Donald Trump wants MAGA cult to move on from the Epstein Fles obsession but his conspiracy theorists say "not so fast"!

Echo opinion essay by Amanda Marcotte, published in Salon.com and in YahooNews.com

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-doesn-t-realize-why-104539770.html

Donald Trump tried to wave the MAGA base off the growing clamor to release the full case file of infamous sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a close friend of Trump’s who evaded trial in 2019 by killing himself in jail. The president’s intervention seemed to reveal that he’s deeply worried there’s embarrassing or incriminating evidence about him in the Justice Department’s files. The furor, he insisted, is being driven by “selfish people” who are trying to hurt him. He said the files must be fabricated “by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.” Trump’s tirade made it impossible to escape the conclusion that he’s trying to dissuade his voters from believing any damning evidence that may come out.

What was also telling in this defensive screed is how perplexed Trump is over his base’s fixation on this case. 

Trump begs MAGA cult to move on to other conspiracy theories, offering a full menu of alternatives, like JFK’s assassination, Hunter Biden’s laptop and, his personal favorite, the “Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020.” “Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” he pleaded with his supporters, as if saying that no one cares about Epstein will somehow make it true.

Attorney General Pam Bondi cannot explain her incoherent responses about how she will release the Epstein files. Weird, the memo released by the Department of Justice was not signed by the anyone. Obviously, this entire conspiracy is a massive cover up. MAGA was promised transparency.  Bondi obviously is lying about something. 

But, MAGA continues to care very much about Epstein. At the Turning Point USA conference over the weekend, right-wing pundit Megyn Kelly commanded the crowd to “make some noise if you care about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal,” leading a crescendo of cheers. Co-host Charlie Kirk crowed that “every hand of 7,000 people” went up after he asked the crowd if they cared. Attendees insisted that Trump is “covering for pedophiles.”

Donald Trump's confusion over why this matters to his base is understandable. MAGA voters have made it abundantly clear that they do not care about sexual abuse. They didn’t care when a tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault was released in 2016. They didn’t care when he was found liable for sexual assault by a civil jury in 2023. They don’t mind that Trump goes out of his way to associate with men accused of sex crimes, from Epstein to Vince McMahon to Pete Hegseth to Matt Gaetz and numerous others. For Trump, this has to be bewildering. His supporters do not treat sexual violence like it’s a bad thing. So why do they care about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, or the identities of his alleged co-conspirators?

The one difference between most of these other allegations and what Epstein did is the age of the victims. Alleged or otherwise, the victims of Trump and most of his buddies were adult women. (The one exception is Gaetz, who was accused of abusing a 17-year-old, and is the rare example of an alleged perpetrator that Trump cut loose.) Epstein, however, abused underage girls. In that narrow space between abuse of adults and pedophilia, the MAGA masses have found their moral absolution. Despite their acceptance of misogynist violence, they still get to be the “good guys” because they draw the line at raping minors. By being very loudly against pedophilia, they can recast themselves as the heroes, ignoring all the other villainous behavior, including their love of a man who boasted about how he grabs unsuspecting women by their genitals.

This is, no doubt, hard for Trump to grasp. He has never shown any sign of having a conscience, and he likely can’t imagine how his supporters might be suppressing feelings of guilt for their complicity in backing a sexual predator. This notion may be a little surprising to some liberals as well. Most of the pundits and politicians we see leading the MAGA movement are shameless people who lie constantly and think nothing of covering up for heinous crimes. But the millions of everyday Trump voters out there aren’t blessed with the deep psychological damage that allows their leaders to carry on with daily acts of depravity. Most likely resort to garden-variety self-delusion to maintain their support.

The Esptein conspiracy theory is a coping mechanism for people enduring this cognitive dissonance. 

Yes, a civil jury found that Trump assaulted journalist E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room. But, if Trump voters tell each other Bill Clinton is on the mythical “Epstein client list” and is about to be arrested for pedophilia, they can believe Democrats are worse.

Yes, Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy keeps promoting anti-vaccine conspiracies that lead to children dying of preventable diseases. But the fantasy that Bill Gates is a child molester allows them to say they’re the ones who are protecting kids. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem undermined efforts to help after a flood wiped out a Texas summer camp, but by clamoring for the “Epstein files,” MAGA can pretend they’re the champions of young girls.

To be clear, not everything about Epstein is a conspiracy theory. In fact, Epstein really was a sex trafficker who abused an unfathomable number of girls. There is significant evidence he provided trafficked women and girls to associates, though it’s likely most of the people registered on his private plane’s jet logs were not involved. The Justice Department probably has unreleased files, videos and other documents that implicate people who haven’t been charged with crimes, likely because federal prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to secure a conviction. Epstein conspiracists go way beyond this, however, insisting there’s a “client list” Epstein kept with detailed notes about who he was blackmailing and for what. There is no evidence that such a list exists. (Nor does it make much sense that Epstein would make life so easy for prosecutors.) He was probably not murdered in jail. And until Trump started flipping out and falsely claiming that the “Epstein files” are a forgery, there was no evidence of a White House cover-up.

