Anne Laurie covered the beginnings of the MAGA meltdown over the Epstein files here on Saturday morning. But I’m not sure the story is over.
One thing to keep in mind about MAGA dopes is that they marinate at all times in an information bubble that confirms the bullshit they already believe. It’s not an excuse — it’s 100% their fault because, as yet, no one is forcing them to consume nothing but propaganda and believe easily debunked lies. But it’s helpful to understand their former state of “innocence” to make sense of their furious reaction now.
Basically, the marks have been told for years that Epstein trafficked minors to elite and powerful pedophiles and was possibly murdered in jail to protect the wealthy and connected perverts for whom he served as procurer. Trump told the marks he would blow the lid off the conspiracy if reelected.
Then last week, Bondi said there was no Epstein client list after all (she previously said the list was in her possession) and nothing further to release, and the MAGAs started screaming for her head, convinced that she’s in on the coverup. (And she probably is — just not in the way they think.)
Enraged at fans who are howling for Bondi’s head, Trump posted an insane “nothing to see here, move along” rant on his Twitter knock-off on Saturday:
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. 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. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files. No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people. We are about to achieve more in 6 months than any other Administration has achieved in over 100 years, and we have so much more to do. We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, which will continue to be our complete PRIORITY. The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
But the marks weren’t buying it as of this weekend. Trump got ratioed. Even his TV mouthpieces on Fox News weren’t buying it as of yesterday.
At approximately the 2:20 mark, the Fox News couch crew helpfully spell out how the Trump administration could “defuse this ticking time bomb.” They say Bondi, Patel and Bongino must get in front of cameras, make a statement and answer questions. The couch crew says their audience has legitimate questions, including:
- Who are the perpetrators Epstein connected with trafficked minors?
- Have they been deposed?
- Why have they not been arrested?
- Who is on the videos the admin says it has that were taken at Epstein’s pervert island as well as properties in NYC and the Southwest?
The Fox News propagandists say this story won’t go away until people get those answers from the administration. I have no idea if that’s true. Every week, Trump weasels out of scandals that would end any other politician a thousand times over.
Trump’s repulsive friendship with Epstein was documented in this nauseating video years ago, and it didn’t dent his sleazy political career. Have the Fox News-viewing MAGA zombies seen that video? I don’t know. Would it matter to them? Again, it would seem not because nothing else does.
But Trump has lost control of the narrative on this. He’s rattled. I’d say that’s a good thing, but who knows what he’s capable of doing to regain control of the media cycle, which is one talent he genuinely has? My guess is nothing’s off the table.
Open thread.
Dorothy A. Winsor
To quote Mitch McConnell, they’ll get over it.
I’ve seen no proof that Trump ever pays for anything, figuratively or literally
Baud
I’m in the “as long as he’s hurting he should be hurting, he’ll be fine with the MAGA” crowd.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t be weakened by this.
Gangis Khan
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Jackie
BC, FFOTUS had a follow up screech to the whine you posted above:
Are the “so-called friends” his MAGA faithful who are demanding the Files be released? So, is he also acknowledging his name is prominently displayed throughout the Files?
Eduardo
Entertaining? Yes. But this will not hurt them materially and thus will only be and excellent way to reinforce their ability to rationalize anything that Dear Leader does.
I am seeing green shots in South Florida where the finding out has been so brutal and swift. The “independents” that could not get themselves to vote for Harris or Trump –actually good people all of them- are all hating Trump as much as I do. And a few that voted for him –not the rabid ones– are now against him.
Mr. Longform
Isn’t it likely to be as simple as: MAGA folks believe that pizza-parlor-pedophile liberals are running rampant and that the “Epstein list” reveals who they are. The actual people connected with Epstein are mostly not liberals and are people who are either Trump or Trump adjacent. Therefore, they are sitting on the info.
Baud
@Eduardo:
Thanks for the ray of hope.
debit
All that he needs is enough qanon voices to claim he’s doing a double secret reverse psyop and he’s still fighting behind the scenes. Let’s face it, these people are so credulous that they keep accepting excuses for why the world didn’t end again (but next time for sure!).
gene108
A cabal of wealthy powerful people trafficking children sounds a lot like the QAnon conspiracy from 10 years ago. I wonder how many QAnon folks went MAGA?
Basically, I bet there are folks steeping in this cabal of powerful child sex traffickers conspiracy, before the Epstein case re-emerged as news during Trump 1.0. The Epstein case has facts behind it. It has actual victims coming forward.
It’s as close to a smoking gun on the cabal of powerful traffickers QAnon / MAGA will ever get.
Chief Oshkosh
If he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t Trump release all of the files to everyone? If he doesn’t then there must be something pretty bad that he is hiding.
If everyone keeps saying this, over and over, we’ll peel off a few more. But, we have to flood this zone and the bring it up at strategic moments through the fall of 2026.
JML
Anything that helps the MAGA crowd stay home in any upcoming election is good. If it causes more in-fighting among the incompetence crew that’s running our federal departments, I’ll take it. If DoJ is spending a bunch of time tying itself into knots over Epstein, then hopefully they’re doing less to send out the blackshirts to keep kidnapping people. If it keeps FauxNews and their ilk from spending more air time on lying about the idiot tax & spend bill and how immigrants are supposedly ruining the country because they’re obsessing on Epstein…fine.
Confusion to the enemy.
Princess
I don’t know what to think. I agree he has lost full control of the narrative. I dunno, maybe he didn’t think anyone would really care about those girls because he doesn’t. But I also feel like we’re being fed some theatre from his people. Like, Bognino threatens to resign then comes round as a way of persuading others to come round. I dunno. And it would be so easy to fake a report with only Dems in it. And if Trump and his allies featured prominently in it, surely this was no surprise to them.
RaflW
There was tut-tutting that people were helping him shift the narrative yesterday by reacting to his threat to cancel Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship.
And it may be true that he threw that out for that purpose. But I don’t think it was at all sufficient to shake the Epstein thing because the right doesn’t care about a threat to our system of citizenship, rarely thinks about Rosie, and it just feels like a petty spat.
But his threat is a big deal. It shows how conditional anyone’s participation in this nation could become if he keeps agglomerating power.
To the OP, I guess what I am curious about is how we over on the lieburul fringe can keep the Epstein kerfuffle moving.
Omnes Omnibus
I will repeat my thought from Saturday morning. I wonder if this and the Texas flood reaction happening at the same time could cause a reaction like Katrina did for Bush.
Betty Cracker
David Kurtz at TPM predicts Bondi will attempt to save herself by doubling down on performative MAGAtude:
I don’t think she has to do a damn thing to save her job because she’s already doing Trump’s bidding in the Epstein matter. If she has ambitions beyond her current role, maybe she’ll do even more insane shit to try to get back in MAGA voters’ good graces. But it’s not like she’s defying Trump by refusing to release anything on Epstein. I assume the opposite.
RaflW
One thing that I believe does aggrieve Trump is when he (rarely) has to shit-can someone. So anything that increases tension in the Bondi-Patel-Bongino universe is good. Fight fight fight!
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Bondi has covered for Trump for years. Others will go before she does.
AM in NC
@Chief Oshkosh: I have been doing this over at the FOX website. There are A LOT of people there who want the files released.
