One of the biggest risks for the survival of any cult is when the leader starts making promises he can’t keep. Doomsday prophets can get a few predictions wrong, but there are only so many times one can delay the apocalypse, reschedule the messiah’s second coming or postpone the spaceship before suspicions rise and sceptics start to leave. In the best-case scenarios, loyalty to the leader dissolves before his (and it’s almost always his) familiar unravelling occurs – because then cults seem to inevitably devolve into drugs and child brides and weapon stockpiles and mass suicides. For those who want to see cult followers break free, it helps to nurture any seeds of doubt rather than jump to admonishment about how they should have known better.
We should keep these lessons in mind as some Maga loyalists are now wondering why Donald Trump hasn’t released the long-promised Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump has for years now said he will drain the swamp, stoking suspicions about powerful, shadowy figures conspiring against the American people and their could-be saviour (himself). For reasons I will not pretend to understand, sex-trafficked children are core to Maga conspiracy theories, including QAnon. And so when Jeffrey Epstein, who had connections to some of the world’s most powerful men and was accused of sex trafficking underage girls, died in prison in 2019 under odd circumstances in what investigators said was a suicide, well – it’s not hard to see why the case was absolute conspiracy-bait. Trump and many high-profile members of his administration were happy to take advantage of their followers’ fears by telling them the Epstein case was an epic coverup, probably protecting various high-profile Democrats. They promised to dedicate significant resources to the Epstein case files, and to finally reveal the truth.
A list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, attorney general Pam Bondi said not so long ago, is “sitting on my desk right now to review”. Before he was Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that Epstein’s “black book” was “under direct control of the director of the FBI”. But just a few days ago Bondi’s Department of Justice and Patel’s FBI released a statement saying that, in fact, there was no client list or black book, that they wouldn’t be releasing much else about Epstein, and that everyone should move along. Given that Maga followers have repeatedly done whatever Trump asked and have denied obvious wrongdoing happening before their eyes, one can’t really blame the administration for assuming they could guide their flock away from this potential quagmire as well.
They were spectacularly wrong.
This administration lies all the time; its members lie so often that it’s hard for fact checkers to keep up. Many people outside of the Maga-verse remain confused about how such a blatantly dishonest group of painfully unqualified people have not only weaselled their way into power, but enjoy the obsessive devotion of millions of Americans who are convinced that Trump and his lackeys are the answer to sleaze and corruption in Washington, not the ones taking both to new heights. The truth is that Maga devotees exist largely in the closed information universes of Fox News, One America News Network, Newsmax, right-wing podcasts, and their own tightly tailored social media algorithms, all of which hammer home the point that the mainstream media is one of many deadly enemies – and that enemies will lie in order to vilify Trump.
But these same outlets have also spent years frothing over the admittedly extremely fishy Epstein case. They have turned the Epstein story into ground zero of conspiracy theories about a global cabal of paedophiles that extends from the British royal family to DC pizza parlours, and positioned Trump as the hero who would finally liberate the trafficked children, expose their abusers and save the republic from the depraved elite.
Much of this is very obviously nuts. But some of the Epstein-specific questions do seem legitimate. How did Epstein amass such wealth and influence? How was he able to commit suicide despite being not only on suicide watch, but one of the most famous inmates on the planet? The Department of Justice released prison surveillance footage of the night Epstein died but it has only raised more questions. How is it that not only was no one apparently watching him, but the relevant security cameras seem to have malfunctioned at the critical moments? And now: what information is in the Epstein files that turned the Attorney General and the FBI director from people who declared that a nation-changing scandal was afoot into those who released a neutered memo concluding that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” in the case?
What might have turned the president from a man who has encouraged Epstein conspiracy theories and into a person who now seems to have Epstein amnesia? “Let’s not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” the president implored on Truth Social.
Except that Maga has spent years caring about Jeffrey Epstein very much. Over the weekend, some of Maga’s most influential activists and talking heads gathered at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa Bay, Florida. When Fox News host Laura Ingraham took the stage, she asked audience members, “How many of you are satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation?” The crowd booed. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was even more direct: “The fact that the US government, the one that I voted for, refused to take my question seriously and instead said ‘Case closed. Shut up, conspiracy theorist’ was too much for me,” he said. “And I don’t think the rest of us should be satisfied with that.”
Democrats have an incredible opportunity here to sow more doubts among these burgeoning doubtful. Some are starting: California representative Ro Khanna attached an amendment to Republican-supported cryptocurrency and defence spending legislation that would have required the Department of Justice to release all their files on Epstein; Republicans blocked it, practically handing Democrats a pre-written midterm ad script. Other Democrats should similarly push Republicans to answer for the Epstein secrecy, and use this moment to encourage the growing chorus of questions. Right now, the ire is mostly aimed at Bondi, and Democrats shouldn’t overplay their hand by expecting this to be the moment that Maga loyalists suddenly see their emperor stark naked. But liberals should publicly note: Trump is the President of the United States, his team works in his service, and he seems awfully eager for the Epstein files to go away. Why might that be?
Are there other instances of inexplicable Trump behaviour that deserve a second look? Maybe accepting a new luxury jet to be used as Air Force One and then a personal plane, not from domestic manufacturers, but from Qatar? These would be good questions for Democrats to raise when, say, they appear on any Fox News show or conservative podcasts. Regular real-world liberals can do the same in personal conversations with Maga relatives or acquaintances. The key isn’t to rant about Trump’s corruption and how his administration is the swamp; it’s to puncture the echo chamber, and seed doubts that conservatives can see repeated in conservative media and among their conservative cohort.
Powerful cults rarely see a mass exodus of followers even after a big promised event fails to take place. But America doesn’t need Maga to fall apart entirely; we just need enough followers to come to their senses to turn Trump’s base from GOP mainstream to laughingstock fringe – or at least enough to allow Democrats to trounce Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. Trump gained popularity by appealing to the angry, the resentful and the paranoid. He spoke to them in the language of conspiracy and coverup. His followers are suspicious of nearly all of those in power, except, of course, Trump himself. How satisfying it will be when more of them start to realise that the man who promised to drain the swamp is actually the king of it.
[Further reading: The plot against Zohran Mamdani]
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