Trump isn’t the only one who is struggling to understand the emotional needs that the Epstein conspiracy fulfills for his base. David French of the New York Times suggested that MAGA’s obsession with Epstein is merely an expression of “their indictment of America’s so-called ruling class.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board chalked it up to the addiction the MAGA base has to conspiracy theories.

These theories, though, don’t adequately explain why there’s a preoccupation with Epstein and pedophilia in particular. 

If all the base needs is some exciting conspiracy theories to justify a paranoid worldview, then they should be happy to accept one of the alternatives being offered by Trump and his allies: JFK, chemtrails, Hunter Biden’s laptop and COVID-19 conspiracies, to name just a few.

But no, MAGA needs Epstein conspiracies, and the movement will accept no substitute. This craving for moral absolution is why. One of the most defining features of the Trump era has been the culture war over sexual abuse. Republicans have excused a staggering number of allegations against Trump and his allies, which are so numerous that one could write multiple books cataloging all the credible accusations. There was the concurrent #MeToo movement, which helped expose countless predators, including many associated with Trump — and which arguably helped resuscitate the case against Epstein. There has been the backlash to #MeToo, which often paints aggressors as victims of “cancel culture” and the victims as the true bad guys.

In all this back-and-forth, most MAGA voters are on the wrong side of history. They side with the rapists, and harassers and denounce the feminists who are trying to bring perpetrators to justice. Even as more stories of Trump’s abusive behavior toward women come to light, they keep voting for him❗ They’re invested in preserving sexist systems of power.

But, you can’t be a warrior for rape culture, day in and day out, without starting to ask yourself, “Am I the baddie?” 

That’s where Epstein and his imaginary client list come in. By hating on Epstein and fantasizing about political enemies being on the “list,” MAGA gets to play at being the heroes for once. Better yet, they can do so without the risk of bringing actual predators to justice, a precedent they don’t want to establish lest it come for their leaders. After all, Epstein is dead, and his “list” only existed in their fevered imaginations.

Or least, that felt true until Trump started visibly panicking about the Epstein files. But giving up on the Epstein case now that Trump is drenched in flop sweat would amount to MAGA admitting they never cared about pedophiles or justice for victims — that it was always just a fairy tale they told to conceal the ugly truth about themselves, even to themselves.

Trump thought nothing would get in the way of his base’s loyalty to him. But it may be that the one thing that will rattle their faith is this stark reminder that he’s always been the villain, and they are his accomplices.

The post Trump doesn’t realize why MAGA needs the Epstein files appeared first on Salon.com.

"Okay" is now the only word Speaker McCarthy can say - he is a puppet

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Dana Milbank:

As Republicans take the House, the GOP crazies take the wheel

Fifteen votes and the public display of a near altercation!

On the many failed attempts to elect Kevin McCarthy, Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) complained that Democrats and the media were enjoying the House Republicans’ meltdown too much.

“In some ways they’re salivating,” the lawmaker complained in his speech re-re-renominating McCarthy. “The schadenfreude is palpable.”

No doubt, some political partisans are taking pleasure in the Republicans’ disorganized pain. But as a longtime reviewer of political theater, there is nothing enjoyable about this GOP performance of ineptness.

The incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the incoming chairman of the Oversight Committee, James Comer (R-Ky.), and about 10 other members of the brand-new majority walked into the House TV studio first thing Thursday to announce multiple probes into the president’s son.

Tension and mayhem on the House floor during Kevin McCarthy's final push to become speaker.

“Why make this your very first visible order of business?” one reporter asked.

Comer assured her that other pressing issues would also be addressed: “Kevin [McCarthy] said the first legislation we’re going to vote on is to repeal the 87,000 IRS agents.”

Great idea! After a GOP campaign focused on crime, their first legislative act will be to protect criminals. They’ll try to block the hiring of IRS enforcement personnel (the true number is much less than 87,000) assigned to crack down on the wealthiest tax cheats. 

Voters who elected Republicans to fight inflation and gas prices might be feeling puzzled, if not swindled.

“Hunter Biden was conducting business with suspected human traffickers,” they asserted, and “Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were involved in a scheme to try to get China to buy liquefied natural gas,” and “credit cards and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were commingled,” and “Hunter wanted keys made for Joe Biden” to his office. They mentioned Hunter two dozen times in their opening statements alone.

But, in fairness, the noisiest voices in the GOP have other plans, too: They also want to cut off military aid to Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.

A few hours after the Comer and Jordan show, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took the same stage to announce plans to force a vote on ending funds for Ukraine. “Is Ukraine now the 51st state?” asked Greene, who alleged an elaborate cryptocurrency conspiracy in which military aid for Ukraine actually funds Democrats’ campaigns.

