On July 14, a bizarre new post appeared on the Instagram account of the Democratic congressman Hank Johnson, of Georgia. In the video, Johnson strums off-rhythm chords on an expensive-looking acoustic guitar and sings a not-especially-in-tune version of the Jason Isbell song “Dreamsicle” — with most of the lyrics changed. “Epstein died by suicide/Believe that and you must be blind,” he croons. “You’ve been telling us you’d release the files/But where are they?”

There were a lot of strange things happening here, in both the message (a sitting congressman using an official communications channel to casually endorse the theory that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered) and the delivery (from its strained effort to the befuddling retention of a few lyrics from the original song: “Dreamsicle on a summer night/In a folding lawn chair”). Layered together, these things were disorienting but transfixing, like something from the mind of David Lynch.

I got a similarly dizzy feeling from “Trump Not Like Us,” a video posted a few days later by the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump Republican group. This, too, was a musical cover with Epstein-themed lyrics — this time, an A.I. revision of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” (“You know Epstein was the plan’s designer/Bet you Trump’s in the files in bed with a minor.”) The video renders real-world figures as Jim Henson-style puppets: There’s Epstein, Trump, the F.B.I. deputy director Dan Bongino, Attorney General Pam Bondi and others. In one scene, an A.I.-generated Muppet Trump reclines on Epstein’s private jet, receiving a foot massage and being fed McDonald’s French fries by scantily clad young Muppet women — an image I won’t forget anytime soon unless I’m very, very lucky.

The style of both videos — their goofy, very-online mix of accusations and insinuations, their readiness to just say stuff — reminded me of nothing so much as Donald Trump himself. This is exactly the kind of political communication that he and his supporters have spent the past decade bringing to the forefront of American politics. Across that decade, the usual strategy for Trump’s critics, Republicans and Democrats alike, has been to adopt a contrasting seriousness: They have tried to present as the high-minded adults in the room, the ones who aren’t constantly slinging insults, posting nasty cartoon memes and stoking fringe theories. Videos like Johnson’s “Dreamsicle” cover and “Trump Not Like Us” take the opposite approach. They gleefully embrace a type of messaging that has animated many Trump voters, because that is exactly the audience they hope to reach. Even for the Lincoln Project, which has launched aggressive, mudslinging attacks before, portraying Epstein’s “Lolita Express” with Muppets feels like the crossing of some Rubicon.

For Democrats, all this must be a tempting change of pace.

A similar giddiness is palpable in other posts, too. On X, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, posted a photo of Trump and Epstein together, using a popular meme format that incorporates lyrics from the Nickelback song “Photograph.” House Majority PAC, a major Democratic political-action group, published a “G.O.P. Epstein Simps Target List,” accusing the identified Republicans of “simping” for Epstein by voting against the release of more information. And the Democratic Party introduced @TrumpEpsteinBot, an X account that every day answers the question “Has Trump released the Epstein files?” by posting, simply, “No.”

You can almost hear people cackling from the other side of the screen, relieved that they finally have an excuse to enjoy the kind of trollish goading-by-meme they’re more often on the receiving end of.

The dynamic here is obvious. In vast patches of MAGA discourse, “the Epstein files” have long been thought of as a sealed box, one promised to contain damning truths about our world and the elites who control it. As a candidate, Trump offered vague assurances that he would open the box; as president, he installed well-known box-opening obsessives in positions of power. As soon as his administration appeared to be sitting on the box, insisting there was little of interest inside, critics swarmed like sharks to chum. Perhaps the records contained information that would hurt the president. Perhaps the administration’s failure to share more would leave supporters feeling enraged and betrayed. Or perhaps not — but what harm was there in pushing the point? Trump fed the appetites of Epstein conspiracists, with a wink here and a meme there; now a still-hungry audience seemed ready to bite at his hands.

Whatever we may ultimately learn about Epstein, it will be sad and sordid, a story of people getting hurt and of people getting away with hurting them. It is likely to reflect poorly not just on Trump but on any number of institutions. A lot of messaging from leading Democrats reflects this gravity. But a lot leans instead toward the smirking excitement of people who have finally caught a foe in an embarrassing bind. It appropriates the online idioms that aided Trump’s rise, but along with them comes some of the same approach to politics — one that’s glib, opportunistic, carnivalesque, less attached to any particular principle or position than to winning itself.

This chance to catch the president in a trap of his own design is obviously tempting; for once, relentlessly reminding Trump’s supporters of his hypocrisies seems to be turning some of them against him. After a year of almost uniformly criticizing Elon Musk as an unhinged, power-crazed conspiracist, some Democrats now seem happy to rub Republicans’ faces in Musk’s repeated claims, on X, that the reason “the Epstein files” had not been released was that Trump appeared in them. (Musk has since deleted the most widely circulated of these posts, but it’s easy to find online, including in the image at the top of the Democrats’ @TrumpEpsteinBot page.) Leading Democrats aren’t posting goofy Epstein songs or explicitly embracing any particular Epstein theory. But even in more measured comments, like those from Hakeem Jeffries, Ro Khanna and Chuck Schumer, there’s a hard-to-miss sense of self-satisfaction: Talking about Epstein keeps the circus operating and the pressure on. Even Bernie Sanders released a video on the Epstein files; after saying first that he did not know “if these files even exist,” he urged Trump to release them.

For Democrats, all this must be a tempting change of pace from producing carefully phrased, self-serious and largely ineffectual scolding about constitutional order and the soul of the nation. It’s also surely easier than deciding on a political program to improve Americans’ lives and convincing voters that it will actually do so. But it’s hard, in the long run, to picture how learning this new rhetorical style benefits today’s Democrats. Many of those interested in the Epstein story understand themselves to be motivated by genuine concern for its victims; will they really feel meaningfully acknowledged by seeing the same winks and “gotcha” memes coming from the other side of the aisle? Others already see mainstream politics across both parties as a corrupt game of point-scoring. For them, and others, it may be easy to conclude that however disappointing Republicans are, Democrats are something worse: a washed-out photocopy of the disappointing original, a party whose decades of appeals to seriousness and principle were as empty as suspected. This sort of messaging may not reach voters quite so effectively when you’re the last to adopt it.

Peter C. Baker is a freelance writer in Evanston, Ill., and the author of the novel “Planes.” He edits “Tracks on Tracks,” a newsletter about how people experience songs.

Source photographs for illustration above: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images; Kypros/Getty Images; screenshots from YouTube.