How the Epstein List Might Finally Topple Trump
He's played on his supporters' fears and now he's belittling them
Ah, the Epstein list. Nothing has gotten quite this much attention in a long time. Does it exist or not? I suspect it does (at least in some form). Many people disagree, but I suspect this will be the scandal that finally fractures the MAGA base.
Why do I think this time is different? Donald—and those closely aligned with him—drummed up quite a bit of fear about “the swamp” and child grooming. Now that fear may have—much like Frankenstein’s monster—finally escaped Trump’s control.
I believe that Trump and Trump-adjacent personalities made a serious mistake by cultivating various child-trafficking conspiracy theories for years. His followers really saw themselves and Trump as saviors; when he seemed to abandon them and their theories to align with the so-called “Deep State,” they were deeply shaken.
After all, when you campaign on “protecting girls” and “saving the children,” you’ll pick up followers who care about those issues (even if someone like me might think they care in a misguided way). I think it was a serious misstep on Trump’s part to ignore his supporters’ faith in him and then double down by attacking them.
In this piece, I’ll provide brief descriptions of each conspiracy theory so you can see how Trump used them to build fear. I’m certainly not claiming that any of these originated with Trump, but I think he knew how to leverage them. After all, his presidential candidacy took off due to his birther conspiracy theories about Obama.
So, let’s delve into this brief-but-sordid history to see how this house of cards might finally collapse.
Pizzagate
Like the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, Pizzagate likely shared a basis in the medieval blood libel theories of secretive and demonic “others” who abused and murdered children. In the blood libel theories, the others were Jews, who were falsely accused of ritual child murder.
In the case of Pizzagate, the internet played a significant role in the fast and efficient spread of this conspiracy theory during the 2016 presidential election. Here’s a brief summary of what seems to have happened: Anthony Weiner, a sex pest married to Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin, had sent unsolicited sexts to a few women. There were rumors, never substantiated as far as I know, that he had sexted a young teen. When the police seized his computer to investigate, they found some emails somehow related to the infamous Hillary Clinton email server controversy, which was already being heavily leveraged by the Trump campaign. Some sources on the internet falsely claimed that the emails linked Hillary Clinton to a child sex trafficking ring.
When the email account of her campaign chair, John Podesta, was also hacked, people claimed that they found more evidence of sex trafficking. This claim was quite far-fetched, as much of it centered on Podesta’s recipes and the idea that the recipes names and the ingredients were codes for children. According to Slate’s reporting, when citizen “investigators” couldn’t find the evidence they sought, they decided that “pizza” meant “girl” and “ice cream” meant “male sex worker.” In other words, they created the evidence that evaded them.
This culminated in the idea that a pizzeria in DC was a front for global child sex trafficking. From Slate:
“Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C. pizzeria that had hosted a Democratic fundraiser, was identified (also baselessly) as a headquarters for sex-ring activities. The conspiracy theory acquired a name, “Pizzagate.”
On Sunday, a man wielding an assault rifle entered Comet Ping Pong and opened fire. He said he was there to investigate Pizzagate. 4chan users are confident that the man is part of a false-flag operation being carried out by the establishment to discredit their investigation.”
I don’t believe Trump ever explicitly mentioned Pizzagate, but Trump supporter Alex Jones definitely helped spread the conspiracy theory. So did Michael Flynn Jr., the son of Trump’s then-National Security Advisor and a truly unhinged individual.
Pedogate
Thanks to Michael Flynn Jr. and others, when Pizzagate was debunked, it was quickly replaced with Pedogate. An Esquire article explains how this occurred:
“Over the months, Pizzagate has evolved into what believers call Pedogate. They claim the Pedogate conspiracy encompass all of government, which is part of the New World Order and teeming with pedophiles. This movement has been boosted on social media by Michael Flynn Jr., the son of General Michael Flynn who recently resigned as Donald Trump's national security advisor, and David Seaman, a former Jezebel intern and unpaid Huffington Post contributor turned conspiracy theorist.”
You can see how this theory intersected with Trump’s claims of a “swamp” and “deep state” that secretly runs the world. (And if you’re wrong about a child sex trafficking ring in a pizzeria basement, just make up related theories!)
Frazzledrip
I have no idea what this truly bizarre conspiracy theory is named after, and honestly, I don’t want to know. Regardless, theory gained prominence in 2018 with a revisionist take on Weiner’s emails. It’s pretty damn dark, and I don’t want to go into it, but if you’re interested, Snopes discredited it.
Again, it’s not something Trump discussed directly, but it was definitely Trump-adjacent. It spread quickly among right-wing influencers on YouTube and amplified belief in a seriously sinister global cabal apparently led by female Democrats.
QAnon
As The Atlantic reported in 2021, this is where the idea of MAGAs as “digital soldiers” fighting child sex trafficking alongside Trump really picked up speed. Reporter Kaitlin Tiffany visited a festival fundraiser for the anti-child-sex-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad and talked to some of the attendees there. A woman showed her the beginning of a video on her phone before pulling it away and wondering if she’d made a mistake by sharing it. As Tiffany writes:
I watched the rest of the video a few minutes later, on my own phone. “We are digital soldiers, fighting the greatest war the world has never seen,” the voice-over explained. The bad guys: Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, Lady Gaga, Chuck Schumer, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton. The good guys, a much smaller team: Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Barron Trump, Jesus, and an unidentified soldier holding a baby swaddled in an American flag. And, by implication, me, the viewer. “Our weapon is truth,” the voice-over continued as music swelled in the background. “We’ll never give up, even if we have to shake everyone awake one by one.”