I ask “Why hasn’t Trump released the files, as promised? Bondi said ‘I have the list on my desk’ and now she says ‘there is no list’, so was she LYING to us then, or is she LYIING to us now?”. When the inevitable FOX bot comes back with “bet you’d be talking out of the other side of your mouth if a Democrat were doing this” I respond in a non-partisan way: “I don’t care who is on the list, I want them ALL revealed and, where appropriate, arrested and prosecuted. Regardless of which party these predators belong to, regardless of how powerful these predators are, I want them ALL to be punished for their predation”. I got over 100 likes on a non-partisan “RELEASE THE NAMES” post I did yesterday.
This has legs like nothing else I’ve seen over there.
Marcopolo
I’m surprised I haven’t seen the (full) Access Hollywood tape make an appearance. I guarantee there are plenty of folks who’ve either forgotten about it or somehow never heard about it the first time around. Flood the zone. When your enemy is drowning throw them an anvil.
Betty Cracker
@AM in NC: Thank you for doing God’s work at that cesspool!
Sure Lurkalot
He’s playing all the greatest hits that gets his crowd on the dance floor….Clintons, Obama, Comey, Russia hoax, rigged election…
Maybe should have paced out the playlist?
Ohio Mom
Intellectually, I know there are media bubbles but emotionally, it’s staggering to me that these people are just tuning in to Trump’s um, friendship with Epstein. I thought this was very old news but they’ve been able to avoid it for years.
Or that they missed all the other clues that he’s a creep — the grab ‘em comment, the I’d date Ivana, the comment on baby Tiffany’s future figure, etc. it’s a very air tight bubble.
I hope some social psychologists are taking notes on this developing crack in MAGA’s cognitive and psychological defenses. Maybe they’ll find some way of leveraging the underpinnings of the process to crack open other dangerous sets of denials.
u
One thing that I’ve wondered for the past ten years (since Trump became a political figure) is what percentage of his supporters are actually part of a cult that will worship him no matter what. At this point — since the November, 2024 election — I think that close to 100% of his supporters are part of that cult. In the 2016 elections Trump was an unknown quantity to low-information (in other words stupid) voters. But by 2024 anybody who had been paying the least bit of attention had to know who and what he is. So, now. I think that almost all of Trump’s supporters are acolytes in the cult. Therefore, the cult will not be affected by any Epstein revelations. There could be a certified video of Trump raping, killing and eating a twelve-year-old girl and it still wouldn’t matter. The average German continued to support Hitler until the Soviet and U.S. armies showed up. (And then suddenly nobody supported Hitler.)
gratuitous
@Chief Oshkosh: I agree that we should treat this like the wedge issue it is, graciously handed to us by the felon himself. We don’t have to sign on to any facet of the “controversy,” just keep bringing it up and wonder how true one aspect or another might be: “How about that Epstein stuff? Remember when Trump was going on and on about it, and now it’s just ‘nevermind’? Did the Deep State get to him?”
Then let the goblins that infest MAGA brains take it from there.
Chief Oshkosh
@AM in NC: Music to my ears.
They Call Me Noni
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This is the camp I’m in. He’s gotten away with so much sleazy and/or illegal crap that I don’t think there is anything he could do that would faze his base and followers. All will be forgiven and forgotten as long as he does all the horrible things to our government he’s doing now.
If J6 didn’t do it I honestly don’t know what will. I still can’t believe that after that people purposely did not vote. Couldn’t be bothered.
Old Man Shadow
Well, right now, it seems as if he’s trotting out his ‘greatest hits’ from ten to twenty years ago, so he must recognize that something is deeply wrong.
So I imagine he’ll have Bondi redact anything related to him and rich people or Republicans who are useful to him and throw it out there.
Will that satisfy the MAGAts? Probably not. Will it buy him more time to come up with something better? Yeah.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s true, and it may be helpful (to Trump’s opponents) that she started covering for him as Florida AG. That’s where Epstein got the sweetheart deal from Trump’s former labor secretary. Doesn’t matter if it was connected or not — the proximity magnifies the sleaze factor.
u
@Ohio Mom: I think that many (most?) of Trump’s supporters are just as debauched as he is in their private lives. That is even (or especially?) true of the Evangelical Christians who are a big part of his base. A lot of the men wish that they could rape twelve-year-old girls with impunity (and a lot the women just don’t care). These are not good people, in anyway. And they are about half the people who bother to vote.
Kristine
If multiple videos broke through of Trump cavorting on Epstein’s island, they’d be labeled ‘deep state fakes’ and denounced. I’d love to believe that it would torpedo Trump’s hold and ::fingers crossed:: sink MAGA to boot, but we’ve seen some pretty scummy behavior be rewarded with reelection over the years. MAGA will tolerate a scumbag as long as they’re *their* scumbag, and given the schism in this country I’m not sure any scandal is sufficient to break that fever.
Then I think “maybe it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up,” and hope puts out a shoot yet again.
Suzanne
One thing that this episode has really underscored for me is the power of self-concept. So (as dumb and delusional as this is)…. It is clear that a lot of the MAGA/Q-anon freaks genuinely believe themselves to be on the side of protecting trafficked children. They have evolved their concept of themselves as protectors and truth-tellers, and they’ve built this shit up in their minds to the point that their keyboard warrior crap is a heroic act.
So now FFOTUS comes along and basically minimized all that. That’s a dangerous thing to do, now that all his cult members have a raging case of Main Character Syndrome and they’ve been marinating in this narrative. Now he’s telling them that it was for naught. UNWISE!
Mr. Longform
@They Call Me Noni: If the ubiquitous videos of him palling around with Epstein haven’t sunk him, this won’t either. For the millionth time, imagine if a similar video of someone else being that friendly with JE were released. It would be the death knell for any other career.
Betty Cracker
@u:
The bolded part is the problem. A staggeringly high number of voters pay no attention at all.
Jeffro
you KNOW Ghislane Maxwell and her lawyers must be giddy as all heck right now…NO client list? then what’s poor Ghislane in jail for?
bbleh
Were *I* running some sort of online Dem operation, maybe a direct-email shop, I’d put a programmer or two to work setting up a couple thousand bots to troll all over rightwing sites and pages screeching about a COVERUP and SEX CRIMINALS and PROTECTING THE CHILLDRENNNNN.
I mean after all, we’re Just Asking Questions …
Baud
@AM in NC:
You are a hero.
u
If I can play amateur psychologist, I think that an important reason that prevents people from abandoning cults is that in order to do that a person has to admit that he or she was wrong. People who join cults in the first place tend to lack the intelligence and honesty to admit when they are wrong. So they keep on doubling down.
Jeffro
sure…but not by ALL trumpies…and this is already an unpopular administration hanging in there by the slimmest of margins, with most GOP electeds being kept in line by fear
it’s almost like, how do you say, trump doesn’t have all the cards…
Omnes Omnibus
One of the weird things of a vibes based world is that we don’t know what thing is going to have legs. If this does, that’s great. Should he have been brought down by any of previous scandals and/crimes? Of course. If this one does it, I’ll take it. I also won’t be surprised if this isn’t it.
Jeffro
@AM in NC: yes, but it’s like the 18th story down the page on Faux News dot com…they never quit trying to spin things, I’ll give them that
it does have legs, though
make some BIG HAY, Dems!
Kristine
@Suzanne: Good point. To be so fully-invested in something and then to be told there’s no there there. That might tick off folks.
hueyplong
We’re in uncharted territory in this reign of stupidity, so I’d be hesitant to say that the thing that finally harms Trump with his stupid base can’t be something stupid.
Put another way, as purportedly rational people, we’re not in a very good position to know what panics Trump or even what should.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: & @hueyplong: Same
ETA: Extra data point: someone on Bluesky posted a tweet from former General Flynn, who is a Qanon nutcase, and he was still demanding answers, at least as of this weekend. The extent of intersection between MAGA and Qanon is unclear to me, but it exists.
