Why MAGA can’t let go of the “Epstein files”

For outsiders watching the intra-MAGA warfare over the mythical “Epstein files,” the entire situation may seem baffling. Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed client list is a fiction, dreamed up by conspiracy theorists who want to believe the infamous pedophile was also a world-class blackmail artist, even though the journalists who exposed the case have repeatedly denied that allegation. It’s weird that MAGA is so fixated on this. If such a list existed — and let me reiterate, it does not — there is one person whose name would almost certainly be near the top: Donald J. Trump.

Unlike many of the people accused of being on the list, Trump has repeatedly emphasized that he does not believe sexual violence is wrong, at least if rich white men do it. He bragged about assaulting women in the famous “Access Hollywood” tape. He used the word “fortunately” to describe “the last million years” when men, in his view, were universally allowed to assault women sexually. He was found liable for sexual assault by a civil jury, and reacted by blaming the victim, E. Jean Carroll, saying, “What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?”

Indeed, Trump goes out of his way to surround himself with men who have faced similar accusations, because, as New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg put it, “Putting them in charge proclaims that their values are now ascendant — power, aggression, hierarchy and leader-worship.”

Also, Trump and Epstein were close friends, as both repeatedly attested in public. If there were an “Epstein client list” — which there is not — it would be a slam-dunk prediction that Trump would be on it. Yet, the loudest voices expressing outrage at Attorney General Pam Bondi for not releasing the supposed Epstein files are also the biggest Trump fans out there. In all other circumstances, these folks would move heaven and earth to conceal or deny any reminders that Dear Leader was buddy-buddy with an infamous pedophile and sex trafficker. But what many of them understand, some consciously and some otherwise, is that the more popular disinformation and conspiracy theories become, the better the MAGA movement does. That’s true even when a given conspiracy theory would seems to implicate a right-wing hero, as in this case.

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On Tuesday, Sophia Tesfaye at Salon detailed the hilarious MAGA infighting that ensued after the Department of Justice used the holiday weekend to release a two-page memo debunking the two major Epstein conspiracy theories: that he had a “client list” he used for blackmail and that he was murdered. In reality, Epstein killed himself in jail, and there is no evidence that he kept detailed lists of co-conspirators for the purposes of blackmail or extortion. Almost immediately, a chorus of MAGA influencers began to accuse Bondi, along with FBI director Kash Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino, of staging a coverup.

The irony here is that it’s easy enough to believe that those three people are lying, because, like basically everyone in Trump’s orbit, they lie all the time about everything. They lied to the MAGA base for months about Epstein, promising a “truckload” of new information and insisting that they would expose a massive government coverup under previous administrations. One can almost sympathize with the conspiracists now. If Bondi and company were willing to lie then, why not keep on doing it? Bondi was a key player in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the 2020 election, so it’s not like she feels constrained by ethics or morality. But actually falsifying government documents in order to frame innocent people would involve a much higher level of complication and risk, which could pose a major barrier even for Bondi.

A vaguely more understandable conspiracy theory has emerged in more left-leaning spaces: Bondi is indeed suppressing the “Epstein list” — but doing so in order to protect Trump. This one is admittedly tougher to debunk, because it’s not implausible that she might do such a thing. But there are ample reasons to believe that Bondi is telling the truth for once, and there’s no client list. Reporters who have covered the Epstein story from the beginning say there’s no evidence for it. The prosecutors who put Epstein collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell in prison had four years under Joe Biden to prosecute Trump, if they’d had any evidence of his crimes. They clearly didn’t.

Mind you, there’s also common sense. Epstein was evil, but definitely not stupid. He likely understood the Stringer Bell rule against documenting your own criminal conspiracy. The blackmail story always felt like it was drawn from a grade-D crime movie made for basic cable, rather than real life. I get why MAGA voters might embrace that childish view of the world, but the rest of us should understand that real-life villains rarely detail their nefarious deeds in easy-to-read spreadsheets.

Still, the conspiracy theory that Bondi is covering for Trump amounts to catnip to a lot of liberals, who feel understandably aggrieved that MAGA gets to weaponize disinformation while the left is hamstrung by reality. Maybe it feels unfair that the GOP gets away with endlessly making stuff up, while killjoys in progressive spaces insist that lying is bad and we shouldn’t do it. If anyone deserves to be smeared with the “Epstein files” lies, surely it’s Trump, a man who casually accuses everyone else of heinous deeds, in an orgy of projection and flat-out lying.

I’m not here to tell folks that you shouldn’t lie because it’s naughty, or that Trump doesn’t deserve it. In a just world, he should certainly have to swallow the same poison he dishes out. No, the reason why it isn’t worth it to spread conspiracy theories is about strategy, not morality. Ultimately, misinformation always helps the right and hurts the left — even in cases like this, where it might feel like you’re scoring points for the good guys.

Authoritarianism thrives when truth doesn’t matter and when only power matters, along with the ability to spin a compelling narrative. The far right depends on a public audience that’s eager for simplistic, hyperbolic stories and is largely allergic to facts and nuance, especially when reality-based information harshes their vibe. Getting the public to go along with stripping people of human rights, gutting the economy and embracing attacks on science and medicine requires training people to prefer lies to truth. Even conspiracy theories that read as liberal or leftist end up feeding into the larger toxic atmosphere of lies and misinformation. That atmosphere can only nurture authoritarianism, not progressive change.

We can see this in the way “alternative health” practices, which used to be coded as hippie-ish and vaguely left-wing, have been completely absorbed by the MAGA movement. Once people became acclimated to believing false or unproven claims about herbal supplements or the benefits of organic food, they were ready to be radicalized with false claims about vaccines, birth control and other forms of medical intervention the right views as unacceptable. That same process also accounts for the way QAnon has absorbed conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination, which have become part of a package that now includes MAGA-friendly conspiracy theories about the “deep state” supposedly trying to assassinate Trump.

Given all that, it’s not surprising that some of the loudest and looniest of MAGA conspiracy theorists, like Alex Jones or Laura Loomer, won’t shut up about the “Epstein files,” even though keeping that narrative alive guarantees more photos floating around of Trump hanging out with Epstein back in the day. But even reminding people about our president’s deeply tarnished past friendships is worth it, to bad actors like Loomer and Jones, for raising the overall level of conspiracy-minded thinking in our society. They may even understand that convincing liberals to spread conspiracy theories about Trump and Epstein lowers the bar for this kind of behavior. “Both sides do it” is a powerful tool for those who want to reduce the value of truth all the way to zero and get more social permission to tell lies. That kind of debasement will always work better for the right than the left.