MAGA continues to reel from Trump’s Epstein betrayal

To assume that the escalating right-wing meltdown over the Justice Department s dismissal of the Epstein files affair will be a fatal blow to the MAGA cult is very tempting But it s ostensibly best to resist that temptation at least for the moment Over the years there have been so various instances that felt as if they had to be the beginning of the end and they all ended up being false alarms In each scenario the country moved on and Donald Trump only grew stronger Still this one has a characteristic that we haven t seen before The calls are coming from inside the house If Attorney General Pam Bondi and perhaps Trump himself who was pictured various times over the years in the company of Epstein and his paramour Ghislaine Maxwell who is serving years in federal prison for sex trafficking thought this would draw a line under the whole affair they were wrong On July the Justice Department published an unsigned memorandum concluding there was no evidence that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein kept a client list from which he blackmailed powerful figures in politics finance and entertainment or that he was murdered in prison as so a great number of on the right have come to believe If Attorney General Pam Bondi and perhaps Trump himself who was pictured multiple times over the years in the company of Epstein and his paramour Ghislaine Maxwell who is serving years in federal prison for sex trafficking thought this would draw a line under the whole affair they were wrong For a movement that was founded on conspiracy theories in which the powerful especially those in authorities protect themselves the Justice Department s memo has turned out to be a major dilemma The conspiracy theories around this situation have become a MAGA obsession with activists and influencers on the right raising doubts about how Epstein died Trump who inevitably has an ear to the ground picked up on their fervor and his campaign s promise to thoroughly investigate the episode was deduced by his base to be one of the most of pivotal he made Funnily enough he never seemed that eager to talk about it In a November interview with Fox News he hesitated when requested about releasing the files Related Why MAGA can t let go of the Epstein files Trump was president during the federal event that landed Epstein in jail and led to his presumed suicide so he may very well have had inside information that he didn t want circulated I think we can be fairly sure that if information had implicated his political enemies he would have pledged to do so with relish That should have set off alarm bells to his flock But as with so much else they didn t even notice seeing what they desired to see They presumed the assurances of Trump s largest part fervent MAGA influencers that if elected to serve a second term he would expose a vast conspiracy After all MAGA has been primed for this moment for years QAnon conspiracy theories dominated Trump s first term Although there were plenty of tentacles at the center of MAGA ideology was the notion that the world is run by a secret cabal of wealthy and powerful pedophiles who pull all the strings of the Deep State actors in the U S leadership including the Justice Department and beyond They were predictably disclosed to be kidnapping and trafficking vast numbers of children to feed their depraved appetites In December this led one man to drive from North Carolina to Washington D C and armed with an assault rifle revolver and folding knife open fire in a popular pizza joint while searching for children he inferred were being held captive in the basement There were no children There wasn t even a basement MAGA world became excited when Epstein was exposed in with the publication of a three-part series in the Miami Herald The stories revisited his conviction a decade before for sex-trafficking which had been swept under the rug and ignored by several very powerful people who continued to associate with him Julie K Brown the intrepid reporter who investigated and wrote the stories was motivated to look into the incident when Trump nominated Alex Acosta the U S Attorney who had given Epsten a sweetheart deal to be his secretary of physical condition and human services Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Here was a real life elite pedophile and sex trafficker with multiple friends in high places QAnon was right They were ecstatic when Trump s Justice Department took up the occurrence and arrested Epstein in Soon the world would know the whole truth Except Epstein the majority of high-profile prisoner in the country friend of presidents and billionaires was somehow able to commit suicide in his cell For an awful lot of people that didn t pass the smell test and a whole new set of conspiracy theories were ignited Nonetheless as usual they didn t hold Trump responsible They didn t even blink an eye when Trump sent well-wishes to Maxwell when she was arrested in July They blamed the deep state specifically the Department of Justice and the FBI which they already held responsible for the Russia Hoax and for favoring Hillary Clinton Among the preponderance vociferous critics were Kash Patel and Dan Bongino the current FBI director and deputy director Bongino reportedly had an angry confrontation with Bondi at the White House last week The appointment of Patel and Bongino as well as Bondi who jumped into pursuing the disgrace with both feet promising far-right influencers that she was personally overseeing the inspection made MAGA true believers believe they were about to get their hands on what Glenn Beck called the Rosetta Stone of residents trust These new appointees were the very ones who had been chasing this controversy for years and they were now in a position to blow the lid off the whole thing All those who had mocked the MAGA movement as kooks would soon be proven fools We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in the modern day to assistance Salon s progressive journalism The Justice Department s memo was a slap in the face to the MAGA faithful They were stunned And when Trump rudely dismissed their concerns in a cabinet meeting and then admonished them on Truth Social in a long rant blaming former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton demanding that his followers focus on the scandals he wants them to focus on the crushing betrayal was personal Never before has a Trump post received such a massive negative response on his own platform Even his the majority loyal influencers including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News were hostile Trump s loyal base has taken all that heat for so long defending Trump through everything and now it appears their Dear Leader is just another deep state operative covering up the crimes of his accomplices and possibly his own They are confused and angry and inconsolable Have they had a mass epiphany and collectively awakened to the fundamental dishonesty and corruption of the man they worshipped for the past ten years It s hard to believe Like so multiple other Trump scandals maybe it will all dissipate But we ve never seen one like this before A Judas kiss that went straight to the heart and shattered their deepest convictions Read more about this topic Trump defends Bondi as selfish MAGA continues Epstein freakout MAGA melts down Dems exult as Epstein files evaporate This creep Trump is over questions about Epstein The post MAGA continues to reel from Trump s Epstein betrayal appeared first on Salon com