Anonymous At Work
Trump taught his cultists to HATE, HATE BIG, HATE THE ONES YOU RESENT, and then embraced QAnon to vilify using the old “Blood Libel” slander against them (waves to Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller), only it went from Jews to “Elitist Liberals” as the evil ones. It worked to get into office once and it worked to maintain the grift out of office, but now too many have been grifting on it too long for a return to power, especially the main grifters, to ignore doing something.
Trump’s “revenge Presidency” is getting revenge on everyone and anyone that opposed him…except for the evilest of the evil, that he convinced everyone he was going to round up and dispose of? MAGAts are dumb and ignorant and blind, but that’s a step too far even for their cognitive dissonance.
What really tweaks most people watching from the sidelines, hoping for injuries, is that any such list that does exist probably has the names most people expect: Prince Andrew, Abe Wexner (GAP founder), Trump, etc. Any new information isn’t good for Trump either, like Donald Barr (Bill Barr’s father, who hired Epstein to teach math at an elite Manhattan boarding school despite Epstein never graduating college) or the number of girls recruited in/around/at Mar-a-Lago.
So, yeah, Trump’s best case is that there is NO new information, which he has trained his cultists to believe is a cover-up. Worst case, the list is about him and his cronies.
As I saw someone else put it: Welcome to the Clinton Rules.
Suzanne
@Kristine: Yes. It’s dangerous not just because it feels like lies. It’s especially potent because it no longer lets his MAGA cult believe flattering things about themselves.
u
@Betty Cracker: Yes. Those famous “low-information voters”. I am an old geezer who was 39 years old when the widespread internet with search-engines began to proliferate. (Before 1995 the internet was something basically used mostly by engineers and other geeks.). My opinion is that the history of the past thirty years definitively demonstrates the stupidity of most people. I can remember the days when gathering information required a physical trip to a library, but for the past thirty years anyone with an internet-connected device can easily access information from all over the world. Yet most people are too lazy and stupid to actually read information and analyze it. Things will get even worse if or when they get “AI” to work. People like Trump are the product human stupidity, laziness and mean-spiritedness.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This Epstein matter has clearly riled up a subset of Trump supporters. What’s not clear to me is how numerous they are among the larger set of Trump supporters. These are the noisiest of all of Trump’s base but they may not be very representative of the whole.
But I still like to see it, especially Trump’s ham-handed efforts to put the matter to rest.
danielx
Read an interview with Sarah Matthews this morning (former deputy press secretary and acolyte, now a never Trumper). She predicts that since he’s temporarily lost control of the narrative, Orange Jesus will do something outrageous to make himself, instead of his unforced errors, the center of the news cycle once more. Which would accomplish two things: taking attention off Epstein, FEMA fuckups, etc., and feed his incessant need for attention. The latter being as if not more important than the former.
Frightening thought, as Trump is at his more dangerous when he perceives he’s been backed into a corner. Deport all Hispanics and arrest all enemies! Declare war against Eastasia and Oceania! Bite the head off a live bat, a la Ozzie!
Okay, I admit I’d enjoy watching that last one. Maybe he’d get rabies, though I suspect it would be difficult to tell a rabid Trump from his normal toxic self.
AM in NC
@Jeffro: but I insert comments into stories NOT dealing with Epstein as well as ones dealing with it directly.
rikyrah
I can’t explain how confused I am.
This makes NO GODDAMN SENSE TO ME.
It just doesn’t
why THIS is so important to them.
bbleh
@Baud: @AM in NC: lol was just about to comment re God’s Work.
lashonharangue
@Suzanne: I like your analysis. Here is some additional speculation about their psychology.
There is a fair amount of sexual misconduct among evangelical clergy that has been suppressed. For those in that community is the Epstein stuff a way to avoid the cognitive dissonance of being among the righteous and still believe the evil as out there somewhere else?
Booger
@Marcopolo: I’d rather see the Apprentice tapes that are secreted away. That would be fun…
Librettist
@Suzanne:
It puts Trump on team Bohemian Grove.
The petit bourgeois loath having to ass kiss the ultra-rich in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Pucker up, buttercups.
Old Man Shadow
@rikyrah: It’s important to them because it’s their game.
It’s a game that let’s them playact as heroes and good people when they are not.
If Trump takes away the game, then they have nothing but silence, their own thoughts, the haunting knowledge that they are not good people, that life is slowly ebbing away, and they will have nothing to show for it.
scav
Complicating factor might also be that it’s generally easier and a bit more exciting to be opposing “the powers that be!” on the nebulous side of the Davids (against Goliath), the downtrodden, the righteous, the few we happy few, the real whatzit whatevers. Such get all the acclaim of trumpeting aspirations and vainglorious principles, but risk none of the blowback over the messy, unattractive, tedious details of actually enacting said goals. Defending actual shit on the ground is harder, and often cuts closer to one’s self esteem.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
No matter how low Hair Furor and Crew set the bar, they’ll always find a way to slither under it…
And figure out a way to get the propaganda apparatus working full time to put this behind them with another Outrage of the Day/Week.
Yeah, it would be great to see the TX deaths and the latest Epstein stuff become “Trump’s Katrina”, I think everyone here would be overjoyed with that. But until it actually happens, I’m skeptical.
Booger
@danielx: Sadly, it appears getting rabies requires being the bitee, not the bitor.
scav
@Booger: Other zoonotic diseases are available. Monkeypox? Ebola? Lassa fever?
tobie
I don’t know what criminal files look like. Maybe they’re hard to fake. But everyone in this administration is so comfortable lying that I wonder if they’ll eventually release something that’s doctored if not totally fabricated to harm their enemies.
kindness
I’m surprised Trump didn’t order Bondi to ‘release’ intel that not only was Hillary Clinton abusing kids in the basement of DC’s Comet Pizzaria but that Obama was joining her. Yea, that establishment has no basement. That hasn’t stopped MAGA frenzy yet.
Mr. Bemused Senior
The same thought occurred to me.
[on topic] blanket statements like “nobody pays attention” or “they’re all cult members” overlook the fact that we’re talking about millions of people. They’re not all the same. It’s true that you can carve up the demographics and political consultants make a living that way, but how individuals make decisions isn’t simple.
Will this break through to a significant number of people? Wait and see.
Booger
@scav: Yes please!
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the death of the worker in Camarillo is one for the Crimes Against Humanity docket we all need to be preparing…
Ksmiami
@scav: Marburg has my vote
Jeffro
@AM in NC: NICE!
Baud
For BC
danielx
@rikyrah:
That’s because you are a normal person with a normal person’s logic, need for evidence, and understanding of cause and effect.
Kind of like when you hear about a “senseless” crime. There’s no such thing, it always makes perfect sense to the freak who committed the crime.
Suzanne
@lashonharangue:
100%. It also has, up to now, allowed them to believe that Democrats are evil.
hueyplong
@rikyrah: I generally consider it to be at least a little bit reassuring not to understand the mindset of these people.
Dog Mom
Purely, my own speculation, Many of these guys are now aware that Trump has lost his shine and are looking to re-write their own support, but maintaining the belief that they are being righteous in doing so. Friends and family no longer put up with their nonsense and now openly tell them they are crackpots and hypocrites. Any women standing by them, who previously put up with or supported their misogynistic beliefs (often feeding their He-man complexes), has cooled or even become scarce – Women in red states have to be feeling pressure – probably seeing their gynos move away, hearing stories of care being denied or just plain unavailable. Anyone who works is uneasy about the job market. Anyone who goes to the grocery or the gas station has concerns – These guys are grasping for something to prove Trump’s not their fault, they were just looking for truth and justice.
