this is our Mueller report

And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in

Who is we exactly

I can appreciate this sentiment and think that basing one's politics entirely on conspiracy is ill-advised. You're right that the essence of conspiracy is lone-wolf investigation to uncover truths that can never be 100% proven. They are dives into the underworld by isolated loners who don't get anywhere in the end (from Warren Beatty in the Parallax View to Rust Cohle in True Detective). But, I think there is a place for conspiracy thinking sometimes and don't find it entirely pathological, particularly when you can appeal to non lefties about a power elite that does in fact collude. What better way to describe the ostensibly different political parties as the same arm of the capitalist ruling class? I would also ask: is this topic really taking up "all the oxygen on the left"? The drib-and-drab release of the files is still recent. The most absurdly damning stuff only came out this past Friday, so of course people are going to be distracted by it from all over the political map. Yes, it's 90% of my Twitter feed right now, but not forever. I wouldn't say a weekend or a couple weeks of Epstein-brain is taking up all the oxygen on the left. Do you remember the first wave of Epstein-brain in 2019, when he died in the MCC? That captured everyone's attention, but people were able to come back from the brink okay. I recall Cushbomb losing it pretty hard, going on Mike Recine's podcast and Grubstakers podcast to talk Epstein, and then losing it at a Getty image of a freakish mask hanging on a wall.

I have a cynical and pessimistic view of people's future in the US.

Revolution isn't going to manifest from a disillusionment from both major political parties, ICE crackdowns, or the facade of liberal democracy unraveling before our eyes. In Chris Hedges' book from 2012, Wages of Rebellion, he states a belief that the ruling ideology of neoliberalism is discredited but there is no ideology or course of action to take its place, calling this period an interregnum. A period between ideologies.

As long as cheap goods and easy credit exist for Americans to draw their sustenance from, even as they face increasing financial distress, the status quo will remain the same but with a degrading and tenuous political legitimacy and subsequent increase in stochastic terrorism and mass violence. Stable, but "enshittified".

There are mechanisms in the US Constitution and legal system to hold the power elites connected with Epstein accountable, but the rule of law has long been a farce. This was clearly illustrated when the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the Biden admin for complicity in the Gaza genocide when the courts acknowledged the possibility of genocide by Israel & US complicity but denied their own ability to check the power of the US executive in regards to foreign policy. The law favored the CCR but the courts favored power.

Strikes, work stoppages, blocking ports of air and sea, and protests are the only mechanisms available and the government seems content and willing to just let it come to an exchange of violence - and the state is better at violence in toleration and execution than the masses of ordinary people.

I agree with your tl'dr but I don't hold out hope for Americans as a revolutionary body or persons in mass distress to be disillusioned from the Democrats enough to engage in mass movement to compel the reformation of a 21st century New Deal.

Is there anywhere where you can get just the concrete stuff that is definitely in the files, without having to filter through speculation and implication?

spot on.

(Refusing to read the 80+ comments before giving my hot take like a gigachad)

I think we should know enough for the sake of radicalizing others. How much we should know depends on how the people we interact with in our daily lives are invested in the liberal status quo. For me, it's enough to say that Epstein was a human trafficking pedo who leveraged his ability to procure victims in order to seep his way into the inner circles of rich powerful people who are also pedos. "It's a big pedo club, and you ain't in it!" However, I also know that the vast majority of people in my life are not that invested in the liberal status quo even if they lack revolutionary consciousness and aren't socially progressive. Most people who I rub shoulders with are in the "voting is a waste of time" camp, so convincing them that some dude is a rich pedo isn't particularly hard because they have no real reason to believe in the contrary.

I think conspiracy theories can be weaponized. Fascists do it all the time with the conspiracy theory-to-Jews control the world pipeline. "The CIA is behind so many conspiracies and they have the complete blessings of transnational corporations and the billionaires who own them" is as much of a leftist pipeline as watching Hasan vods. I don't think it's wrong of me to introduce the "Princess Diana was assassinated because she was about to out Jimmy Savile for being a necrophiliac pedo with connections to the Royals" conspiracy theory to someone who really likes Princess Diana.

Some of us here are like dogs chasing cars with whatever is all over social media feeds. If tomorrow it's something else, they would be here scolding us for missing out on the opportunity to radicalize based on that. It's just chasing whatever is trending online. This coincides with how content creators operate, mining social media for content. The online left is enamored with leftist content creators who spend all day coming up with takes based on social media trends. Therefore the people start to confuse the mechanics of being a career takesmith with doing analysis and the work of assessing public opinion. Normal people become inadvertent Hasan (or Brace or whoever) cosplayers, essentially. This will be the most important issue of our lives and the opportunity to radicalize everyone until the next thing happens and everyone rushes to mine takes from that. Mining takes becomes the necessary work of winning hearts and minds. To criticize the takesmiths is to criticize the idea of winning people over at all. That's why they get mad and jump directly into accusing you hindering recruitment and radicalization.

The internet has done a number on us and I think the reaction to and discourse around Epstein is more insightful into modern capitalism than the conspiracy itself.

We have a real world example of a project that is ran by alleged Maoists and is centered on Epstein, it's TrueAnon. In their endeavor to properly analyze and contextualize Epstein withing capitalism they had to spend dozens of hours covering the last 100 years of US and European history. The idea that you can shortcut all that at a party in a weed circle of mixed company is laughable. The pod has "gained support" by gaining patrons. Deciding whether or not a growing consumer market for a podcast, or media consumption habits in general, reflect public opinion is an exercise left to he reader. Then you have to reckon with the mechanics of being a career takesmith again because maybe all that context only exist to mill content. Maybe the issue, as presented by the pod, seemingly connects to so much because the hosts needed more episodes in order to maintain a media career. If you want to be a materialist about it, you can't disconnect the career objectives of our faves from the format nor the industry nor the subject. This is why you have to do more than listen to podcasts before deciding some issue is THE issue of our time. This is why academic study exists and Brace/Liz would probably be the first to tell you they are not academics.

Finally, we have a real word example of a generation-defining conspiracy with JFK. Look at people treating that conspiracy as a joke and you have Epstein's destiny. It was a conspiracy with such broad support that the government had hearings about it. The "leftists" of the time didn't really get much accomplished by dwelling on it. They instead became highly involved in the cottage industry of conspiracy media afterwards (sound familiar?) and then at some point there were more right wing JFK-heads than left-wing. You can argue that they weren't as good as we are and we just need to provide better analysis. To that I say, where have you been since 2018? If you're only now deciding it's time to do real analysis then you already lost the monopoly on it.