Tiffany noticed how the term “digital soldier” intersected with QAnon theories that Trump was a lone hero fighting child sex trafficking and a hashtag that sprang up around, yep, Jeffrey Epstein. Tiffany writes:
“As outrageous as these allegations were, their timing may have made them sound less fantastical to some. They coincided with the release of popular documentaries about the real sex-trafficking crimes allegedly committed by Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who was arrested in July 2019 and committed suicide that August, and who was known for his wide circle of rich and famous acquaintances. (His death had set off a new slew of conspiracy theories.)
In this context, the suddenly ubiquitous #SaveTheChildren posts created the illusion of an organic movement rising up to confront a massive social problem. Americans who knew little about QAnon became heavily involved, and when QAnon moved on to other concerns—a stolen election, a poisonous vaccine—these volunteers stayed devoted to the cause of opposing child sex trafficking.”
As a side note, the #SaveTheChildren hashtag pulled many previously politically uninvolved suburban moms into the QAnon movement. I haven’t examined the suburban white women's vote before and after this hashtag, but it would be interesting to know if it tipped the scales in the 2020 or 2024 election.
Drag Queen Story Hour
It will never fail to astonish me that Chris Rufo, a former documentary filmmaker, rose to prominence so quickly. He started focusing on conservative issues around 2017 and first seemed to target drag queens around 2019. He claimed that drag queen story hour was a way to groom children (and tied it in a convoluted way to the queer BDSM scene that rose up in the 1960s in San Francisco). He expanded that argument to encompass any mention of LGBTQ+ issues in schools to “child grooming,” even if the teachers were doing something as innocuous as acknowledging that some children have gay parents.
I won’t go into this more, but I will say that I live around the corner from a NYC councilperson who had the Proud Boys protesting outside his home over this issue during the pandemic. It was quite frightening, especially since they screamed at him, calling him a pedophile and groomer in front of his young children.
Trans Sports Ban
This movement gained momentum under the tagline “Protect Girls.” While the main thrust (sorry, no pun intended) wasn’t sexual per se, there was an element of that; conservatives implied that trans people were using girls’ bathrooms to sexually molest cis girls and young women. However, it mostly twisted the promises of feminism, claiming that the few trans athletes (only ten in college sports, according to the NCAA) were more of a threat to women than conservative legislation like Dobbs, defunding Planned Parenthood, or shuttering rural maternity wards.
While this controversy wasn’t explicitly linked to sex trafficking, I think the tagline makes it clear that Trump supporters see themselves as the ones who are protecting the vulnerable—and I think that’s part of what is now undermining Trump.
Epstein Campaign Promises
Trump had started distancing himself from Epstein in 2019, saying that he “wasn’t a fan” of Epstein while implying that Bill Clinton was. The following year, he told reporter Jonathan Swan that Epstein could have committed suicide, but might have been murdered.
Now, if you see yourself as a “digital soldier” against child abuse, you can see why the Epstein files would get you amped up. Trump followers saw the Epstein case as the culmination of all their pet theories: the deep state, a cabal of evil Democrats, and powerful people who (literally) fed off children before sex trafficking them. Good times!
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to release the Epstein files, although his full quote wasn’t quite as decisive.
In June 2024, Trump was asked if he would release various files -- including the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassination files and the Epstein files -- during an interview with Fox News.
"Would you declassify the Epstein files?" Fox News' Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. Trump responded, "Yeah, yeah, I would."
That clip was circulated widely online, including by the Trump War Room -- the social media account of Trump's campaign operation. The account posted it to X with the caption: "President Trump says he will DECLASSIFY the 9/11 Files, JFK Files, and Epstein Files."
But Trump's full answer to the question wasn't shown until it played on Will Cain's radio show.
Trump went on to say in the exchange with Campos-Duffy: "I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly about the way he died. It'd be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one."
The Epstein Backlash
Trump and Trump-adjacent influencers really whipped up a frenzy around child sex trafficking and I believe they seriously misjudged his followers’ feelings on the matter. After rounds and rounds of conspiracy theories, MAGAs really do see themselves—and until recently, saw Trump—as the only ones who care enough to protect vulnerable children.
I’m sure many Trump supporters also believed that Democrats made up the bulk of the Epstein list and they were eager to see their earlier conspiracy theories validated. Trump played into this when five months ago, Bondi released giant “Epstein binders” to conservative influencers, promising even more bombshells to come, such as the full client list.
However, Bondi walked back that promise last week when she claimed the list didn’t exist, to the anger of many conservative influencers. The Trump administration also released a video of Epstein’s cell door, saying he wasn’t murdered—only to have metadata show that almost three minutes of the video was missing.
Since then, Trump has made more missteps, calling those who believe in the existence of the list “past supporters” who are “weaklings” who “believe the bullshit.” Trump and Trump-adjacent personalities have spent years exploiting fear around child trafficking to help create a cult of personality around the president and gain a political edge. Now that his supporters see that narrative falling apart, they’re quite distressed.
I’ll also point out that I’m not sure it’s totally coincidental that the tide seems to be turning just as Trump seems to be alienating and attacking Putin, a master of online manipulation. I have no proof, of course, but the timing is interesting.
Will Trump recover from this? Many people think he will, as he’s been a Teflon president. However, I’m not so sure. I think he’s made a rare misstep by denying years of conspiracy theories and doubling down by attacking his supporters. From comments I’ve seen online (highly unscientific, I know), his followers still believe there’s a global cabal—but now they suspect Trump may also be a part of it.
We’ll have to see what happens over the next few months, but I think this is the first real fissure in the MAGA movement.
Wow! Great summary and further proof that a great many folks in this country have lost their minds.