MattF
It’s amazing and amazingly amazingly amazing that Trump is now trying to blame Hillary Clinton for his Epstein problems. We have a situation where the only thing I can do is add another ‘amazing’, but autocorrect is now angry with me and my thesaurus is useless and so I have to stop here.
They Call Me Noni
@Mr. Longform: Agreed. I continue to be befuddled by the willful ignorance of his followers, especially the people who profess to be Christians, so I honestly don’t understand their disconnect between what TACO tells them to believe and what they see and hear with their own eyes and ears.
p.a.
Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has covered this aspect of the Qanon/MAGA mindset in multiple posts about “Satan-worshipping Baby Killers” and how it goes back to the 80’s and 90’s horror shows perpetrated on daycare workers. Big fingers 🤞🏻 for me because these nutjobs really care about this. Their self image is bound up in this. They don’t give a shit about kids deported and innocent people in concentration camps, people losing healthcare, environmental destruction, billionaires hoovering up even more $$$ etc etc etc.
And tRump is near to being in their crosshairs. I don’t underestimate that worm’s escape ability, but this time he may really need to max it out. Leopards getting hungry.
TF79
“…Epstein trafficked minors to elite and powerful pedophiles and was possibly murdered in jail to protect the wealthy and connected perverts…” with emphasis that they believe the elite and powerful pedophiles are a cabal of Washington and Hollywood liberals. They seem to hold this to be axiomatically true as a sort of quasi-religious belief unifying their worldview – Trump as some sort of chosen one to root out the evil, drain the swamp, etc. This would be quite the shock to that belief system (a “day after a promised Rapture and we’re all still just sitting here” sort of thing)
Miss Bianca
@p.a.: Now all we have to do is spread the (undoubtedly true) rumor that “Alligator Alcatraz” is REALLY a set-up for newly-minted ICE agents to abuse trafficked kids and…
OK, I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: It might, but there’s two problems. Republicans still have complete control over the government right now, and they’re going to have complete control over the government for another year and a half at minimum; that’s ages, especially to the short memories of our citizens. And then they’re increasingly willing to do extreme things to maintain power.
Normally that kind of reputational damage turns an administration into a lame duck that no one is willing to work with. Here it could accelerate us getting to pogroms and Trump attempting to burn down everything he can out of spite.
They Call Me Noni
@rikyrah: Same here. I’ve read a few articles that explain it and I still don’t get why this is the one thing that they will call him out on. Yet, beating police officers with flags on J6 was just fine.
The reason I come up with is fucked up morals.
hueyplong
I envy y’all’s ability to attempt rational explanations that both describe and offer a basis for prediction.
BretH
Let’s be realistic. Scanning Fox News website right now reveals one mention of the Epstein Files – and that’s a small piece saying Democrats are calling for releasing information. That’s just how these things work.
West of the Rockies
I rather think the longer the not knowing goes on, the better… in the information vacuum, fear and doubt take hold (Dear Leader has lied to us!). Suspicions abound, rumors form, faith crumbles.. in other words, off-ramps present themselves to the hive mind.
Mr. Bemused Senior
There’s some Biblical reference about “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.” We can but hope.
bbleh
&btw have observed often before that, in need, he would start a war. I’d be surprised if he played that card this early but he IS declining …
Invades Mexico because of “illegals” and “fentanyl,” establishes “security zone” under control of ICE, and uses it as a gulag.
Soprano2
@u: I think it’s more shame at being hoodwinked, and it being almost impossible for them to admit how badly they were fooled.
JaySinWa
I suspect it’s part of the moral panic they created “for the children” in the pedophile narrative. Because Epstein became a large part of the amplification of that narrative and true believers can’t just shake this one off.
OTOH this is a fraction of the Trump supporters, how big a fraction it is hard to tell, but they are vocal. Some of this may bypass everyone except the extremely online group.
It will be interesting to see how much of this sticks. The protectors of pedophile priests didn’t seem to get as much attention and push back as Bondi has.
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
Not saying all of this isn’t bad but anything he thinks can/might harm him, he will at least attempt to hide.
As much as I, we, all think he’s trying to hide all of this because it might make him look, if not bad at least somewhat involved and knowing, and hiding it would effectively be worse, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, is aging out, and he likely knows more than he’d ever want to admit. IOW he may not be able to wiggle out of this no matter how hard he tries. And he may not be thinking much more than personal damage control. If that.
West of the Rockies
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Trump and Comp. are the limbo champions of slithering and oozing under the low bar.
catclub
also accepting any reason for why all the high profile Democrats have not been rounded up by Qanon agents.
“Next time for sure”
Mr. Bemused Senior
catclub
huh? the only wars Trump starts are trade wars.
He has been (luckily for the rest of us) extremely cautious starting wars. He has quietly continued drone wars.
Ruckus
@AM in NC:
This has legs like nothing else I’ve seen over there.
This has legs because it is bad. And bad for anyone involved, especially if they had/have any knowledge.
shitforbrains seemingly might have known a lot about this because he has been “friends” with, or at least known Epstein for some time.
catclub
The key difference is that all those daycare workers could not afford expensive lawyers as well as expensive PR protection like Trump can.
Geminid
@bbleh: Ocupying part of Mexico’s border region and establishing a security zone would be a tough project; not so much because of the Mexican army as the drug cartels. They are very well armed, on a par with many Middle East militias. They fight each other with drones and guided anti-tank missiles now. The cartels could carry on an asymmetrical war similar to that which the US faced in Iraq, and the Turkish army fought with the PKK for forty years.
Suzanne
A turn that I didn’t expect: yesterday, someone hacked into the blue-check Xhitter account for Elmo (from Sesame Street, not Elon Musk) and started tweeting anti-Semitic messages and tagging FFOTUS, calling on him to release the Epstein list and calling him “child fucker”.
Man, that was a sentence I never expected to type.
Ruckus
@Old Man Shadow:
Well, right now, it seems as if he’s trotting out his ‘greatest hits’ from ten to twenty years ago, so he must recognize that something is deeply wrong.
Don’t forget, he’s not the sharpest 79 yr old stick in the box. Don’t forget he has at least met Epstein, and may have actually been friends. He may take this as a side attack upon him.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jeffro: Steve Bannon said as much in a video I’ve seen in several places. Not “this will cost us our base” but “this could cost us 10% of our base and here’s why that would be disastrous”.
So Bannon’s read of the room, probably accurate, is that 90% of these mouth-breathers will stay with him no matter what’s in the evidence. But 10% won’t. And that’s enough.
scav
@hueyplong: eehhhh, merely predictive models don’t have to mimic all the twists and subtleties of actual processes to figure out where the sun rises on a particular morning, or when the days start getting shorter, etc. These are all probably more Stonehenge then Kepler, but hey, it passes the time as we’re waiting for glimmers of, well, dawn may be overly optimistic, but waning darkness?
Baud
The weird thing about the right wing “protect the children” crowd is that so many church leaders are a threat to children, yet crickets.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
At this point I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who hasn’t seen that video, or a photo from it, of Trump palling around with Epstein. It’s well known he and Epstein were great friends, that Epstein recruited “talent” at Mar-a-Lago, and other sleazy connections. None of that’s new.
