
Is the Epstein Files Fantasy the Beating Heart of MAGA?
What's the big deal, you ask? This could really - finally - free people from the cult of personality that has gripped them for years?
The day after our wedding, as
and I began assessing the updates in political news and started coming down from the emotional high of seeing our friends and family - of formalizing our commitment to one another - we discussed (what else):Why today's modern Republican Party is obsessed with some billionaire sexual predator.
Oops! Hahaha!
I'm sorry, I had to stop and literally crack up here at my keyboard in the office.
Of course I was intending to refer to the late Jeffrey Epstein with the phrase "billionaire sexual predator," but, well, we all know there's another one they're obsessed with, too. And this latter "billionaire sexual predator" has now chosen not to "release the files" on this first "billionaire sexual predator," who just happened to be a dear friend of his not that long ago.
So, using my too-extensive understanding of far-right conspiracist ideology, I laid out to Sally just why this refusal by President Donald J. Trump to release the list of those involved with Epstein has hit his supporters so much harder than anything else that he has done so far and really, anything he could potentially do. He could shit-can Stephen Miller tomorrow (it would send his approval ratings up) and totally pivot to the opposite of a mass deportation—libertarian-style wide open borders!—and that betrayal probably would not be as bad as this one.
Why is the mythology of "the Epstein files" so central to today's far right, not unlike how JFK assassination conspiracy theories animated both the far right and far left of previous generations?
It's because of who the far-right people expect to show up in the files and what they expect to result from finally exposing them. They believe that Epstein and his network were primarily connected with Democrats, liberals, and Hollywood “elites.” Revealing the people in this network who were allegedly raping children would result in all of them being arrested and thrown in jail. This is the so-called "deep state" in the MAGA imagination.
[And, I’m sorry, but I have to interject here: This is something about this narrative which is endlessly annoying: Jeffrey Epstein was not a pedophile. He was not sexually interested in children. Rather, he was a hebephile: He pursued adolescent, teenage girls—a distinction that is too complicated for most of the people fantasizing about this story and concocting their whole fucking political identity around it.]
What the "deep state" is supposedly all about is covering up child rape gangs in the name of liberal policy and corporate power. It's all pretty gross and weird stuff - this obsession with illegal, horrifying sex acts.
And now, after a decade of running on pledges to expose this conspiracy and bring down hundreds of hidden “pedophiles,” Trump and his company toadies have said, "There's nothing there, now move the fuck along."
After being told, "The list is on my desk," now it's "There's no list!" or "This list is from Democrats and Crooked Hillary! It can't be trusted."
Alan Dershowitz put out a video recently in which he said:
“I know for a fact, documents are being suppressed and they're being suppressed to protect individuals. I know the names of the individuals, I know why they're being suppressed. I know who's suppressing them, but I'm bound by confidentiality from a judge and cases, and I can't disclose what I know. But, hand to God, I know the names of people whose files are being suppressed in order to protect them, and that's wrong.”
A big part of the problem with conspiracy theory busting is that the most effective ones usually build on some foundations of truth. The espionage agencies which plant conspiracy theories will design them that way intentionally. What then happens is that the theorists just speculate much further than their evidence allows. The far right conspiracy theorists who think that the government is concealing evidence that some liberals/Democrats/celebrities were involved with Epstein are correct.
However:
That would therefore include Donald Trump, who qualified as a bona fide member of such circles for decades.
It would include a whole hell of a lot of people far beyond just the preferred ideological targets.
Know what the "Epstein files" are? An absolute Pandora's Box of chaos with totally unforeseen consequences that could destroy the lives of unknown people, most of whom are likely totally innocent of any crime.
It is the political warfare equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction: chemical, biological, nuclear weapons. These weapons are uniquely dangerous and banned because their fallout cannot be controlled. One of these weapons could just as well harm one's own people or civilian populations as much as they would counter enemy soldiers.
I theorized an example in my recent piece presenting an excerpt from an interview I conducted with a legendary journalist who told me what he saw when he visited inside Epstein's home and interviewed the billionaire sexual predator:
How might it damage Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s business dealings if something came out now to jeopardize the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia ascending to the throne? What if the internal political dynamics of the desert kingdom all of a sudden turned against the Trumps instead of in their favor? What if the same happened in Israel? What if their various business partners across industries, from real estate to $60 Bibles to entertainment and crypto were tied up in this, too?
And all of this is apart from the speculations about what it could expose about Trump personally.
Where, then, does this leave the devoted MAGA influencer and their loyal audience? They have fought for Trump for a decade because they believed he would finally expose this “deep state” which has protected a network of child rapists.
And now, all of a sudden turn, he has chosen to turn on them and insist that such a network does not exist?
You mean the Democrats are just the often naïve and misguided political opponents with foolhardy schemes for big government and a too-dovish approach to foreign policy?
They're not a cult of blood-drinking child rapists engaging in Satanic rituals in the basements of pizza parlors?
They’re just Americans with different - perhaps ignorant - policy preferences?
Well, how disappointing for you. There isn’t some global conspiracy of child rapists which includes all of the political people you hate. I'm sorry.
Is that worse news? Or the reality that Americans across the country have torched their friendships and family relationships for a decade now, just to follow this fuckin’ con artist off a cliff?
No one cares about any of this stuff except in service of their political ideologies. If people really cared they’d be talking about ways to pay attention to their teenage daughters or taking interest in who is doing it now. Can’t keep following your writing this stuff triggers me.