One of the building blocks of the Trump electoral base was conspiracy theories. Trump was adept at painting himself as a hero who would address whatever insanity the fridge believed. One conspiracy theory involved child sexual trafficking by prominent politicians: QAnon. QAnon believed that there was a cabal of powerful elite who abused and murdered children in Satanic rituals and drank their blood in order to stay young forever. This wasn't all that they believed; they also thought the government was using chemtrails to control the weather; but child abuse was their main drumbeat. This kind of belief wasn't new: in the Middle Ages Jews were accused of murdering children for Passover, or the Satanic panic in the eighties. QAnon followers thought that Trump had been recruited to expose the deep state pedophile conspiracy that they were convinced was running things behind the scenes. The incident where a QAnon cultist fired shots in a pizza restaurant because he believed that Hillary Clinton operated a pedophile ring in the basement (in a building with no basement) is an example of someone who took this all seriously. The possibility that child abuse was being covered up wasn't that unbelievable, since it sometimes happened - for example the long history of the Catholic Church's cover-up of child abuse. See the reprint of a transcript of an interview about this subject: "The Perfect Storm"
Not every Trump supporter was caught up in QAnon. Some others accepted the basic premise without directly listening to "Q" as they posted on social media. Others just folded it into their overall cheerleading of Trump. But for a core of true believers, this was the main reason they started following Trump and the possibility that he no longer thought the pedophile ring worth his time was seen as a betrayal. For those deep in the conspiracy, the Jeffrey Epstein case became a symbol of the reality of their belief, evidence that it was really taking place. They remained confident that Trump would expose those responsible for it all, including making public Epstein's "client list". Even as far back as in 2015 Trump suggested that Bill Clinton was involved in Epstein's sex trafficking, confirming for some QAnon conspiracists that Democrats were deep into the whole scheme. One of Trump's campaign in 2024 promises was that he would release the Epstein files, suggesting that his political enemies were part of it. (Federal court orders prohibited the files from the Epstein investigation from being made public, which is why it had not been released under Biden's term or Trump first term)
In early Trump’s second term he must have decided that he didn't need to pander to the tinfoil hat part of his base, and began to brush off questions about the Epstein files that he had promised to release the files. He even attacked his own supporters, insulting them:
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bullshit” hook, line, and sinker, They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore! Thank you for your attention to this matter,”
Not only did Trump offend his own people, but Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that there really wasn't anything there, and that there was no client list after saying that one was on her desk. I'm not going to suggest that Democrats and other Trump opponents didn't also push for the release of the Epstein files, including the theoretical client list. Many people pointed to the multiple photos of Trump and Epstein together, just as Trump pointed to the multiple mentions of Bill Clinton in the records previously made public. But Trump is the one who continually brought it up and dangled the possibility of transparency for those who saw it as a major issue.
The fallout from all this spawned several different Trump rationales. One was that Trump supporters expressing Trump's betrayal on this subject proved that they weren't a cult and that anyone who thought so was simply suffering "Trump Derangement Syndrome". I think that this could go two different ways. One, which I think is the most likely, is that the majority of Trumpists will eventually fall into line and their criticism will fade. They will create rationales whereby Trump really isn't really betraying them, how he hasn't really decided that this is no longer an important issue, and how it's the Democrats who are really the ones who don't want the files released. This is already happening. Despite Trump mocking of those who want the files put out there, how his AG has announced that it's a "nothing burger", the fact that he changed course and is now asking for the files to be unsealed is suddenly seen as transparency. I read someone claiming that the House Oversight Committee subpoenaing the files by a bipartisan vote is somehow "punking" the Democrats, as if Trump, who barely understands checkers, is a three dimensional chess master.
The second possibility is that Trump supporters will abandon Trump. If this happens, it won't be all of them, and it certainly won't be a majority. If it happens at all it will be the ones who are the true tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nuts who made this their major, if not only, reason for following Trump. What most people don't understand is that cult members sometimes leave their cults. They do so for various reasons. Everyone has a breaking point. Sometimes they split off into an offshoot, sometimes they're deprogrammed, sometimes something simply causes them to decide that it's not worth it anymore. I was in a cult for decades. Until I wasn't. I know many other people who also were in...until they weren't. Being in a cult doesn't make one a zombie who is programmed like a robot. A cult member made a decision to join a cult, and makes a decision every day to stay in that cult. They cede, however, some of their critical thinking and decision making skills to the cult leader, rationalizing their decision to stay in the cult no matter what. They chose to interpret events in ways that confirm what the cult leader says. Despite all of that, cult members leave their cults every day and Trump cultists sometimes abandon their devotion to Trump.
I don't know what new information about Epstein's depredations is revealed. I don't know who was involved and I don't we ever will know. But Trump's followers are no less a cult for questioning him...they're already backpedaling.
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