Siobhán Brett

The mass release of the Epstein files has produced embarrassment, outrage and online blood sport. What it hasn’t produced is clarity.

From Trump’s muddled geography in Davos to a $1bn “Board of Peace” and ICE raids in Vacationland, another week of slippery language, hard power and harder truths.

One operation looked like a clean win on screen. The other turned into a bleak cycle of footage, outrage and denial. Together, they say a lot about America’s relationship with force.

Even as protests grow and allies defect, Donald Trump remains surrounded by loyalty, kitsch and ritual displays of power. Watching from Florida — and thinking of Ireland — it’s hard not to wonder whether MAGA is a movement on the march, or one circling its own excesses.

We know all too well, now, that Trump loves winning. He doesn’t feel the same way about losing, though, and he’s ending 2025 on a losing streak.

As Tennessee voters inch leftward and Trump lashes out at immigrants, allies and adversaries alike, Washington is consumed by economic alarm, foreign-policy fog and a restless MAGA base.

From a hand-painted sign on a quiet Maine island to rumblings inside the Republican Party, the call to “release the files” has morphed into an unexpectedly potent rallying cry — one that’s starting to show just how strained Trump’s second term already feels.

The elections that weren’t meant to matter suddenly did. From New York to Maine, voters turned routine ballots into a referendum on fatigue, frustration, and what democracy feels like when you can’t quite name what you’re voting for.

The president’s fixation on “winning” abroad is in sharp contrast with a party that can’t stop arguing about what it stands for at home.

The jeering and jingoism on display at Bethpage were no anomaly — they echoed a political culture shaped by a president who thrives on spectacle, insults, and division.