State of the Discussion

>At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not
>divided into good men and monster men
>Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of
>men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity
>this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.

so i'm a rapist who is just awaiting my opportunity. pre-crime has my address and has cops stationed around the corner. great.

put that on the pile of shit i need to worry about.

Part Three:

Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:

69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).

To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you).
But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts.
It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here:
“I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” - Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.

OK, by complete coincidence this landed in my inbox from someone whose substack I don't subscribe to. It says a lot of important things, most of which I agree with, so I have tried to eliminate the hundreds of links, and am going to post it in two parts hoping that’s good enough to get it through (when I tried to post the whole thing, it went into moderation - if this works, please don't rescue it):

Part One
There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?
We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.

Celeste Davis
Feb 22, 2026

Unless you’ve been enjoying life under a rock, the past few weeks have likely involved a relentless scroll of names once spoken with reverence now tied to the words “Epstein files.”

The list of people wheeling and dealing with Epstein after he went to jail for pedophilia is mind-numbing:

• alleged STD medications for Bill Gates,
• spiritual leader Deepak Chopra texting, “God is a construct. Cute girls are real,”
• respected physician Peter Attia’s name appearing 1700 times,
• pay outs to linguist Noam Chomsky,
• liaisons with British royalty, Israeli Prime Minister, Russian officials, numerous US senators and of course US Presidents.

No sector of society is safe.
Leaders from each and every one of the institutions that run our world—politics, business, tech, academia, wellness, philanthropy, entertainment, spirituality—are all over these files.
It’s gross. It’s everywhere. It’s destabilizing.
Leaving us asking… how? How could this happen? How could so many people let this happen? In plain sight? For so long?
Mainstream media is focused on four answers:
1. Wealth

• The New York Times: HOW JPMORGAN ENABLED THE CRIMES OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN
• Real News Network: JEFFREY EPSTEIN: HOW WEALTH PROTECTED AMERICA’S WORST CHILD SEX CRIMINAL
• Jacobin: CAPITALISM ENABLED JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S CRIMES

2. Elite Networks

• The New York Times: THE EPSTEIN FILES AND THE HIDDEN WORLD OF AN UNACCOUNTABLE ELITE
• Vox: THE BOYS CLUB THAT PROTECTED EPSTEIN
• PBS: EMAILS REVEAL EPSTEIN’S NETWORK OF THE RICH AND POWERFUL DESPITE SEX OFFENDER STATUS

3. Institutional Failure

• The Guardian: EPSTEIN FILES PLACE RENEWED ATTENTION ON US AUTHORITIES’ FAILURE TO STOP HIM
• China Daily: EPSTEIN CASE UGLY FACE OF INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE
• Helsinki Times: INSIDE A DEPRAVED TRANSATLANTIC ELITE AND THE INSTITUTIONS THAT PROTECTED IT

4. Blackmail

• TIME: COMMERCE SECRETARY CALLS JEFFREY EPSTEIN ‘THE GREATEST BLACKMAILER EVER’
• The New York Times: ‘GANG STUFF’ AND ‘ILLICIT TRYSTS’: HOW EPSTEIN SOUGHT LEVERAGE WITH THE WEALTHY
• BBC: BILLIONAIRE LES WEXNER TELLS US LAW MAKERS HE WAS CONNED BY EPSTEIN

A deep frustration has arisen within me around the press and discussions around the Epstein files.
The bulk of the attention is converged around figuring out who and what exactly enabled Epstein’s rampant sexual abuse—wealth, elite networks, institutional failure and blackmail.
Everyone is asking how did these men get away with so much rape?
No one is asking what would cause so many to want to rape so much in the first place?
It’s as if the Epstein files have exposed an entire field being taken over by noxious weeds—miles and miles of weeds—and then instead of digging to the root to eradicate the weeds’ seed, we are hyper-focused on what exact water and fertilizer enabled the weeds to grow so high.

