Why do we let people like this have any power or authority? Why do we allow them to exert any influence over our public life or over the direction of our politics or the coordination of our economy? Why do we reward them with hundreds of millions of dollars and penthouse suites and airplanes and the media attention they obviously crave? Is any living American actually okay with the fact two of our last four presidents were allegedly good pals with the guy whose private airplane was referred to openly in the press as, wink-wink, the “Lolita Express”? To borrow a phrase from his lawyer friends: Noscitur a sociis.

Surveying the decadence of the Trump-Epstein-Boies cabal leaves me with a lot of feelings. One is that we have by far the least glamorous ruling class in the history of the world. Say what you want about the Ancien Régime, but at least they gave us Versailles and Boucher and opéra comique. The Manchu court in its twilight years under the Empress Dowager was vicious and cruel, but it was also fascinating. Even goings-on in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin were amusing enough to be turned into a good movie. There is nothing even remotely interesting about our own class of lawyered-up jet-setting internationalist crooks.