I must say, the Trump Administration has really stepped in it this time, particularly with its base, after the Department of Justice closed the case on the Jeffrey Epstein story and not only confirmed all the going narratives surrounding it, but also that an Epstein Client List didn’t exist.
In a rare twist, this latest controversy is more of a vicious internal MAGA dispute than it is a controversy of the broader body politic.
That fact isn’t really all that shocking, since most Americans accept every mainstream narrative, without scrutiny, that they are spoon-fed by the mainstream media without question.
However, the political right is far more skeptical of such narratives, especially when it comes to child sex rings and more traditional ideas of what overt evil looks like.
For a lot of right-wingers, Epstein embodied the epitome of everything that has always been wrong in America and was indicative of a disease that had long infected the country and needed rooting out.
Epstein was the ultimate combination of wealth, evil, elitism and unchallenged abuse by the powerful run amok.
So, when he was finally caught, imprisoned and later wound up dead in a prison cell, there was no doubt in the minds of those on the right that they had finally found that great unseen and unpunished evil they always knew existed.
It’s one of the primary reasons that so much conspiracy surrounds Epstein’s untimely death, and the reason that the terminally online right had so much hope that the Trump Administration would come in and finally expose and vindicate everything that they believed they already knew.
So when that didn’t happen, and it appeared that the administration and people it believed they could trust
in suddenly said, “there’s nothing to see here,” it set off a firestorm that immediately divided the MAGA base.
President Trump didn’t do himself any favors during a Tuesday cabinet meeting when he took offense to a reporter’s question about Epstein and the lack of a client list.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years,” Trump said. “Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time?”
This was perhaps the first time that the entirety of the MAGA base was truly taken aback by Trump’s dismissal of a question.
Many were incredulous and even furious that Trump would trivialize such an important topic that has dominated the right’s ecosphere for years.
Frankly I don’t blame them.
Because to answer Trump’s question, people are still talking Epstein because they’ve lived through and watched large scale conspiracies unfold right before their very eyes and were told they ought not believe their lying eyes.
But mostly, people are taking the administration to task specifically because the administration promised its base the flayed corpses of the guilty and have seemingly refused to deliver.
In the years prior to the lead up to the election, the Trump coalition gained power and momentum off the strength that the administration would deliver not just retribution, but also justice and vengeance.
It ran on the credibility that Democrats were the real degenerates that would never have the courage to truly expose the wicked players of the Epstein story and bring them to justice. When that never materialized, the base revolted, as they should have.
The most charitable thing you can say is that Attorney General Pam Bondi and the top Trump brass vastly over played their hand and grossly overpromised a result they weren’t sure they could deliver to help get elected.
And on that front, the best thing you can say about them is that they’re guilty of sensationalism and feeding us baloney.
The worst is that they’re in on the hustle and are protecting the evil, and their connections, that they promised to expose and destroy.
Republicans rose into prominence and gained new swaths of voters by courting the most conspiratorial narratives and people in the lead up to last year’s election.
It’s unacceptable in a world where we have watched the government consistently peddle lies and engineer social, mental and economic instability for its own ends.
You can’t look at the COVID-19 years, the Black Lives Matter hustle, or the intentional spread of DEI and LGBTQIA+ and then say to the MAGA base, “we’re the government, just trust us bro.”
So, when Trump puffs up his chest up and asks why people are still bothering him about Epstein, that’s why.
But then, he knows that. They all know that.
They just can’t close Pandora’s Box and pretend that nothing is amiss.
Not after Bondi’s promises of having the Epstein Client List on her desk.
Not after having right wing Twitter influencers at the White House, holding up folders that didn’t actually have new information in them.
Not after years of making claims that you’re morally superior to your political opponents only to fall short on one of the worst moral issues of the decade.
It’s a terrible look for the administration and one that makes me wonder what the future is going to look like for a Republican Party that’s supposed to be in opposition to leftism, elitism, ungodliness and all the evils that come with them all.
I was never one of those guys that believed that the future of the republic hinged on finding the Epstein Clients and hanging them all in public (though I wouldn’t shed a tear if they did).
But to see the administration’s attitude on this colossal messaging blunder has certainly tarnished their image in a way that the Democratic Party could never hope to.
Increasingly, it’s looking as if the only thing that can really salvage the adminis- tration’s reputation with its base is by letting heads roll, though based on Trump’s quick defense of his team, is something that probably won’t be seen.
Washington County native Arthur Howell is a staff writer at The Beacon. He can be reached via email at arthur@roanokebeacon.com.