What will it take for MAGA to abandon Trump?
The Epstein matter provides a clue
In the first serious sign of the fragility of the movement Trump has built, the issues around the Epstein files have emerged as the one matter that Trump hasn’t been able to gloss over with a few well-placed social media posts.
Why is that?
The answer is completely fascinating I think, and it speaks to all the deepest issues about how a movement like MAGA springs into life in the first place and then maintains itself in the face of all opposition.
I’ll get into those underlying reasons, but one matter we can’t overlook is that although the story around Epstein has been manipulated in the usual culture-war way by various rightwing groups, and has all the hallmarks of unreality that mark other Trump-related conspiracies, such as QAnon or the recent chemtrails nonsense, the fact remains that this story isn’t made up from whole cloth.
We shouldn’t forget this: Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell ran an actual…