We’re acting as if weeds/rapists are just a given.
Well, of course men want to rape! It’s just most men can’t rape because there are rules, but the rules don’t apply to billionaries so they get to rape. The problem isn’t the rape, it’s that billionaires can get away with rape.
I’m sorry what?
Why aren’t we talking about why so many men when given power continually choose to use that power to rape women?
WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT THAT?!
Money and corrupt elite networks of billionaires are certainly not off the hook here. Those are important conversations to have.
But while money may have enabled Epstein’s sexual abuse, it didn’t create it.
One in four women have experienced sexual abuse. Billionaires seem to do a lot of raping, but they can’t do THAT much raping.
This week I came across the following Substack note from Melina Magdelenat about the Gisele Pelicot trials where 90 men in a small French town raped one woman, and thought, oh this needs to be brought into the Epstein files discourse immediately.
Here’s what Magdelenat said:
“There’s an interaction I think back to every time we are collectively confronted with the utterly habitual nature of male violence against women. It was at a conference a year or so ago by Le Monde journalist Lorraine de Foucher, who won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the porn industry, child prostitution and sex trafficking in France.
The Pelicot trials came up during the Q&A, and a seventy-something man in the front row timidly raised his hand. You could tell he was carefully phrasing his question and choosing his words as he was saying them.
He said: « So, let me get this right. In the fairly small town of Mazan, Dominique Pélicot easily found 90+ men willing to rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious. Hundreds more saw the messages on the forum and not one decided to tell the police about it. »
At that point, a lot of us were kind of bracing for either a dismissal of the facts, or some convoluted explanation for how those men were unique. But no. He continued:
« So, does that mean that in every town, every village in our country, there are just as many men willing to rape an unconscious woman? »
Lorraine de Foucher replied, « Yes. »
« But then that means that there are thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands! » (You could hear at that point the wheels turning in his head).
« Yes », she nodded again.
« But… that’s abominable! It’s a catastrophe! It’s a national emergency! »
« …… Yes. It is. » - Melina Magdelenat
Yes. It is.

I'm 73. I was a teen in the 1967 to 1971 era. A college student attempted to seduce me when I was about 15. I shudder to think now of all the trouble he could have gotten himself into if I hadn't been well trained in setting limitations. Statutory rape for starters and possibly paying child support instead of finishing his degree.
He's the only example of a toxic male that I have directly experienced myself. Sure, I've met guys who had some underlying attitudes about roles and expectations, but not to the point that it interfered with me being able to be myself. Sometimes a little assertiveness has been needed on my part, but I've never experienced anything that rose to the level of toxic.
I know the predators are there. I just haven't met them at anti-war protests or later as a public-school teacher or later yet as an in-home care provider. I haven't met any truly toxic men in my current life as a committee warrior in a HOA, either. Toxic people, sure. But not specifically toxic due to being male.
Most guys at this HOA seem to be aware that they don't want to be mansplainers or condescendingly superior assholes due to their gender, (Many are condescendingly superior assholes due to being Formerly Important People, but that's a different phenomenon). When I watched Mad Men, I was really shocked and I thought, "My god, my mother grew up with that as the norm. No wonder she was an alcoholic."
Of course, Mad Men assholery and toxic maleness are on a continuum, though it seems logical to me that a lot of one being present will enable some of the other. Both could be norm in social milieus that I have never experienced.

Animal House is honored in the Library of Congress, the National Film Registry, and the American Film Institute's 100 best comedies. Everyone I knew in the '80s thought it was funny, but watching it now makes me squirm because it is so deeply embedded in rape culture. My squeamishness now is a good sign for mainstream culture, maybe, but I think its presence on these lists needs to be given some serious critical re-examination, especially in the light of all of the manosphere influencers trying to tell their confused adolescent viewers that this behavior is natural, manly, and nothing to be ashamed of. Nope. These views and behaviors are toxic to everyone.

