Letter to the Editor: How predators take advantage
Published 12:00 pm Thursday, June 11, 2026
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” grab ‘em by the [you know what].” – Trump (newlywed to Melania), recorded on Access Hollywood.
I just finished reading Joyce Carol Oates’ allegorical novel “Fox.” Oates is an award winning prolific novelist who writes an alternating riveting and repulsive (warning), cerebral, psychological whodunit. The book’s plot will remind you of Trump’s and Epstein’s predator behaviors towards girls and young women. I recommend reading this masterpiece.
Mr. Fox is a newly-hired middle school English teacher at a prestigious private school in a small town in New Jersey. The character Fox is a magnetic, perceptive intellectual who is also mysterious. He quickly charms and impresses the school’s head mistress, colleagues and yes, sadly the female students at the school. Oates slowly and methodically reveals the monster in Fox and how Fox expertly exploits girls; charms authority figures and how he manipulates institutions and belief systems with impunity. Does this sound familiar at all? Which public figures have been credibly accused of exploiting young girls and women (see witness number 4 in the Epstein FBI 302 Files)?
One of Oates’ themes argues that people are often less persuaded by truth than by performance, belonging, and emotional need (e.g. MAGA cult).
Fox shines a light on how a predator’s hypnotizing and charming ways; and how predators are able to take advantage of people by using their presumed carte blanche status (“…they let you do it…”). Charismatic and wealthy predators are experts at evading exposure. Moreover, there exist elite protection networks (e.g. Frump’s DOJ) doing disagreeable things for disagreeable people; there are ambiguities surrounding evidence, institutional complicity, contributory negligence and capitulation (e.g. current FBI, U.S. Attorney General Alex Acosta and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland); cult attraction, enabling, celebrity impunity, wealth, prestige and delayed accountability are forces in the cultural and rigged legal ecosystems that allow predators and frauds like Frump and Epstein and others to get away with their conman predatory felonious behaviors. Is this the American way?
It is demoralizing. It is infuriating. It is mind-boggling. The glorification of and the fawning over frauds and amoral vile men who are credibly associated with sexual exploitation leaves me feeling alienated from the values we claim to uphold. Wealth, celebrity, and political power shield figures like Frump and Jeffrey Epstein from meaningful accountability. It sends a chilling corrosive message: that influence matters more than decency, truth, or the protection of vulnerable people. Oblivious, racist and gullible people, many are members of a cult, voted for Frump three times and elected him twice. Normalizing and excusing Frump’s and Epstein’s abominable conduct risks America losing not only its moral compass but also mocks the public’s faith that justice applies equally to all.
Stanley McKie
Enumclaw
