Activism / This Week

Summer of Epstein

Sami Sage.

In the Summer of 1977, I was a young illustrator, living in the East Village in NY. I would get around town a great deal and wherever I went, working, dating, going to films, dinner, it’s all you heard people talking about: the crazy guy who was shooting people parked in their cars. Strangers in coffee shops would see the Daily News on a table and talk. Jimmy Breslin. There was also an awful blackout. And the Yankees were on their way to the World Series, with TV coverage of the games showing shots of the Bronx burning in the night. It all felt like one single humid, hot, static, lousy thing. But a thing that we all shared. In 1999 Spike Lee made film called, the Summer of Sam.

This is the week this became, for me, the Summer of Epstein. The Congress shut down, the Supreme Court is, though officially in recess, in a faster rate of self- cancellation than the Congress. Likewise the media. The United States is under attack in every conceivable way. They are building concentration camps. We are funding a genocide in Gaza. We are left with a damaged and deranged Trump, making a new spectacular tabloid headline every hour, each more absurd than the last, while the economy sinks, the Earth burns, and AI prepares to destroy whatever Trump doesn’t. Enter the “Epstein.” This dead monster suddenly reaches back through the years to pay Trump back in full. And Trump, for once, can’t dodge the bullets. Like with the Son of Sam. 

And we sit and talk, in the heat. Until, perhaps, the weather breaks.

Also, under the Friday image please add the support link for this young man.

Fund for Turcios

Steve Brodner

Steve Brodner is an award-winning graphic artist/journalist and the winner of the 2024 Herb Block Prize for editorial cartooning.

More from The Nation

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) addresses a rally against the Republican spending bill in May.

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan for a Revived Democratic Party Elizabeth Warren’s Plan for a Revived Democratic Party

The Massachusetts senator argues that, in order to prevail in the midterms, the party needs to recover its populist roots—and fighting spirit.

Elizabeth Warren

Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on January 8, 2026.

Renee Good’s Killing Has Unleashed MAGA’s Misogyny Renee Good’s Killing Has Unleashed MAGA’s Misogyny

To defend the indefensible, the right is going after white women as race traitors.

Jeet Heer

Lights Out

Lights Out Lights Out

Oil mine.

OppArt / Ann Telnaes

Despite Themselves, Democrats Look Well Positioned for the Midterms

Despite Themselves, Democrats Look Well Positioned for the Midterms Despite Themselves, Democrats Look Well Positioned for the Midterms

An otherwise inert opposition party may well clean up on Donald Trump's destructive and hubristic governing record.

David Faris

Abolish ICE or GTFO

Abolish ICE or GTFO Abolish ICE or GTFO

In this week’s Elie v. U.S., our justice correspondent makes the case to get rid of ICE, explores George Conway’s congressional campaign—and shares his New Year’s resolution.

Elie Mystal

Renee Lives!

Renee Lives! Renee Lives!

“I never died,” says she.

Steve Brodner