I hardly even know where to begin with my male first-year students. There's so much online misogyny bullshit to cut through. They aren't bad at heart, but they are so misled and so heavily propagandized by the toxic grifters who can monetize their young viewers' insecurities.

Tina Brown on Mandelson's arrest, Prince Andrew, the US Epstein situation etc:

The Erstwhile Ambassador, the Fallen Prince, and the U.S. Epstein Morass
Tina Brown
Feb 23, 2026

The stunning arrest of the former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson will produce a blast radius in the UK that may be even bigger than Jeffrey Epstein’s. If you are drowned by the volume of the Epstein emails, just wait for the leaking of all the Mandy memorabilia, which will undoubtedly include revelations and scuttlebutt from 30 years at the beating heart of British politics. There is no one Mandelson hasn’t advised, conspired with, gossiped with, and, god help us, texted with in his high-flying life as a political homme du monde as much at home on oligarchs’ boats as at dinner parties at Chequers and 3100 Massachusetts Avenue.

The strategic architect of Tony Blair’s new Labour was dubbed the Prince of Darkness for his sinuous skills as a media spinmaster. He’s been up and he’s been down, but up to now, he’s never been out, and may not be yet as the charge of misconduct in public office is notoriously knotty to prove. Before he was sacked as ambassador last September, Lord Mandelson was forced to resign twice from cabinet positions: for failing to disclose an improper loan in 1998, and again, three years later, for helping a wealthy Indian donor to the Millennium Dome get a British passport. He kicked up more dust in 2005 when, as EU trade minister (admittedly, the world’s most boring job), he flew from Davos to Siberia with his friend Nat Rothschild to join the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska for a banya sauna session. Inappropriate was Peter’s middle name. But he always surfed back because the depth of his strategic know-how was unrivaled. It kept him relevant among power elites who valued his acerbic expertise. Even PM Gordon Brown, who hated him, gave him the post of business secretary. Brown is now incandescent at how casually Mandelson, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, was allegedly leaking real-time, market-moving information from their private meetings to Epstein.

It was considered a risky move in late 2024 for the usually excruciatingly cautious current Labour PM Keir Starmer handed Mandelson the prized diplomatic post of representing the UK as His Majesty’s ambassador to the US. It’s amazing now to think that Mandelson, then running a lucrative advisory agency, was in such cocksure form that he was simultaneously lobbying to be Chancellor of Oxford (he lost out to former Tory leader William Hague), and even had the nerve to think he could serve as both ambassador and chancellor. The outgoing US ambassador Dame Karen Pierce argued strenuously against choosing Mandelson to succeed her, but there was logic to the appointment that few want to recognize now. As a longtime appreciator of Peter’s gifts, I thought it was somewhat brilliant myself. It was precisely because of Mandelson’s iffy ethics and affection for money—he famously said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”—as much as his sophisticated understanding of global trade, that the Prince of Darkness was seen as such an excellent fit for Trump-era Washington. And indeed he was. In his brief seven months in the post, he navigated the minefield of Trump tariff threats, closed a long-sought UK/US foreign trade agreement, and unexpectedly struck up a useful rapport with JD Vance. Mandelson was an instant star host at that most glamorous of embassies, with his urbane younger Brazilian husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, and his endearing “ambassadog,” the border collie Jock. I had tea with Mandelson in London after he was ejected as ambassador, and found him wounded but resilient, focused—I thought unrealistically—on finding a foreign benefactor who needed steerage through the corridors of power. But when the second Epstein tranche revealed Mandelson’s apparent breaches of official confidence, his loyal circle was properly gobsmacked. Bad judgment to maintain his friendship with Epstein, yes. But the whiff of semi-treasonous information sharing? Whoa! And for what? To prove his worth to the most worthless man on the planet?

