My apologies for starting another thread about Trump/Epstein, but I wasn’t quite sure where else to post it.
In numerous threads, many of us have expressed dismay and puzzlement over the seemingly iron grip Trump has over many of his supporters. We’ve seen Trump brazenly lie to them, even insult them, push for policies that will hurt them, and then of course he’s been convicted of felonies, found liable for sexual assault, the Trump organization itself found to have engaged in fraud, and there’s all the grifting with the bible, shoes, crypto, etc., etc. And yet he was re-elected in 2024.
There are plenty of theories as to why Trump continues to receive support. Admitting to yourself you were bamboozled is difficult even in the best of times because it’s embarrassing. If your social network is made up of Trump supporters, turning against him might alienate your friends and family. For some of these Trump supporters, being MAGA is a core part of their identity, and if they abandon that then what are they?
Trump’s hesitation at releasing anything about Epstein might provide his MAGA base with a way to leave while saving face. Many MAGA followers believed the Epstein list (whether it exists or not is irrelevant) would provide evidence of Democratic wrong doing and Trump promised for years to release it, and this represents a betrayal of their core belief that Trump was going to drain the swamp. Now MAGA can abandon Trump while telling themselves and others it’s because they can’t support someone who protects a pedophile.
Obviously this isn’t going to prevent Trump from serving the rest of his term. When he won the election, I accepted that he won it all. i.e. He won’t ever face any kind of penalty for his behavior, but at the very least he might have a difficult time accomplishing his goals if his base starts abandoning him.
His base isn’t going to abandon him. A month from now all of this is going to look about as silly as when everyone thought the Signal “scandal” was finally going to be the thing that ruined Trump.
And all the while P2025 rolls on, the loyalty purge continues, SCOTUS keeps chipping away at roadblocks, and the American people get a little more used to authoritarianism.
For a maga, it’s not just an issue of whether Trump is right or wrong. It’s an issue of whether the magas are right or wrong. For a maga, admitting Trump is wrong would also be having to admit that they’ve been wrong for the last ten years and all of the people who were telling them they were wrong were right. It would be admitting that they really are as stupid as everyone’s been saying.
This isn’t about defending Trump. This is about defending themselves.
His Epstein-obsessed followers recognizing that Trump has contempt for them (as “weaklings”, no less) should, logically, peel them away from MAGA.
Cults however do not operate on logic. They’ll find a way to keep believing, consoling themselves that Woke Democratic Transgender Great Resetters are so vile that they have no choice but to follow Trump off the cliff.
If it were phrased just right, maybe they could believe ‘I was right to support him all that time because he hadn’t shown his true colors. Now he has, and it would be right for me to abandon him now over this betrayal, and that doesn’t mean I was wrong before.’
However, anybody who was going to do that probably would have done it before now over one or more of the previous betrayals. So I don’t know that they will this time, either.
It wouldn’t surprise me if someone released a counterfeit client list with the names of Trump’s political opponents on it. Trump and his minions are not above this kind of subterfuge. Even an obvious forgery would create enough confusion and chaos to get the MAGAs back on his side.
Honorable? Seriously? No way for me. I will ignore their… transgressions and outright ignorance and stupidity.
Would you keep an eye on your neighbor that tried to destroy the neighborhood because he got a slap on wrist for it? Would you then think him an honorable person?
I have a brother in law that I like, that supports Trump. Seems like a very smart fellow, well spoken, CEO for an oil company. But I will never see him in the same light.
This, IMHO is WAY beyond getting scammed or fooled. We have all been there at some point in our lives. This is actively supporting the obvious conman, and frankly, Trump is not a good conman.
But, OK, they can use Epstein as a way out. Honorable? Hardly.
That’s my take as well. They may present as “honorable” to themselves and their fellow MAGAs, and I probably won’t actively call them out on it if they then sit down and shut up about it, but if they start up with their bullshit again, all bets are off.
Quitting their bullshit is probably the best we can hope for at this point. They won’t actively become better people, but they can at least stop acting like awful people. If this off-ramp allows that, I hope they take it.
There’s only one thing Trump’s base would abandon him for, and this isn’t it. The only possible “sin” Trump could commit would be to become a liberal. Short of that, he can, and will, get away with anything.
It’s a personality cult. Trump could adopt the political views of Bernie Sanders and MAGA would respond with, “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”
Well I think an important identity of the cult is that they’re all better than, and better off than, those not in the cult. I.e., liberals. If Trump adopted policies that helped, or failed to punish, those outside the cult, that would be a lot of cognitive dissonance to overcome.
I mean, they do? If Trump began loudly endorsing gay marriage, transgenderism, atheism, feminism, abortion, and criticizing Christianity, homeschooling and guns, they’d see a liberal in front of their eyes.
The fake list has been out for years. It originated from the Qanon sphere. It’s the reason why half the comments on every clip of Tom Hanks are people calling him a pedophile.
I chose the phrase because I started thinking of America’s attempt to find an honorable exit from Vietnam. Of course it was all baloney, it just provided Americans with psychological mechanism to accept that we’d been defeated. Epstein might provide some MAGA supporters the opportunity to change their tune on Trump without having to admit he’s lied to them about pretty much everything.
I feel the same way. I still have trouble accepting so many of my fellow Americans have embraced an autocrat. And I’m more than a little embarrassed the autocrat they embrace is such a weak, stupid man.
IIRC, Nixon was the only person seeking an honorable exit. Most Americans just wanted to drop the whole thing.
Presidential candidate George McClellan wanted an honorable exit by welcoming the South back into the Union, them keep their slaves. He only lost because the South wasn’t voting and the Northern Democrats were too divided on the issue.
“Freedom begins not when the slaves cannot bear their burden but when the masters cannot bear their shame” is a lovely viewpoint, but more realistically: stupidity got us here, and some sort of stupidity will take us away to somewhere else.
Exactly. He can’t understand that he did NOT take an IQ test. Because of that, there is no need for him to take an IQ test. The list goes on and on. Wanna talk tariffs? Wanna talk about your retirement accounts (Trump has hit me hard there)? When you have 33 years of good/reasonable/conservative performance, and then somebody pulls the plug on the economy… Well I have a good idea why my accounts are in a slump.
In Trumps world view, making a gain for himself is great. And hurting others raises him up a notch, so that is also a gain.