But something in the evidence has him so worried anyway that he’s throwing up anticipatory squid ink. Hard to imagine, given what scandals he’s survived without a scratch, what there could be to worry him. But something is.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
It may be that there are a few people who might be just a tad pissed off about the entire concept of Epstein and that shitforbrains is, at the very least, someone that personally knows him.
Baud
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
This.
Ruckus
@Baud:
We should all remember that shitforbrains isn’t the sharpest 79 year old tool in the box.
MattF
@Baud: And there’s a 50 day pause which, I’m disappointed to note, is not an integer multiple of two weeks.
Ella in New Mexico
I’ve been convinced for quite a while now that the sex trafficking of teen girls to rub elbows with fame and fortoune was not the central point of Epstein’s activities, albeit he was clearly a sexual pervert.
Pretty obvious the scheme was used to entice and then incriminate as many powerful names in goverment and business as possible for international espionage purposes. His seemingly unlimited funding not accounted for by his actual work is a big red flag . The pathetic case prosecuted by the DOJ suggests they thought it more important to cover up the extent of what our government knew and benefitted from said espionage regardless of his crimes. And because his activities spanned decades and both sides of the political spectrum, I’m betting Israel, Russia and who knows who else were getting information to and from him in order to manipulate our leaders.
That and-conveniently for now–the fact that YES, Donald was a client, is why they know they can never let anything out. The least of this conspiracy is Donald Mushroom-Dick.
Jackie
@Baud:
TACO?
bbleh
@Geminid: whut?! Ain’t no way no buncha damn Mexican gangsters can stand up to the You Ess Army! Why we’d blast their asses right out’n’a Gulf of America, and you heard that right! etc…
Which is to say, (1) you’re probably right, but (2) this is Trump-land we’re talking about, and such things as planning, analysis and learning from experience do not compute in that universe.
And yes I’m just spitballing, but at this point something like that wouldn’t surprise me.
Captain C
@Geminid:
And could probably bring it inside the US if they wanted to.
RevRick
@JML: I’m praying that Sherrill and Spanberger win their governor races in NJ and VA by 20 point blowouts, because that will absolutely freak out GOP in Congress and encourage a bunch to head for the exits. Anything to create conflict and butthurt in MAGA ranks is a good day for Democrats.
cmorenc
@They Call Me Noni: We complain about all the eligible folks who couldn’t be bothered to vote in 2024, but consider that most of them couldn’t be bothered to knowledgeably inform themselves either, and if they did somehow get prodded into showing up to vote, would be the kind of voter most likely to base their decision of whom to vote for on “vibes” rather than informed facts.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They’ve basically created this persona were they are cartoon super heroes out to stop the evil pedophiles.
Professor Bigfoot
@bbleh: TBH… there’s no doubt that the you-ess-army (snicker) could “whup th’ snot out of ‘em” in a straight up fight.
But that ain’t what they’ll get.
And make no mistake, if the Americans pull some shit like this, those “cartels” will have support from officers and NCOs of the Armada de los Estados Unidos de México, some of whom will have trained with and well know how the gringos operate.
The Yanquis will take casualties, and for what?
That’s ASIDE from absolutely destroying our relationship with our southern neighbor.
jimmiraybob
Der. It is so obvious what has happened. When Trump got the Covid-19 shot at Walter Reed, an Obama-Biden operative slipped in a syringe of time-activated RINO mind virus. Everyone knows that the deep-state CIA and FBI have been working on this for a long, long time. The program, named Operation Stop John Birch, was started under Eisenhower.
Man. I should have a podcast.
Baud
Not sure if this is true, but it sounds true.
Professor Bigfoot
@Captain C: They’d be utterly strategically incompetent if they didn’t.
They are not stupid.
RevRick
@BretH: Fox News may be trying to tamp down the criticism, but after years of getting MAGA into a frothing rage about elite liberal perverts, it’s gonna be hard to suppress the outrage.
RevRick
@cmorenc: Evidence suggests that they favored Trump by 4%. So, we should be glad that they stayed home.
Doc Sardonic
@Baud: NOT a good idea at all, but that is why Florida is lost for at least a generation more. Our state Democratic Party collectively doesn’t have access to even the one brain cell shared by orange tabby cats, it’s all old line consultants, hangers on and grifters that have been huffing their own farts since Lawton Chiles was in office. The reason this sounds sane to some people it makes the tent “bigger” . However, the Republican Party in Florida is smart enough to see this for what it is. A golden opportunity to pull a reverse California and make Democrats completely irrelevant in Florida.
NotoriousJRT
@Betty Cracker: My guess is that not everyone who is MAGA is a QDrop fiend, but every QDrop fiend is MAGA.
Doc Sardonic
@They Call Me Noni: For the Evangelical set, their preachers have told them that Trump is God’s chosen one, that statement for them is all they need to hear. If someone is “chosen by God” or “anointed by God”, that ends any argument to the contrary no matter how factual.
Kathleen
@danielx: Marc Elias has a similar observation/concern.
Anonymous At Work
I guess that this is as good an off-ramp as can be expected. The actual consequences of REAL-LIFE stuff don’t seem to resonate.
The people of Curtis, Nebraska, whose health clinic is closing because of the coming Medicare cuts (it is already losing money) are blaming the NON-PROFIT that runs the clinic and absolving Trump: (WARNING, WAPO LINK): washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/13/trump-tax-bill-medicaid-rural/
Kathleen
@rikyrah: I’m still trying to figure out their obsession with JFK/MLK assassination files. Plus JFK Jr and JFK in general. 60 years ago their ancestors printed ad of with picture of his head in the middle of a target and tag line “Wanted For Treason”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Mom: I don’t think we should discount that as a motive.
Baud
XeckyGilchrist
@Mr. Longform: This is my guess.
Geminid
@RevRick: These races will be worth following, I think, to observe Sherrill’s and Spanberger’s messaging– what issues they center and how they go about it. I’ve followed both women since they flipped Republican seats in 2018, and they impress me as very smart politicians.
I’ve gotten to see Spanberger more closely. While she has nice, engaging smile, my sense is that Abigail Spanberger is a ruthless woman. That is a quality I have come to appreciate.
Mikie Sherrill has the tougher race if only because her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli is a competent politician and New Jersey Republicans are hungry. New Jersey has trended their way the last two cycles and they seem to believe they have a chance.
Spanberger’s opponent is very mediocre, so her big challenge will be to help flip as many House of Delegates seats as she can.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: & @Doc Sardonic: Thanks, Baud. You could be right, Doc. At this point, I wonder what we have to lose? Nothing seems to change, ever, no matter what, and no national money is going to be invested because of lack of results.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Now I am going to have to google What does U.S. import from Russia?
What do they have that we want that we can’t get elsewhere?
The things this administration is making me care about!
Baud
@Doc Sardonic:
@Betty Cracker:
I prefer closed primaries, but that’s not the national trend. Is there something different about Florida that makes open primaries more problematic?
Doc Sardonic
@Betty Cracker: At this point, while I point out the potential bad outcomes, the Germans have bombed Pearl Harbor and it’s time to fuck up the Homecoming Parade.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Maybe, it’s not like getting a horny assed teen into bed is the hardest thing in the world. For one thing teenagers aren’t noted for their clear headed risk assessment. From what I’ve read the big deal was Epstien was kidnapping these dumb teens .
And just considered it; a bunch of scared teenage girls -the angst alone on that island would have driven a normal adult to suicided. Epistien and friends are some truly weird people.
p.a.
