her mouth, that is. 

6. Which of the below was an eccentric trait of Calvin Coolidge’s?

A. He kept a menagerie of exotic pets in the White House.

B. He slept 11 hours a day.

C. He kept a mechanical horse in the White House, which he rode for exercise.

D. He enjoyed hitting the Secret Service call button on his desk and then hiding under it and watching the agents panic.

Answer: It was all of them! Here’s a contemporaneous Time magazine account of D.

This week’s quiz: "Huh, I never thought about that": A quiz on the origins of certain foods and drinks

1. Wild coffee plants originated in Ethiopia. But the beverage as we more or less know it today has its roots in which nation?

A. Egypt

B. Lebanon

C. Somalia

D. Yemen

2. The fruit of the cacao tree, once used as currency and medicine, and for some 5,000 years the basis of chocolate, originated in which country?

A. Ghana

B. Madagascar

C. Mexico

D. Colombia

3. The original wild version of tomatoes, called "pimps," were tiny and very tart and mostly orange and yellow and grew where?

A. Italy

B. Portugal

C. Modern-day California

D. Peru

4. Today, China accounts for more than 70 percent of world garlic cultivation, but garlic was first discovered and cultivated in this region.

A. Anatolia (Turkey)

B. North Africa

C. The Caucasus (the modern-day –stans)

D. The Tyrol (western Austria and northern Italy)

5. Match the berry to its region of origin.

6. Broccoli, artichokes, fennel, and beets all originate from this bounteous European country.

A. Italy

B. Greece

C. Spain

D. Ukraine

Never given these a moment’s thought, have you? Something a few years ago made me wonder about the origins of the tomato, so I looked that up, and that was interesting, so I dug into a few other things besides. I find this stuff fascinating. How many generations did it take to figure out that the thing to do with coffee beans was to dry them, roast them, grind them, and mix them with hot water? I don’t know, but I know it only took one to figure out how to mix it with caramel and charge $6.50 for it. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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