Tag: jeffrey epstein

This is How Stupid They Think You Are

Mike Rothschild

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Donald Trump began his rise to political prominence with his enthusiastic embrace of a conspiracy everyone could see was absurd and fake. So it’s fitting that exactly ten years after the 2016 Republican primary field began to disintegrate around Trump, we’re doing it again. Only this time it’s so much dumber.

Before he was the Daddy God King of the Republican Party, Trump was a blustery TV businessman who was Just Asking Questions about where Barack Obama was actually born. Trump took birtherism, which had mostly been the domain of desiccated far right fossils or crank perennial candidates and made it mainstream and hip. In doing so, he normalized the conspiracism that the “square” conservative movement had mostly attempted to push away, starting us all down a deep dark hole of lunacy and contrarianism that would lead to Pizzagate, QAnon, COVID denialism, January 6th, and Trump winning two presidential elections.

Birtherism depended on a vast conspiracy to fake Obama’s citizenship, train him in the ways of Marxist Muslim terrorism, install him in government, and pull all of the strings and levers exactly how they needed to be pulled in order to elevate him to the presidency. It would have required hundreds or even thousands of people to be in on the plot, none of them to reveal any of it and all of them to execute it perfectly, and forged documents done so perfectly that nobody could ever determine if they were real or fake – except for a few truth-seekers who immediately determined they were fake, and nobody cared.

Also, it would have required time travel. Birth announcements in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser, both based on information provided by the Hawaii Department of Public Health, proclaimed the arrival of a son to Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama on August 4, 1961. Various conspiracy theories would try to work around this by claiming that the elder Barack Obama was not the president’s father, and that he had changed his name from “Barry Soetoro” or some such. But the announcements themselves were impossible to fake. They were found in decades-old archives. Unless someone had the forethought to plant them in local papers as part of a half-century conspiracy to elevate a non-citizen usurper to the presidency, that should have been the end of the matter.

And yet, it wasn’t. And logic never dictates how conspiracy theories end, only their usurpation by other conspiracy theories.

A decade later, Trump is now asking America to believe that the crude cartoon and bizarre poem he wrote for sex trafficking pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s 50 year birthday book is just as fake and planted as Obama’s birth certificate. Trump and his mouthpieces want us to think the drawing wasn’t his and that he’s never drawn a cartoon, despite his long and well-documented history of drawing cartoons. He wants us to think the signature on the cartoon isn’t his, despite looking exactly like his signature looked from 20 years ago, and matching up perfectly to other verified signatures from the time. And he wants us to think that despite being handed over to Congress by Epstein’s estate, and despite being in a disgusting book full of obnoxious praise and sexual innuendo written by people who have confirmed they contributed to it, that he had nothing to do with it and it’s not from him.

Essentially, just like the Obama birth announcements of 1961, Trump wants us to believe that someone planted that cartoon and signature 22 years ago just so it could be unearthed by Democrats and the media to smear him. It’s all a conspiracy – hopelessly convoluted, entirely pointless, and defying all available facts and logic. It requires nothing other than belief, and will be believed only by those who wish it to be true.

This is how stupid Trump and his minions in the White House, GOP, and right wing media arm all think you are. They need you to believe that the thing for which overwhelming evidence exists and which has no conceivable way to fake does not exist and is fake. Trump’s denial does nothing but bring up more questions, none of which have good answers. If Trump didn’t do it, who did? Was it faked two decades ago or now? Why would Epstein’s estate hang on to a fake? Or conversely, why would someone put a fake into a birthday book which was exceedingly and disgustingly real?

There will never be any answers to these questions because they aren’t real questions that anyone would ask. The only evidence the card is fake is that Donald Trump keeps saying it’s fake. For most, that will never be enough. For a few, it will be the only thing that matters. So you keep saying it’s fake, keep changing the subject to literally anything else, and repeat it often enough to ride out the controversy.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is whether conspiracy gurus actually believe the things they say, or whether it’s all part of their grift. It’s always hard to answer, and I usually say that conspiratorial beliefs are often an extension of things the person already believes, just taken to irrational extremes. Those extremes are often driven by commerce, since conspiracism is a lucrative industry. But sometimes they’re driven by self-preservation.

Trump, presumably, knows that he drew and signed that card for Jeffrey Epstein. And while the people around him are dimwitted, incurious, sycophantic, and fairly evil; they’re not complete idiots. They almost certainly know that the simplest explanation for the cartoon isn’t a decades-long conspiracy, but that Trump drew a doodle of a naked young woman with no arms and wrote a poem about the “wonderful secret” he and Jeffrey Epstein share.