Mandelson’s arrest was the second news meteor to hit British national life in a row, after last week’s historic apprehension of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The iconic news shot of Andrew slumped in the back of the Range Rover, with an expression of traumatized panic after a day in a police cell, gave the British public something that Americans are thirsty to see: a legal reckoning. After years of palace dithering and the murky 2022 payoff of Virginia Giuffre authorized by his protective mother, King Charles’s statement that “the law must take its course” made him look morally impeccable and decisive. It felt good, didn’t it, to see Andrew’s thick hide of royal prerogative finally being ripped away, his veil of ultimate privilege pierced at last. And it was gratifying that the photographer who caught the shot that was splashed on every front page in the world was the unpretentious Reuters journeyman Phil Noble, who, on a tip from a colleague, had driven six hours to Norfolk and raced to the unexpected location of Aylsham police station, where he caught the just-exiting car of Andrew’s security detail, pointed his camera at the back seat, and got the news moment of the year. In case there is anyone deluded enough to feel sympathy for Andrew, I submit the anecdote Paul Page, Andrew’s onetime royal protection officer, told in a 2022 documentary. When a random party girl not listed on the official log showed up at the palace to visit Andrew and was asked to wait for security clearance, the portly prince apparently blasted one of the guards on the phone as a “fat, lardy-assed c–t,” for not letting her through. Whether or not Queen Elizabeth’s epically dreadful second son ends up in the clink, Phil Noble’s picture was a thrilling karmic win for the people versus Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Double Jeopardy
The two stunning arrests in the UK have cut through the endless inconclusiveness of the DOJ morass on the US side of the Atlantic. It’d be pretty incredible if, after all the sleaze oozing out from the Epstein files, the only judicial scalps are a hapless royal buffoon and a woefully heedless British ambassador. Over here, fourteen elite leaders, from Wall Street titans to celebrity scholars and white-shoe lawyers, have been shamed and cast into professional purgatory, but no one yet has been arrested, except the pixie-haired society pimp with the cut-glass British accent awaiting Trump’s pardon in the Bryan federal prison camp in Texas.

Perhaps the contents of the just-discovered six storage units Epstein owned across the US will give us something more tangible than a sinkhole of reputations. Thanks to enterprising Telegraph reporters who noted payments to the locker companies on Epstein’s credit card bills in the files, we can now expect the rotting effluvia from all the stashed hard drives, computers, and photographs, hidden by Epstein’s private detectives from the FBI raids on his multiple mansions. Remember when he told the 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre, “I own the Palm Beach police department”? It was easy for him to be tipped off that a law enforcement sweep was coming. Perhaps the only time Epstein told the truth was in his answer to Steve Bannon’s startling question, “Do you think you’re the devil himself?” With his customary Cupid bow smirk, Epstein replied, “No, but I do have a good mirror.”

Maybe Epstein was the mirror himself. But his reflection gave an x-ray of other people’s moral weakness. In a society built on credit and credibility, a single evil actor who grasps the fallibility of his fellows can entangle all.

In this regard,
Coed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1fcf87c

is an interesting read, pointing out how women were often relegated to support roles in these movements while simultaneously being demonized by the media.

About jailbait in pop, you also have to take into account the whole structure of the industry, where bands do concerts and groupies flock backstage. My backstage adventures have been with classical music, a bit more sedate, but I remember that I had a 1st year student who was a huge fan of some relatively famous heavy metal band and she missed classes to attend multiple concerts on their Japan tour and she had been befriended by one of the guys in the band and was getting backstage. When she came back from the last concert, she had pictures of her, dressed like a demure Japanese uni student and the musician. Given that this was Japan, there were no drugs, but I didn't really ask what she actually did backstage, though she was clearly smitten. Multiply that by multiple groups and multiple concerts, mix in drugs, and it's probably a feature for a lot of groups.

"Several classic pop and rock songs from the 1960s–1980s contain lyrics that reference “jailbait” (a slang term for someone under the legal age of consent) or imply romantic/sexual interest in young or underage females."

