Wingnut crackup

 I admit I failed to comprehend the immense importance of the alternate universe inspired by QAnon in the MAGA psyche. It seemed as though nothing -- not the Dumpster continually spouting gibberish, not the TACO tariffs, not the random trashing of programs with overwhelming popular support, not the MuskMelon defection, not the violent arrests of gardeners and grandmothers -- could put a microdent in their adoration for Dear Leader.

 

But what finally did it is "Move along here, nothing to see" in the Epstein investigation. That this particular obsession got transferred from a pizza parlor in D.C. to Epstein never made sense in the first place, but one way or another the story had to stay alive. The essentially religious belief is that there is a vast global conspiracy, led by prominent Democratic politicians, donors, and activists, that kidnaps and rapes children (possibly in connection with Satanic rituals) and harvests a component of their blood that counteracts aging. Really. The most important leader of the conspiracy is Hillary Clinton, but it also includes Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks, George Soros of course, and everybody else to the left of Joe Manchin. That's what they believe. 

 

In his first term, Trump was going to expose them in an event called The Storm, in which the U.S. military would sweep up the conspirators, subject them to military tribunals, and execute them.  For some mysterious reason, this did not happen. How Jeffrey Epstein comes into this is also a mystery. His serial rape of teenage girls was first investigated back in 2005 in Palm Beach Florida, but the Florida Attorney General Alexander Acosta, a Republican obviously, for some reason gave him a ridiculous sweetheart deal. Trump then appointed Acosta Secretary of Labor.

 

Epstein was brought up again on federal charges in 2019, and as you all know he died in prison in August of that year, while Donald John Trump was president of the United States. DJT's director of the federal bureau of prisons concluded that Epstein's death was a suicide, and DJT's FBI and Department of Justice did not bring charges against anyone else in connection with Epstein for the remainder of Trump's term in office. Nevertheless, for lack of any other plausible framework on which to hang the conspiracy theory, it got transferred to Epstein. In the second Trump term he was finally going to reveal the truth and the vast left wing conspiracy of Satanic child rape would be unmasked. Then . . . 

 

Thud. It is mind boggling, utterly bizarre, impossible to grasp, that this is how the cult finally breaks apart. But just be very clear -- it isn't fundamentally about economic anxiety, or the culture wars, or even so much about racism, although all of that has something to do with it. It's fundamentally just plain nuts.