Not too long ago, the Republican Party stood against Russian aggression. But with the GOP’s single-digit majority in the new House, the oddballs hold all the power. “You’ve heard Leader McCarthy say publicly that he doesn’t see very good odds for much funding for Ukraine going forward in a Republican-controlled conference,” Greene pointed out.

Fellow crank Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) agreed: “I will not vote for one more dollar to Ukraine!”

It was heartwarming to see Greene and Gaetz on the same page again. Earlier in the week, they were feuding about whether to deny McCarthy the speakership. (The defection of even a couple of Republicans can still doom him.)

Greene backed McCarthy for speaker and told McCarthy’s critics (including many of her fellow members of the far-right Freedom Caucus) to bring it on. “I’m not afraid of the civil war in the GOP — I lean into it,” she said on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast.

Gaetz shot back: “Whatever Kevin has promised Marjorie Taylor Greene, I guarantee you this: At the first opportunity, he will zap her faster than you can say ‘Jewish space laser’” — a reference to the antisemitic sentiments that got Greene kicked off her committees. McCarthy has promised to restore her privileges.

McCarthy has suffered an age-old ambition to be speaker.  Thirty-one House Republicans opposed his nomination as speaker  — many times the number needed to sink him, even after he takes the gavel.

He might soon wish he hadn’t been elected after such a contentious public fight - even ending with a risk of an altercation. 

House Republicans threatened an altercation for the purpose of nominating a weakened Speaker McCarthy.

That’s because he’ll get it only by signing an endless pile of IOUs the crazies are demanding: impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Multiple Hunter Biden investigations. A select committee to investigate China. An investigation of the January 6, 2021, investigation. Investigations of Anthony Fauci and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And a panoply of probes into the Justice Department and the FBI. McCarthy is going to be held “completely hostage,” outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) predicted.

Republicans are yammering about investigating Hunter Biden and defunding the brave Ukraine.

Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced her retirement from leadership after two decades in charge of House Democrats. She was the first woman to be speaker and one of the most effective ever to hold that role.

Yet most Republicans skipped Mrs. Pelosi’s announcement on the House floor (and a few opted for social media taunts). Among the missing was McCarthy, who explained: “I had meetings.”

One of those meetings McCarthy had Thursday was with Greene, who informed him of her anti-Ukraine maneuver. “I said, ‘I’m having a press conference at 4,’” Greene recounted. “And he said, ‘Okay.’”

Of course he did. The crazies are all knocking at his door. And as the now compromised Speaker, there is only one answer to their demands: “Okay.”

Republican alert- Dump Donald Trump!

St. Louis Post Dispatch Editorial: Trump is exhausting the nation's and his party's patience. Time to dump him.

Try as Republicans will to distract the American public and label the impeachment inquiry a witch hunt, there is no escaping the hard truth that Donald Trump solicited help from a foreign leader for his 2020 campaign, an act that U.S. law specifically forbids. 

Republican leaders in Congress find themselves, once again, scrambling furiously to concoct a believable defense for a man whose conduct is indefensible.

Trump’s recklessness and divisiveness is exhausting the nation’s patience. How far will GOP leaders in Congress allow Trump to drag this country down before they stand in defense of the Constitution?

Make no mistake: There’s a troubling coincidence between former Vice President Joe Biden’s intervention in 2014 to urge the ouster of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor and son Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of a gas company owned by a corrupt, Russia-friendly Ukrainian oligarch. Hunter Biden received upwards of $50,000 a month in that role, a shocking change of fortunes for someone who had just been dismissed from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine.

If Joe Biden was involved in illegality, let the Justice Department initiate an investigation and follow leads. But so far, five years after those developments, investigators seem not to have uncovered prosecutable violations.

Trump had no apparent authority to launch his independent corruption probe and bring in his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to follow up with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. 

Trump — who has paid off a porn star, bragged about sexually abusing women and openly urged Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential campaign — ranks as the most corrupt U.S. president since Richard Nixon.

Trump was on a singular mission in the July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy: to dig up dirt on Biden, his likely rival in the 2020 presidential race. The fact that he brought Giuliani into the conversation underscores that this had nothing to do with Trump’s executive authority and everything to do with his political campaign.

Juxtaposed with Trump’s inexplicable decision before July to suspend nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine, there is more than ample justification for the House of Representatives to proceed with its impeachment inquiry. In the transcript released Wednesday, Zelenskiy raised his country’s military-assistance needs. Trump invoked the word “reciprocal” and immediately asked Zelenskiy “to do us a favor” by helping investigate Joe Biden and his son.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., accurately labeled the exchange a “classic, Mafia-like shakedown of a foreign country.”

How far must a president go in betraying his country before Republicans finally declare that he no longer represents their values? How much crisis, chaos and scandal can Republicans, exhausted from constantly defending him, tolerate before they decide enough’s enough? The time has come for Republicans to stand up for the Constitution, stand up for America, and tell Trump to step down.