Classic Pop Songs Referencing Jailbait

I'm constantly surprised and repulsed by the number of classic rock and pop songs I hear still being played today that are about jailbait (even on the satellite feed in Trader Joe's). I don't think rock and pop really started to reckon with that legacy until the grunge era. It's still around in the music mainstream, but mostly in rap and hip-hop.

„Wer zweimal mit derselben pennt, gehört schon zum Establishment“ (he, who sleeps with the same twice, is already part of the establishment) was an (in)famous slogan of the German 68ers ("student revolution"). In theory this was about "free love" but in reality it put pressure on young women "to be available".

novakant, I don't know how old you are, andI don't know for sure, but I think you might not be a woman. If so, that is significant.

As for the "elite" aspect, it's possible there was some of that in it, since many (but not all) of those lefty revolutionaries of the 60s did come from very comfortable backgrounds. But I think it was absolutely baked into the culture, as many films and books suggest, and going back much further than the 60s of course. And women were heavily influenced by it too, in a kind of false consciousness. I brought that particular period up because of Chomsky, and because (as lots of first wave feminists can attest) men who were otherwise very aware of different types of exploitation showed a lack of insight into the oppression of women, and the power of the patriarchy. Misogyny, like anti-semitism, is always with us, and although nowadays considerable disparity in age and power is frowned on, today's variety is just as (or more) toxic, as this anonymous piece by a teenager in today's Guardian illustrates:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse

I wonder if the hangmen after the Nuremberg Trials could also say that they "met some major war criminals, and don't regret it."

It all depends on context.

GftNC, if the totality of what Chomsky said was the quote ("I’ve met [all] sorts of people, including major war criminals. I don’t regret having met any of them.”), I would take the unambiguous meaning to be that he is perfectly comfortable spending time with the scum of the earth.

Nous, thanks for the full article. While the Cassandra envy is one reading, I see it as Chomsky being constitutional incapable of admitting he is/was in error. I'm most familiar with this pattern in linguistics and Geoff Pullum notes that it is not just that Chomsky is wrong, but that he creates a system (both with his rhetoric and his theory) that is immune to being proven wrong, even when core assumptions are proven wrong.

This is a recent article about this
https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/hl.00186.pul

Pullum also had this more accessible article in the National Review about it
https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/xml_20220307_Pullum_BookReview-1.html

With the first splash he made, reviewing Skinner's Verbal Behavior, he had these traits, making me wonder if he ever changed.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2223153/

On the Chomsky remark you quote, I think it is ambiguous. 

I'd say that whether it's ambiguous depends a lot on what's in the (unquoted) rest of what he said. There might well be context that shows what he thinks of those people and their views. Good or ill.

But if the quote is the totality of his statement, it doesn't seem all that ambiguous. At least to me.

For the Economist, having Megan McArdle work for them is is not just one strike, it is more like striking out the entire side.

Certainly not a plus. On the other hand, is/was a detailed political philosophy exam part of the Economist's hiring process? I would also note that she no longer works there. I'd want to know a bit more about the history there before leaping to a conclusion.

Not to mention that, people change. It is my recollection that she was a lot less extreme in her views, at least in what she wrote, when she was there than she is now. When she left, I thought enough of her writing to read her stuff elsewhere. Definitely didn't last; it was like reading a differe

Charles, do you really think that Grok is a media rating service?

For the Economist, having Megan McArdle work for them is is not just one strike, it is more like striking out the entire side.

The Economist has stayed the course much better than some other major publications that have drifted from journalism to viewpoint advocacy.

I dropped my subscription when they went full cheerleader for the Iraq War. They were even more enthusiastic and optimistic than the Bush administration was.

The Economist has stayed the course much better than some other major publications that have drifted from journalism to viewpoint advocacy.

I put it to you that this just means you agree with the viewpoint they advocate.

"They still have a bit of a libertarian lean, but rather less than a couple of decades ago."

Decades ago, I subscribed to The Economist when, for me at least, subscribing to magazines was a thing.

The Economist has stayed the course much better than some other major publications that have drifted from journalism to viewpoint advocacy.