As Epstein and his files live on, rent-free, in MAGA minds, the landlord bristles and stews…
The Epstein files, whether they exist or not, are like the dog that caught the car it chased. Now what? The place where conspiracy theories go to die is filled with ghosts happy to haunt those who spawned them. Some die hard, others not at all. And some, nurtured in the minds of political hustlers, live on to bite their masters’ butts. For the record, Republicans have churned out conspiracies in an attempt to mitigate Watergate’s stain on the party. They tried Whitewater, BirtherGate, and Hillary’s emails. In the end, they were all relegated to categories in the Incredibly Pointless Trivia game. Donald Trump’s contributions to the game raised the ante because conspiracies were part and parcel of his political ambitions. Before him, conspiracy theories required a speck of truth, a kernel of fact to spin the “theories.” Trump despised the truth and considered facts to be superfluous- remember alternative facts and provable falsehoods? These were extensions of language and logic that pained our democratic institutions as they tried to untangle the truth from the lies.
Republicans, in general, and Donald Trump, in particular, are now feeling the pain after more than a decade of conspiracy theories they have concocted have coalesced into the mother of them all- there are pedophiles among us, and they are coming after your babies. The danger here is that Trump has managed, with some clever footwork, to outrun the ironies of his numerous public slip-ups. He may be a liar, a terrible businessman, a philanderer, a tax cheat, a creepy father who lusts after his own daughter, a rapist- BUT, he is not a pedophile! For the MAGA crowd, these small distinctions matter.
The natural fear of pedophiles preying on children was long ago weaponized by Trump and the GOP to paint Democrats and “deep staters” as either deniers or perpetrators. It has scaffolded the GOP’s many assaults on books, teachers, LGBTQ groups, and anyone who deals with our children. Schools, community groups, even librarians have been cast as groomers by the conspiracy-mongers who peddle fear as fuel for their poll-tested paranoia:
Conservative political operatives are targeting children in this new wave of restrictive laws and pedophile narrative-building. The weaponization of kids and schools means that educators and families are also in their crosshairs-but the potential implications of this campaign are even wider-reaching.
Associating LGBTQ people with predation opens the door to violence and targeting that goes far beyond the classroom. Queer youth are particularly susceptible to these messages- in the first half of 2021 alone, 1 in 4 LGBTQ youth attempted suicide (yes, you read that right). Transgender people are among the most vulnerable groups, and they are bearing the brunt of this assault today. In city after city, MAGA extremists and Proud Boys are waging a campaign of intimidation against all-ages events like drag brunches and story hours, showing up at child-friendly events to shout slurs and violent threats. Social media is often driving the attacks, with accounts like Libs of TikTok posting the names and details of LGBTQ-friendly events in an attempt to force the event organizers to cancel due to the (very justified) fear of violence. In the week before the 2022 elections, a donut shop in Tulsa, OK was firebombed by a man in a distinctive red hat after hosting an LGBTQ-themed art event — and it’s not even the first time they’ve been targeted.
Trump’s macho image has been ironically based on the false assumption that somewhere tucked away in the concept of “manliness” is a license for abusive behaviors to be used against those deemed unmanly- women, children, gays- and their protectors. He identifies with pro wrestling steroidal actors, Marvel and DC comic superheroes, and real warriors without bone spurs, despite his cluelessly effete rendition of an old guy reliving the disco era rockin’ to the Village People. Trump’s sexual proclivities were always perceived as being among the red-blooded variety. Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein friendship and the sordid aftermath of his demise threaten all that. There is something unnatural about the sex trafficking of adolescent girls.
After years of suggesting that Epstein was an avatar of the left, the reality of the danger of revealing too much of his sordidness and the chance that names, photos, and videos that are known to exist might threaten that view is very real. Here’s my take: Donald Trump could give a fig if evidence pointed to wrongdoing of anyone else, including political backers, donors, friends, and family members. The fear, exhibited in his recent rants demanding that Epstein be forgotten, along with January 6, PizzaGate, and Elon Musk, as being either old news, fake news, or no news at all, is personal. In a response that bordered on a confession, Trump rebuked his followers while hiding behind a limited vocabulary and the skirt of his AG:
“What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post to his conservative social media platform on Saturday evening.
“We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein,”
Caps and exclamations are well-known tells in MAGA world, indicating the depth of their master’s anger and his penchant for retaliatory measures. They read as “stop or else” to them, but as existential fear to those who live in a real world that messages with some restraint. “THE TALK OF THE WORLD” is a particular tell, in this case, because the Epstein file, if released, would unquestionably be just that. While most have forgotten, Trump surely lives in fear of the allegations of a woman who once linked Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in a court filing that has been buried amid assertions of threats and payoffs. Under the pseudonym “Katie Johnson,” the witness described an incident of a 13-year-old girl being molested in a manner reminiscent of the crimes for which Epstein had been convicted, and behaviors Trump has long been suspected of, and is now convicted of.
The man who stated with some conviction that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequence realizes that Epstein and his sordid activities are beyond Fifth Avenue and beyond Trump’s symbolic elimination of norms. Associating with a pedophile is beneath contempt, beyond the pale, and an existential threat. Real men protect the young, support the poor, rescue the damsel, and damn the wicked. In truth, so do real humans. At its core, the MAGA movement is best represented by its inhumanity and rejection of norms.
The Epstein files, whether they exist or not, represent THE existential peril to Trump’s standing among his peeps. The failed casino mogul is betting that hard evidence is a luxury and a bit unnecessary in a world awash in phony intrigues. What had not been dismissed by judicial manipulations may have been turned off by large dollar settlements underwritten with threats.
The danger is in the believability, the plausibility of the assertions. The mere entertainment of the thought, “did he, or didn’t he,” in the minds of the conspiracy-minded is a fate worse than death.
Trump may have inadvertently hit the nail on the head-Jeffrey Epstein is more than a ghost that endangers his power over those who love to believe in conspiracies; rather, he is the man whose suicide couldn’t end his story, the man who wouldn’t die, whose history with Donald Trump may just have survived a good old-fashioned mugging on Fifth Avenue.
Originally published at https://vincerizzo.substack.com.