Here’s Fred Clark on the psychology (or more accurately ethics, lack of) of the various people invested in these panics, an old post using the “Proctor and Gamble worships Satan” panic as an example of the types of people involved and their mindsets.
patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2008/10/08/false-witnesses-2/
Ohio Mom
@Doc Sardonic: Are you sure you are not describing the Ohio Democratic Party?
Doc Sardonic
@Baud: Republicans switching to NPA in significant numbers (it’s been done before) to insure the weakest possible (Democratic) opposition candidate. It is a golden, Jerry, Golden, opportunity to rat fuck on a grand scale.
Baud
@Doc Sardonic:
Maybe FL Republicans are more ambitious, but that doesn’t seem to have happened on a widespread basis in other states with open primaries.
unrelatedwaffle
@rikyrah: a bunch of people are unbelievably bored with their lives and this pedophile coverup conspiracy fantasy, with a rich and famous/shadowy Elders of Zion throwback is the only thing that can capture their minds since they stopped having enough money for The National Enquirer once a week
JML
@MattF: the GOP will blame Hillary for shit 10 years after she’s dead. They’ve always been able to bash Hillary without consequences, the media always lets it go and frequently amplifies it, and there’s a small legion of people on the left that are always ready to pile on Hillary Clinton at the thinnest opportunity. She’s been treated more unfairly than any political figure in modern history, why should it stop now?
Baud
@unrelatedwaffle:
It’s dawning on me how much we’ve underestimated this phenomenon. And I’m not limiting it to the child abuse fanatics.
Mai Naem mobile
@danielx: this is what i was telling my sister yesterday. He’s going to do something completely crazy and dangerous. Maybe he’ll do a redo of PA on the grassy knoll.
Denali5
I can’t help but wonder if the pending case before the Supreme Court regarding Gislaine(spell) Maxwell’s 20 year sentence has brought the Epstein back into the public eye. She is the only who has gone to jail for her involvement with Epstein. The women have testified; who else should be brought to justice?
Betty Cracker
@unrelatedwaffle: Along those lines, there was a terrific “This American Life” series a while back about the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting and the nutty conspiracy theories about it. The series addressed the obsessed losers who harassed grieving Sandy Hook families because the losers were convinced the massacre was fake. One woman lost her family, her job and her house and ended up living in a garden shed due to her obsessive actions. It was absolutely mindboggling.
Belafon
@unrelatedwaffle:
I hear some fruit picking jobs are opening up.
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: For real. What a mess. I’ve not been impressed with them since not ever. Hamilton County Democratic Party now – that’s a whole different story. Maybe OD chair should shadow our chair, whom I trust is equal to our retired chair Gwen McFarland who was a miracle maker. A few years back one of the Ohio papers said Hamilton County was the brightest blue spot in Ohio.
JBWoodford
@They Call Me Noni: IMO, for the seriously conspiracy-minded folks out there J6 wasn’t a problem because in their minds the J6 folks were heroes fighting to keep their anti-pedophile crusader in office after the election was stolen. This story attacks their motivation.
That said, 47 may still weather this, but again IMO he’s lost enough cognition that it won’t be as easy for him to manage as it would’ve been four years ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I never liked Elmo.
Betty Cracker
@Doc Sardonic: Could they pick candidates more flawed than FL Dems find all by themselves? I guess, but damn!
Frodo
@Professor Bigfoot: “Armada” in Spanish is the Navy, the word you are looking from is “Ejercito”.
Princess
Here’s the grossest part. Rich powerful men didn’t stop procuring young girls for sex just because Epstein died. And the Florida Concentration Camp and others like it if they contain minors in the country without status or enforceable rights will become prime sites for sexual abuse and trafficking. Hinting that the Rapist Ephibophile Pedophile party is establishing the camps for that purpose may end up being near enough to truth.
NeenerNeener
I think you mean Les Wexner, founder of The Limited. The Fisher family started The Gap and may still own it. Wexner was tight with Epstein and there was some real estate exchanged between them but I don’t remember the details. The weird thing is that the word around Columbus, Ohio was that Wexner is gay. Maybe that’s just what he wanted us to believe.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Doc Sardonic: I wish some of our BJ Florida peeps ran for office. I feel like they couldn’t do worse than the current people, based on what you say.
Geminid ,
@Doc Sardonic: Virginia has open primaries because voters are not registered by party. I know people worry about strategic, “rat-fuvking” crossover voting but I have not seen it here. There was a likely opportunity in 2020 when Trump was unopposed on the Republican side. I remember Hew Hewitt and others urging Republicans to vote for Bernie Sander but was no notable surge in Sanders votes from Republican precincts.
It was the same with South Carolina that year. That state has a similar system and Hewitt and the others made similar appeals, but analysts found no substantial boost for Sanders. They did find an increase in Democratic primary votes from Republican precincts but it was for Biden.
My take on open primaries is that they increase interest in a party’s candidates among Independents. That has its good aspects and bad, but on balance I think open primaries are a good thing. Come November an Independent’s vote counts as much as a Democrat’s so I say, get ’em early.
But this Florida story makes me wonder: can a party open up its primaries on its own? I’d think that was the prerogative of the state’s legislature. But I guess maybe not in this case.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ohio Mom: Vodka and caviar.
Jeffro
how dare you call Winsome Earle-Sears “mediocre”??!?
no no no…”mediocre” won’t do
she’s BATSHIT NUTS
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Anonymous At Work: First comes anger, then bargaining. They’ll realize no one is coming to help them eventually, no matter what they try to do about it. Not sure what that will translate to politically.
Geminid ,
@Jeffro: Come November I’ll be calling her Lose-some Earle-Sears.
Anonymous At Work
@NeenerNeener: Thanks. It’s been a while. “The Limited” owned GAP and a few others such outlets. The HQ looked like it was a CIA military base. Les built New Albany and owned a lot of it, from what I understand, as a model colony/company town for the rotating executives. In hindsight, the rotating cast of people with indirect access to him seems suspicious. Also, he and Dennis Hastert were big boosters of the children’s hospital (there WAS a part that WAS named for the Wexners…).
Hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Anonymous At Work
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: That’s the problem. Choices on the ballot are binary: #2 vote-getter vs. everyone else. Also, the voting itself is binary: vote or not vote.
So, the voters there can’t vote 25% for the Independent senate candidate to restore Medicare/health center and 75% for the Republican who will make other people suffer.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: There are *so many* stories about Trump raping or sexually assaulting various people– the main thing that’s kept him from getting convicted (of that) is statute of limitations and his ability to intimidate victims long enough to run out the clock. But in the E. Jean Carroll case, a jury did determine to the civil “preponderance of evidence” standard that he probably did it. It’s a pattern.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
you’re a Snuffleupagus man, aren’t you?
Matt McIrvin
@Steve in the ATL: Snuffleupagus doesn’t exi–
Omnes Omnibus
@Anonymous At Work: New Albany is very Stepford.
Harrison Wesley
@Ohio Mom: What does Russia have that we want? Trump Tower Moscow.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid ,: It seems to be that trollish crossover voting where you vote for the worst candidate on purpose is a thing that people like to urge other people to do a lot, but what really *happens* more often is the opposite–crossover voting where you vote against the primary candidate for the other party who you hate the most, because the contest on your side is uncontested or uninspiring.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: I’ve seen leftists fretting about the possibility of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2028.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Of the Sesame Street muppets, I like Grover. But Animal is the best muppet over all.
Doc Sardonic
@Geminid ,: I think, but am not 100% certain, that Florida follows the federal model and while the State conducts the election the party dictates the primary rules. To have completely open primaries like Virginia would require legislative action, because you have to declare a party or declare NPA, when you register to vote.
