The sexual abuse of women and girls at the hands of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his elite ring of predatory billionaires is one of the most egregious examples of repeated violence and coercion against women ever. Trump ran on a promise to release the full Epstein files and expose the perpetrators, a promise he backtracked on. Now, Donald “Grab ‘em by the pussy” Trump’s record on sexual assault and women’s rights may finally be catching up with him. 

The overwhelming pressure from millions of people demanding that the Epstein files be released—including the majority of Trump’s Republican base—recently forced Trump to completely reverse his position and call for Republican lawmakers to vote to release the files. Only one congressperson out of 428 voted against the bill requiring the Justice Department to release all files related to the Epstein investigation. However, Trump’s administration will certainly attempt to use loopholes to heavily redact the files, especially given how Trump appears to be implicated in Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation that claimed more than 1,000 victims. 

But Trump has been badly damaged by the Epstein scandal, and it’s not over yet. Millions are rightfully angered and disgusted by the abuse and misogyny perpetrated by Epstein and his associates in the billionaire class and among society’s elite. However, the release of the Epstein files will not automatically take down Trump, even if it does damage his support further. We need more than the release of the full files. We need a new feminist movement, using working-class methods of struggle—like a political strike of workers of all genders—to fight for an end to the impunity that many elite abusers continue to enjoy, but also build a broader fight against the new reassertion of sexism and patriarchy by the ruling class.

The Far Right Is No Home for Survivors

It’s not surprising that Trump has been trying all year to weasel out of releasing the full Epstein files, given that this is a regime steeped in misogyny, starting at the very top. His first pick for Attorney General was Matt Gaetz, so credibly accused of sex trafficking teens that he was forced to back down. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also has a history of multiple sexual misconduct allegations, including one of the rape of a woman to whom he paid an undisclosed settlement. And of course, Trump himself has multiple sexual assault allegations against him and appears to be clearly implicated in Epstein’s trafficking operation. In September, Trump also minimized domestic violence, complaining that, “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime.” His administration has taken an axe to the federal programs that fund shelters for women fleeing domestic violence and legal support for survivors.

Trump took a huge loss when he was forced to grudgingly support a vote in Congress for the release of the Epstein files, after he unsuccessfully attempted to bully Republican congresswomen Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene into taking their names off of a petition calling for the vote. Instead, Greene defiantly took on Trump’s criticism of her and spoke out in support of survivors of Epstein’s abuse, several of whom courageously appeared at a press conference. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a peculiar creation of the current political moment. She is as anti-abortion, anti-trans, and anti-immigrant as any of the MAGA leaders, but she has positioned herself as a key fighter in Congress for survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking. Even though Greene is a part of a political movement that is anti-feminist, her willingness to defy Trump so directly draws in part from the generalized anger against rich and powerful abusers of women and girls that the #MeToo movement galvanized. 

Abruptly, Greene announced that she will be resigning from Congress in January, without clearly explaining why she was making this move. Perhaps she’s being pressured to step aside by Trump, who is undoubtedly enraged that Greene is now arguing that the Trump administration has become the corrupt political establishment that it purports to fight against. But Greene is a multi-millionaire politician who has been one of the key MAGA enforcers of bigoted scapegoating of vulnerable groups within the broader working class. It’s completely disingenuous and dangerous for her to be seen as somehow anti-establishment. There’s no room for what must fundamentally be a feminist campaign to effectively fight sexual abuse to develop inside of MAGA, a movement that consciously harkens back to a time when patriarchy in homes, workplaces, and in society in general was accepted.

Cracks In MAGA

Fracture in the MAGA coalition is coming at a bad time for the Republicans. Just weeks ago, Election Day was dominated by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the mayoral race in New York City on a massive wave of enthusiasm for his left platform, as well as high-profile victories for the Democratic Party in New Jersey, Virginia, and California. Trump is showing serious weakness as the next year’s midterms approach, and the Epstein scandal is far from over. Trump’s approval numbers have fallen to their lowest point in this term so far, and his handling of the Epstein files is helping to weigh those numbers down. 70% of Americans, including 60% of Republicans, think that the government is hiding Epstein’s client list.

It is clear that Trump and his regime definitely do not want the full Epstein papers released. Recently released emails and the infamous birthday card show that Trump must have known about Epstein’s abuse of girls, and yet Trump maintained a long-term friendship with Epstein. Potentially, the full Epstein papers implicate Trump himself in the sexual abuse or assault of girls and women, facilitated by Epstein. This could have an explosive impact on society. If mass protests erupted, Trump’s hold on power could even be threatened.

Other elite men are very likely implicated in the full Epstein files. Trump has directed his regime to investigate Bill Clinton, who has his own history of multiple sexual assault allegations being made against him. Epstein was extraordinarily well-connected in elite circles. Right-wing figures including Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and Peter Thiel appear in the most recent release of Epstein papers from Congress. The scandal that would erupt from more rich and powerful men, some number of whom undoubtedly have connections with Trump and the Republican Party, being named as pedophiles is not a spectacle the Trump regime needs right now.

Another possibility is that the files reveal more of Epstein’s long association with elements of the highest levels of the Israeli state in a way that is damaging to the Trump regime. Recent reporting based on the documents released by the US government, as well as hacked emails from former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s email inbox, show that Epstein and Barak had a very close relationship and were involved in facilitating multi-million dollar deals for the Israeli cyber weapons industry.

The Fight Against Misogyny

Many millions of Americans deeply oppose Trump’s hateful and divisive right-wing politics and his morally bankrupt and corrupt regime. Another big section of the population supported Trump in 2024 because they bought into his right populism and thought, or at least hoped, that he would represent their interests as a so-called political “outsider.” The Epstein scandal shines a harsh light on Trump and the people around him. His regime is just as hypocritical, self-serving, and protective of the billionaire status quo as the presidential administrations that preceded it. 

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, both of whom contributed to the cover-up of the Epstein case, can lead an effective fight against misogyny. This is because gender-based oppression is a tool used by the capitalist class they represent to divide the working class and structure society to maximize their profits. The most grotesque expressions are a natural outgrowth of their deeply unequal system and can’t be explained by the individual morals of Jeffrey Epstein alone. We need an independent left political force to fight against all oppression on a working-class basis.

Only a mass movement can bring down the sexist regime of Trump and his billionaire cronies. It was mass movements from below that won the feminist reforms that have been transformative for women—from the right to vote and the right to an abortion to the right to open a bank account without a husband’s signature. The progress that has been made toward uncovering the Epstein files so far is entirely due to the mass anger at abusive elite men, which #MeToo played a major role in stoking. The anti-Trump movement needs to go beyond demanding the release of the files, by waging battles against misogyny and oppression in both the streets and workplaces. This means fighting for the things working women need, like universal healthcare including free and accessible abortions, and against all gender-based discrimination.

Under capitalism, reforms of a fundamentally oppressive system are always in danger of being lost, as we saw with the rollback of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Furthermore, it’s only under a system that relies on the oppression of women that a group of wealthy pedophiles could commit such heinous acts. Ultimately, to bring an end to sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and gender violence, a transformation of society along socialist lines is necessary. In a revolutionary socialist system, all of the old prejudices and assumptions would be cast aside, and a new society, with radical freedom from all oppression, would be nurtured from the ground up.