Three commentators recently discussed the ongoing furor demanding the release of The Epstein Files* in ways that brought each of them closer to understanding the essential importance of Satanic baby-killers in American life. Closer, but still not quite there.
I want to come back to these to unpack what each gets right and not-quite-right, but for now let’s just summarize their observations.
Conservative pundit David French took part in an MSNBC panel discussion on Donald Trump’s frustration with his supporters‘ continued interest in the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. French, who was a lifelong Republican and white evangelical before being forced out of both tribes for his opposition to Trump, called on his intimate experience with both of those movements to try to explain why this subject was different for Trump supporters. The following is my pause-button-type-it-up transcript of French’s remarks in the video linked above:
But this is different. This is more than just anger at the elites. This is a very specific complaint that is deeply felt and very dark that is in MAGA. If you spend much time in MAGA circles, you will encounter a lot of people who it’s not just that they think the elites are out to get them, they think that the elites are covering a global pedophile ring, that America is run by pedophiles. Now, the extreme version of that is the QAnon, but the Epstein controversy is part and parcel of this. And so in evangelical culture you’ll have movies that make giant amounts of money about child trafficking. “Child trafficking” are words that you hear constantly in parts of the right. There is this conviction that child trafficking is happening all over the United States of America, often directed by elites.
And if you believe that about people, and you believe the Democrats are doing that, for example, you’re going to wrap both arms around the guy that you think is gonna stop it. And that’s what they think about Donald Trump. And that’s what they’ve thought about Donald Trump from the beginning, which to all of us sounds really odd because Donald Trump was Epstein’s friend, for crying out loud, Donald Trump has a history of sexual misconduct. But this is core. This is fundamental to why some of these people are even with Trump in the first place.
That’s congruent with what Cheryl Rofer wrote at Lawyers, Guns & Money about how “It’s a QAnon Problem“:
There are at least two ways to look at the situation: 1) From a relatively normie logic in which most people agree that sex trafficking children is evil; and 2) From a MAGA/ QAnon perspective, which adds a great deal to the normie logic. The second is important for understanding, and perhaps using, what is happening.
QAnon surfaced for most of us with PizzaGate, when a guy attacked a Washington pizza parlor looking for the catacombs in which children were being tortured. There were no catacombs and no torture. Here’s a summary of that. Some people still believe that that guy had it right.
The general QAnon idea is that people in power kidnap children to harvest adrenochrome to keep themselves young. Pedophilia seems to be part of it too. You can probably find many variations, but it’s basically the same story as the antisemitic blood libel. These horrible people are so depraved that they torture children.
Somewhere along the way, Epstein was incorporated into the story. He trafficked children for sex and interacted with many powerful people and thus fit into the existing narrative. Trump, ever sensitive to his audiences, promised that all would be revealed and implied that the powerful people that QAnon pointed at were indeed part of the conspiracy. All the usual objects of hate, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Within QAnon, this elevated Trump to savior. He would reveal the pedophiles. There would be trials and executions. This was called “The Storm.” It went further than what Trump said, but he didn’t disavow any of it – they were his supporters, after all.
The QAnon faction has been estimated at a third of Trump’s support. That’s a lot, and milder versions of these ideas undoubtedly float into the consciousness of less-committed followers and voters.
And finally here is Josh Marshall, nudging things forward slightly by addressing the question that French and Rofer don’t: Why do Trump’s supporters need to believe that their political oppoents are, as Rofer puts it “horrible people … so depraved that they torture children”? His post — “Understanding MAGA’s Obsession With Pedophilia and No Other Sex Crimes” — also agrees with French that “this is different.” And Marshall thinks it is different, in part, because it gives Trump’s supporters license for unchecked vengeance:
At a basic level, that obsession has nothing to do with pedophilia as a thing in itself — not as most of us might understand it.
One of the most telling aspects of this MAGA obsession is the focus on the punishment of the “elites” who are behind it. At a basic level, the victims never really take center stage. And that is the heart of it. In the MAGA world, pedophilia isn’t a crime or abuse that needs to be stopped. It is more a legitimating tool which provides a license for cleansing acts of retributive violence and revenge. This is what’s at the end of the story in every far-right/MAGA conspiracy: a wave of eliminationist, cleansing violence led by someone like Trump in which the bad guys, the liberals, the Democrats, the globalist elites, etc etc are wiped out. And that’s why whether it’s Pizzagate, QAnon or the more outlandish versions of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories, they always keep coming back to pedophilia. Because pedophilia summons a level of disgust, anger and revulsion that makes the perpetrators seem uniquely inhuman, less than human, people against whom total violence is acceptable and necessary. In other words, these conspiracy theories are systems of thought that provide sanction and legitimation for what you want to do to your enemies. They’re about the enemies. The role of pedophilia in these stories is just a means to an end, making what you want to do with your enemies okay. …
Of course there are very real pedophiles. There are very real sex traffickers. Jeffrey Epstein was one of them. And any actual accomplice or co-conspirator should be held to account today. But we shouldn’t confuse that reality with the ideational world of the MAGA pedophile conspiracy theories. There’s some overlap. But they’re mainly just different.
Vengeance is, indeed, a part of the “MAGA pedophile conspiracy theories” and of the “child trafficking” fantasies and of all of the endless, very slight variations on the ancient blood libel.
But it’s less about vengeance than it is about innocence — about the need to believe that we are innocent, that we are good.
That is what every form of Satanic baby-killerism is ultimately about: the need to believe that you are a good person, no matter what you do.
* We should note that there is not actually one thing titled “The Epstein Files.”
What this refers to, in media shorthand and in the public understanding, is all of the information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and connections and co-conspirators and accomplices that has not yet been made public. Please note that the word “co-conspirators” there does not refer to some imagined conspiracy theory. That is, rather, the language from Epstein’s original plea deal, as Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown summarized back in 2018:
The pact required Epstein to plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court. Epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. But even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators’’ who were also involved in Epstein’s crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement, leaving it open to interpretation whether it possibly referred to other influential people who were having sex with underage girls at Epstein’s various homes or on his plane.
That was the plea deal negotiated in 2007-2008, during the Bush administration. At that time, Epstein had a home in Manhattan and another in Palm Beach, Florida (just like his “pal”), but he hadn’t yet purchased the two private islands in the Caribbean.
Legal YouTuber Devin Stone provides a useful timeline in this video, “The Epstein File Fiasco,” which does a good job explaining what that “file” is and what it isn’t, what legal and official records actually exist whether in the hands of law enforcement or due to depositions in multiple civil suits, and why some of those records need to remain private for the sake of Epstein’s hundreds of young victims.
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