Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Oh, the tragedy. The heartbreak. The utter devastation sweeping across the Fox News set. You almost need to send in FEMA relief teams to mop up all the crocodile tears over the Democrats refusing to “move on” from the Epstein files. Because nothing—and I mean nothing—makes the Benghazi-Hunter’s-Laptop crowd more distraught than when actual victims of actual crimes speak up and refuse to be neatly shelved away like a stack of old campaign yard signs. The poor darlings are simply beside themselves.

After all, Republicans spent years screaming about Hillary’s emails, running endless primetime specials with ominous sound effects and blurry graphics of servers, servers everywhere. Hunter Biden’s laptop? Forget about it. That was their Super Bowl. They could talk about that imaginary laptop like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls, handed down by God Himself and containing every secret of civilization. But now, when actual evidence of crimes—real crimes, involving rich and powerful men abusing minors—threatens to come into daylight? Suddenly, Fox & Friends would prefer if everyone stopped talking and just turned the channel back to immigration panic.

And let’s not forget the star of this soap opera: Donald J. Trump, the man who once promised, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-grift, that he’d release the Epstein files. Remember that? He was going to shine the cleansing sunlight of truth on the whole sordid affair. But fast-forward to today, and now he’s threatening to prosecute anyone who dares even whisper about opening those files. Because, of course, it’s not about justice or transparency; it’s about protecting the club. You know the club—the Mar-a-Lago cocktail crowd where loyalty is worth more than morality, and “family values” are whatever helps in the polls that week.

Fox commentators are in mourning. You can see it in their faces, hear it in their voices, those brave soldiers who wanted the whole country to obsess over every stray text message from Hunter Biden but now beg us to respect the “privacy” of the Epstein mess. “Why can’t we just move on?” they wail, clutching their pearls so hard you’d think the string would snap. How dare the victims—yes, the actual human beings who were minors when these crimes occurred—make themselves heard? Don’t they know they’re interrupting the regularly scheduled programming about caravans and pronouns?

It’s almost poetic how this crowd manages to contort itself into Olympic-level hypocrisy. When the accused are Democrats, you get 24/7 coverage, complete with countdown clocks and scary red graphics. When the accused might include Republican donors, socialites, or even he-who-must-not-be-subpoenaed himself, suddenly it’s all “witch hunt,” “political theater,” and “weaponization.” They’ve gone from “lock her up” to “please, for the love of Tucker, lock those files back in the safe.”

And the cherry on top? Trump’s threats. The man who once styled himself as the Great Exposer of Secrets now growls that anyone supporting the release of Epstein’s files could face charges in whatever alternate-universe statute he dreams up between golf rounds. Maybe it’ll be “conspiracy to embarrass my friends.” Maybe “felony lack of loyalty.” Or my personal favorite: “first-degree exposure of inconvenient truths.” Whatever it is, you can be sure it’ll sound very serious on Truth Social, especially when written in ALL CAPS.

So yes, pour one out for the Benghazi-Hunter Laptop faithful. Their favorite weapon—moral outrage—is being turned against them, and it hurts. The victims won’t stay quiet, the files might see daylight, and their chosen king is now threatening anyone who dares to call his bluff. If irony were a renewable energy source, Fox News headquarters would be glowing brighter than Times Square.