Harrison Wesley
@Betty Cracker: I had hoped Nikki Fried would change things for the better. Guess I should stick with Manatee County politics.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Animal is AbFab, tis true, but Pepe the Shrimp bears the bell away in Muppet fabulosity.
Noskilz
I’m happy to enjoy the turmoil amongst the trumplings for as long as it lasts.
Think it is mostly about being promised for years that all the loose ends in this purported pedophile cabal would be named, shamed, and imprisoned, and now that emotional payoff has been crushed by their supposed savior.
Maybe it won’t last, but a lot of them – including MAGA influencers – seem genuinely angry about this. His other misdeeds mostly involved those they didn’t care about, but now he is disappointing them personally.
Angry enough to do what exactly is something elese – but staying home or voting for the America Party out of spite next election seems like it would be something that might be popular among disappointed MAGAts feeling like holding a grudge.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s paid for things. Not that he’s seemingly ever paid full price or for anything rational but still he’s paid. Want to know how I say that? Look at how many times he’s spent a lot of money, far more than most of us would ever spend in 5 lifetimes (maybe a lot more than 5) and had to ask for more from his parents or others. To me it seems he really doesn’t understand money, at least not in the way that most people do. He maybe understands in the way that overly wealthy, didn’t earn the vast majority of their money people do. For most people money is earned, even if they get paid enormous amounts. Likely not back breaking work mind you but work none the less. He’s never done that.
RevRick
@Geminid: Both of the GOP candidates have thoroughly attached themselves to Trump and his Big, Ugly Abomination. Trump’s gains in NJ was fueled by his winning a bigger chunk of the Hispanic vote. I doubt those voters want mini-me Trump.
Professor Bigfoot
@Frodo: So my last spanish class was 55 years ago. ;)
¡Mil gracias!
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Respectfully agree to disagree.
Marc
@Princess: The funny part is that with present technology, it’s not all that hard or time consuming to fake a convincing enough furtive cellphone video visit to a Florida concentration camp, lead by whatever cast of characters one desires, observing and perhaps participating in the activities.
Captain C
@Jeffro:
Winsome Earle-Sears sounds like she should be one of Babs Jansen‘s hangers-on.
NeenerNeener
That he was buddies with Dennis Hastert makes the gay rumors a bit more believable, in spite of the wife he acquired late in life and the multiple children he spawned with her. That…and the time I saw him walk out of a Henri Bendel store dressed like Daisy Mae Clampett, in cargo shorts and a blouse tied under his moobs.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: Ahem.
I present to you, The Swedish Chef!
Betty Cracker
@Harrison Wesley: Me too, but in fairness, it would be a heavy lift for anyone.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: She’s been in what, 2 years? Rebuilding the Florida Democratic Party is going to take a decade at least.
Betty
@Jeffro: I hear she’s ready to talk. In exchange for? A full pardon once she gets the story right.
Anyway
Doesn’t add much confidence to the places you hang out at…the fact that you would repeat it … smh
NeenerNeener
@NeenerNeener: Whoops, that’s Ellie Mae Clampett. Daisy Mae was L’il Abner.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Ha! Grover was my guess. I didn’t think of Animal but sure.
No love for Rowlf?
Betty
@Baud: Soon being in 50 days.
Miss Bianca
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Fozzie Bear.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Miss Bianca: there’s a duet I love.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
She might but she’s getting up there in age, not that far but far enough that I’d bet (only loose change…) that she won’t. Now shitforbrains doesn’t seemingly spent much time and effort at the job, but then she’s a person that seems to work hard at whatever she attempts and she’s 77 yrs old and it’s 3 years till the next election. I’d say, as someone not at all that much younger than her that I’d bet she won’t. She’d be far, far, far, far better than who is in that job now, but does she really want the job that badly? She’s seen the job up close so has an understanding far ahead of most of us of how much effort is required and I just wonder if it’s worth it? It wouldn’t be for me.
Bill Arnold
@Ohio Mom:
I looked that up soon as it came up a month or three ago. Imports from Russia to the USA were about $3 billion in 2024. Surprised that so many people on bsky didn’t even think to search, and asserted zero trade.
U.S. total goods trade with Russia were an estimated $3.5 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million, down 12.3 percent ($73.5 million) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $3.0 billion in 2024, down 34.2 percent ($1.6 billion) from 2023. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Russia was $2.5 billion in 2024, a 37.5 percent decrease ($1.5 billion) over 2023.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: Many muppets are great, but the greatest of them is Animal.
unrelatedwaffle
@Betty Cracker: blows my mind that we have 100+ years of cinema, TV, thousands of years of literature, comics, music, seemingly infinite options for hobbying, sports, various fun activities at low or no cost, with billions of people on the internet happy to teach anyone the basics for free, and people are still doing the absolute most toxic and time-wasting shit with their one precious life
Martin
Josh has a post up on this with the following graph:
And I think this is correct. I go back to a video from 4 years ago which I find to be quite helpful in providing ways of thinking about a lot of this.
A lot of these reactionary movements (like MAGA) are to a large degree contending with a world that has gotten too complicated for them to navigate. We saw that too in the 60s where the easy B&W of USSR vs US got a lot more complex once Cuba and Vietnam entered the picture, when white voters were being demanded to think about black citizens, women were demanding they be thought of as well, and so on. The relatively simple Leave It To Beaver 50s had gotten real messy and they needed it simple again.
Same thing now – almost nobody understands the financial crisis that nearly destroyed the economy, even years later – and that really does seem to be the big inflection point on the right – when they turned away from banks and started to turn away from corporations overall, BLM complicated it more, Covid was almost as bad as the financial crisis – where did this thing come from, how do we see these coming, how do we stop them – voters really don’t know any of those answers. And climate change and a bunch of other stuff like social media and everything being online – it’s too much to process, you can’t make a simple decision in life any longer. And like, I think we can sympathize with that – it does feel like too much to us as well.
So one way you simplify the world is to turn off the people who talk about it being complex, because if they shut up and I don’t need to listen to them, I can ignore that part of the complexity and decision making gets easier. I don’t need to think about how my decision affects climate change if I simply choose to believe climate change isn’t real. It’s not that I deny science, what’s the point of showing me the science if I don’t have the bandwidth to process it? So the task becomes to shut these people up, and the best way to do that is to make them undeserving of being listened to. If they’re evil, nothing they say needs to be listened to, indeed, listening to them is probably falling into their trap. Who are the most evil people in our society? Pedophiles. So, if all of these people were pedophiles? We don’t have to listen to them, and we can convince everyone else to not listen to them either. And that’s a plausible thing to do because we already know Jeffrey Epstein exists. We because of Epstein know there are pedophiles among the elite, what if they were ALL pedophiles, except for the one elite willing to agree with us on this issue? And sure enough, that happened. Now they don’t need to listen to any Democrat on any issue – because they’re all pedophiles or covering up for the pedophiles. They don’t need to listen to any foreign leader either, and Trump, the one willing to agree with us, will navigate these waters on our behalf telling us who we can and can’t trust. The financial crisis and Covid and BLM can all be manufactured distractions to keep us from uncovering them being pedophiles. The world is simple again – Trump is good, Democrats and elites are evil. I don’t need to evaluate my decisions. That’s why people are attracted to authoritarianism – authoritarians promise certainty. If you’re already struggling with complexity, you’ll likely never think far enough into the experiment to see what the tradeoff will be.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s all totally stupid, but we know people work this way. We ALL work this way, it just manifests differently. There is a degree of ‘don’t worry about nutrition, just eat your Wheaties’ that we all engage in. It’s just the right built this whole project around it and cranked it up to 11, but it’s kind of all built around Epstein as the catalyst and the current moment is breaking the clean wall of good vs evil. If Trump isn’t ‘the one’ who was uncorrupted by Epstein (the ludicrousness of that idea is just wild) then he can’t be trusted on all of that other stuff either, because his moral clarity on tariffs and immigration all derives from his position that the Epstein conspiracy was correct.
