Dem
47
GOP
53
Ezra Klein did a long interview with Will Sommer about why Donald Trump can't put the Epstein case to bed. It is very interesting. The short answer is: QAnon.
QAnon has a theory of the world: Corrupt pedophilic elites control everything. Remember "Pizzagate"? That's the wild lie that Democrats were running a child sex ring from a pizza restaurant in D.C. It ran amok in right-wing media for years (the rumor, not the child sex ring). QAnon believers still think that the (Democratic) elites are still in control and still are pedophiles. They believe, with a religious ferocity, that Jeffrey Epstein was central to it.
They also believe that all politicians save one are crooked and are part of the conspiracy. The only one who is not corrupt and who is honest with them is Donald J. Trump. Yes, he has flaws, like grabbing women by the pu**y and lying a lot, but he is the only person in politics they can trust. No one is perfect. They know that. But he was sent to D.C. (optionally by God) to clean out the swamp/Augean Stables. His main task is not to deport people or impose tariffs (although those are fine hobbies), but to break open the giant conspiracy holding the pedophilic elites together.
In their worldview, evil, ranging from not having a job to your wife having cancer to your rent being too high, is due to the power of these corrupt pedophiles. Wars are also due to them. Some believers also think the elite murder children to use their blood in their satanic rituals. They also see people wearing red shoes as a declaration that they are insiders who do this. In their view, if only a handful of these evil pedophiles could be arrested and executed, the world would be set right.
In this theology, there is a thing called "the storm," when everything would come together. Trump will then arrest all the elite pedophiles in Hollywood, in banking, and in the Democratic Party and snuff them out. They really believe this. Ashli Babbitt, who died on Jan. 6, thought the storm was here and now and she wanted to be part of it. People believe this. Of course, people in some religions believe a lot of stuff that is also strange.
QAnon started on an esoteric message board on the Internet, slowly spread to social media, and then went almost mainstream. Millions of people have swallowed the Kool-Aid. It all makes sense to them.
Trump understood this. He is rational enough not to believe a word of the crazy story, but cunning enough to realize that millions of his supporters bought into it hook, line, and sinker. During the campaign, he tantalized them with promises to find and arrest all of the pedophiles. He knew he couldn't do that, but he had an election to win and if promises like this would win votes, then he would say what he had to say. He was planning to forget the whole thing after the election and assumed they would, too.
Trump started off great by appointing people like FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who are major conspiracy theorists themselves. The QAnon types were delirious with joy. Finally, someone in power was going to spill the beans and bring justice to all the corrupt pedophiles.
The QAnon types naturally assumed Epstein was part of the cabal. After all, how could a powerful, rich (Jewish) pedophile not be part of it? When he was arrested, it looked like Trump was on the right trail. When Bondi said she had the client list on her desk, they expected it would be public in a week and the arrests would start.
That's when everything went off the rails. Suddenly Trump, Bondi and others said there was no list, no cabal, no one was going to be arrested, and please forget the whole thing. The QAnon folks went apoplectic. Trump was sent to expose the pedophilic cabal, and now he is saying there was a lone gunman, it's all over, and let's move on. He was saying their entire mythology, everything they believed in, was a fable and they should just forget everything. This is on the same order as Pope Leo announcing that he checked the Vatican files, learned that Jesus never existed, the whole story was made up out of thin air by Mark in 60 A.D., and let's move on now.
Needless to say, the QAnon folks, who now include a lot of MAGA people, have no intention whatsoever of just letting this drop and moving on. They KNOW there is a pedophilic cabal and now Trump is hiding it? The one person in the whole world who could expose and break it has switched teams? There will be no storm? That shook them to their very foundations and they were not about to forgive and forget. And the more Trump appeared to be stalling and hiding stuff, the worse it became. This story is not going to go gentle into that good night. (V)