MAGA continues to reel from Trump's Epstein betrayal

MAGA continues to reel from Trump’s Epstein betrayal
A movement founded on conspiracy theories wonders if the president is leading one of his own

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published July 14, 2025 9:15AM (EDT)


(Salon) 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 probably best to resist that temptation, at least for the moment. Over the years, there have been so many instances that felt as if they had to be the beginning of the end, and they all ended up being false alarms. In each case, 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.

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The conspiracy theories around this case have become a MAGA obsession, with activists and influencers on the right raising doubts about how Epstein died. Trump, who always has an ear to the ground, picked up on their fervor, and his campaign’s promise to thoroughly investigate the case was believed by his base to be one of the most important he made. Funnily enough, he never seemed that eager to talk about it. In a November 2024 interview with Fox News, he hesitated when asked about releasing the files.

Trump was president during the federal case 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 released. (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 wanted to see. They believed the assurances of Trump’s most fervent MAGA influencers that, if elected to serve a second term, he would expose a vast conspiracy.

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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 most loyal influencers, including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News, were hostile. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/14/maga-continues-to-reel-from-trumps-epstein-betrayal/