That doesn’t mean these voters (which are just a subset of the right) don’t still hold anti-immigrant views, but it does mean they have to evaluate Trumps decisions because their faith is shaken, which they didn’t have to do before, and that means they become open to criticism of Trump, probably not from the left, but probably from more moderate parts of the right. Once that spell breaks, my guess is that they disappear from politics because it returns to it’s previous state of being too complex for them to navigate, they take the ‘both sides are evil’ stance and they return to be nonvoters. (There is a subset of the left that is also conspiratorially minded and has the same view about the parties, there was just no project to organize around so they’re not a coalition, just a bunch of lost entities.)
This might be the thing that wins the midterms for Democrats not because we win over a single voter, but because this group, which is the most reliable group for the GOP right now just completely disengages.
WTFGhost
Oh, no… that would be extremely difficult. Remember, people are going to want to see official reports, proper FBI investigation records, that sort of thing. After all, this is THE PRESIDENT and he can declassify anything. So there shouldn’t be any missing links.
If Bondi and Patel hadn’t sworn they had the physical lists, in their possession, they’d have an easier time with it, but, they really had to pull the cartoon villain bit.
Will people get over it? Well, remember, tariffs are coming in a little over two weeks, and we’re in hurricane season. With the grace and competence Trump has shown so far, I think we can expect more of the same.
Martin
@unrelatedwaffle: If my theory in the prior post is even ballpark in the right direction, more information make the problem worse for certain kinds of people. They need leadership, and authority, and clarity – not more complexity.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin:
For some of them, the project actually turned out to be MAGA itself, and they became the pro-Trump left of 2016. I always found those people utterly baffling but if you think of it that way, they’re not a big mystery.
WTFGhost
My reading of cult indoctrination is, people who join cults are often attracted by the eagerness and companionship of new people, all of whom tell you that you *are* right, every time you wish for something good and glorious to be true. Suddenly surrounded by love, and acceptance for the first time, people build an ID for themselves that’s cult-first.
It’s not a matter of being the kind of fool who says “the dictionary must have spelled it wrong, then!” and doesn’t want to believe they are wrong.
It’s a matter of being the kind of fool who says “but if Trump really is protecting Epstein, than all the love I’ve felt from my fellow MAGA folks is similarly in danger!” and they don’t want to believe it’s true. All those good feelings, all those good memories, they are in danger, horrible danger, and if Trump is not going to destroy The Left, then OMG, no more white babies, they’ll all be aborted, and boys and girls will be surgically transformed into one another and children will be raped, and schools will teach that George Washington was a serial killer with his axe, and his first victim was Amanda Cherrywood, so he just told his dad he chopped some cherrywood, including, oh, no, dad, your favorite cherry tree!
Or something like that. I’ve got enough of my own nightmares, I can’t be bothered tracking MAGA nightmares.
gvg
@rikyrah: I think…it’s become traditional. Have you ever noticed how tabloids repeat the same kinds of stories over and over? For some reason this market likes to wallow in the same story forever. I cannot predict which stories will become one of “those” but some do. JFK theories, Elizabeth Taylor marriages, Diana stories, Elvis is alive, bigfoot, JonBennet murder solutions and other rather sick stuff honestly. It’s a culture, and it’s not entirely conservative either although some conservative are also part of this. I am kind of a snob and think it’s low class, but there are people in most classes that think like this. The Epstein files and death I think have become part of this.
Trump is this kind of low class himself and usually maniulates them effortlessly because it’s how he thinks. TV is more real to him than real life. this time it’s picking on him, and he is getting a taste of what it’s like to be hunted by tabloids and kooks. I think this subclass is not really conservative, just very very not logical or analytical, driven by emotion. They followed Trump because he spoke their stupid language. They don’t have an ideology really.
I could be wrong though. I DON’T understand them. But I do think they aren’t quite the same set as other conservatives. Also the tabloids and the online influencers and whatnot don’t have quite the same ties and investment in the republican party as real GOP or regular consevatives. They may be writting about Epstein coverups when Trump is in the dustbin of history. In a way this just makes that more likely. Coverups are more interesting to these people than full disclosure.
gvg
@Baud: I prefer closed primaries too. And if you open primaries, only do it if ALL parties have open primaries.
I don’t trust republicans in this state. I would not be pleased with democratic leadership that did this either.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, that’s my theory as well. They didn’t hold ideological views so strongly that the appeal of a simplification of the world couldn’t overcome them.
I think the operative theory of horseshoe politics that is usually thrown about here is completely wrong, at least in terms of what drives it. It’s probably not too wrong in terms of the effects that result. Why someone from the left goes MAGA is really important for the party to understand so they can better hold their coalition together (to the degree that one believes the left should even be part of the coalition), but the effect of someone going MAGA is pretty much the same as if they were already predisposed to be on that team.
Ramona
@Mr. Longform: His cult will of course discount even overwhelming evidence of Trump’s involvement in Epstein’s crimes. What they cannot accept is a void where their fantasies used to be.
planetjanet
@Omnes Omnibus:
Absolutely true.
Ramona
@Kristine: Me to Magat: There’s no there there! There, there poor baby.
unrelatedwaffle
@Martin: bring back the career aptitude tests!!
Ramona
@Booger: vvery possible the virus comes in contact with a small cut in his mouth…
Ksmiami
@Doc Sardonic: honestly, with true accelerated global warming, Florida is not long for the world…
jayne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Heckuva job, Bondi?
Ramona
@Martin: This sounds right to me moreso because a blue-collar woman I know who faithfully votes GOP and watches Fox News but dislikes Trump once said years ago, “but things should be simple!”.
geg6
@gratuitous:
This is a dead thread but exactly. The bros in the manosphere are podcasting with actual tin foil hats on and just slamming Cheetolini and, even worse, mocking him. Just keep asking them the question as to what possible reason could he have for not making Bondi release the files. It really stops them in their tracks and you can see the wheels turn.
Kayla Rudbek
@Miss Bianca: at times, I am sorely tempted to accuse Coathanger Barrett, Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh of leaving their children to be prey for pedophiles (not saying that it’s true, but it’s statistically likely particularly considering their religious conservatism)
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: and if we keep on deporting military veterans, they will have excellent incentive to go work for the Mexican government or the cartels
Kayla Rudbek
@Geminid: Spanberger is a former US Postal Inspector and CIA, correct? So that’s where she honed her chops before going into politics…
Kayla Rudbek
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Betty and Adam would be awesome in office in my opinion
Paul in KY
@gene108: All those QANON-idiots went MAGA. I think the whole thing was done to make them Trumpites.
Paul in KY
@jimmiraybob: So that was it….
Paul in KY
@Baud: They watch TV and see all these stupid sitcoms & stuff & think their life should be like that & of course it’s not & that just bumms them out, etc. etc.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: That’s always been the one I liked the most too! Had forgotten what they called him.
Paul in KY
@Martin: Good points, but as long as he sticks it to the blahs and whatnot, they’ll follow him.