And that’s why they’re saying it’s fake. Because if they admitted it’s real for any reason then they have to answer the next logical questions. Even Trump’s usual pivot of “yeah I did it, so what” can do nothing other than harm him and the GOP, and open up glaring weak spots to be pounced on.

What is the “wonderful secret” Trump and Epstein shared? What were the “things they have in common?” What does “enigmas never age” mean? What happened “the last time” Trump saw Epstein?

Those are questions Trump and his bunker-mates would rather eat glass than face up to. Their answers might reveal truly horrifying things about the relationship the two men had, what they did together, and what they knew about each other. They might cast the President of the United States in such a foul and sick light that it might not be recoverable for the GOP.

Sure, Trump has survived everything anyone has ever thrown at him, but the rest of the Republican Party don’t have that invisible shield. What Republican member of Congress wants to face their constituents and have to answer questions about potential horrible acts their leader did to children alongside a billionaire pedophile two decades ago?

There is nothing to be gained for anyone around Trump in telling the truth about Epstein.

So they just lie. Over and over and over. And they think you’re dumb enough to either believe it, or be so frustrated with their lies that you drop the matter and move on.

Conspiracist belief flourishes when the lie becomes more palatable than the truth. And there is no truth less palatable to Donald Trump and his acolytes than Trump being close friends and sharing “wonderful secrets” with Jeffrey Epstein. And so the lie will flourish. Because the truth can never be acknowledged by the people who need to hold Trump up as a paragon of virtue and success. They need the lie.

Even if we all know it’s true.

“Little Deuce Coup” and Other Conspiracy Hits

Mike Rothschild1 Comment

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In 1971, Rolling Stone quoted a business associate of the late, great Brian Wilson as saying that fellow Beach Boy Mike Love declared “don’t fuck with the formula” regarding Brian’s once-lost classic album Smile. Love denied ever saying it, but the phrase stuck as a manifestation of it being financially smarter to stay true to what you’re good at, lest you lose your audience’s patience. In Mike Love’s case, what he was good at was writing trite lyrics for Brian Wilson’s melodies, and then playing those songs thousands of times. In the case of Donald Trump, it’s spreading conspiracy theories about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton committing treason.

It’s increasingly clear that Trump and his inner circle feel at least somewhat imperiled by something unrevealed about Jeffrey Epstein, and are going to great lengths to both control the conversation about Epstein and keep anything unknown covered up.

They seem to feel this despite also basing a great deal of their 2024 campaign and early weeks in office around revealing things about Jeffrey Epstein, to the point of having a showy press conference where many conspiracist influencers were handed empty binders with title pages reading “EPSTEIN FILES PHASE ONE.”

There will be no phase two. Trump has since declared anyone who talks about Epstein to be a “weakling” whose support he doesn’t want, his mouthpieces have given countless interviews about moving on from Epstein, Speaker Mike Johnson has shut down the House rather than take a vote on releasing more Epstein files, and at least some DOJ officials are even floating the idea of cooperating with Epstein madam Ghislaine Maxwell.

Why would they so vocally be against something that they were once so vocally for just a few months ago? I have no idea, but the 180 degree shift from Epstein being history’s greatest monster to “well akshually not that bad” has been pretty much the only thing anyone wants to talk about now. This is not helping at all with Trump’s stance that we should not be talking about Epstein.

Since FBI head Kash Patel went on Fox News and declared that Epstein killed himself and there was nothing of value in the purported “Epstein Files,” Trump’s conspiracy theorist base has become increasingly vocal about their sense of betrayal, abandonment, and dismay. The last stop on a long promised road of victory and the destruction of the dark cabal has become a vicious stab in the back, with the knife wielded by a president who doesn’t know anything about knives and doesn’t want you to talk about knives.

While this is bad for Trump, he’s a lame duck and has no need for his voting base anymore. It is, however, very bad for current Republicans in office who sold their dignity for a few bags of MAGA merch, and are desperate to stay on the good side of Trump’s base – many of whom never voted before Trump, and might never vote after him.

The only way to keep these people happy and from turning against the rest of the GOP is to mollify them with even more conspiracy theories. But since Epstein is THE conspiracy theory, Trump and his cronies have no choice but to break out the greatest hits set and start playing the tunes all their fans known and love. This is not the time to fuck with the formula. And the formula for nearly a decade has been “Barack Hussein Obama is going to prison.”

Notably, the idea that Obama, Hillary, and all of their cronies and backers in the deep state are just days away from mass arrest is one of the core tenets of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Since the earliest Q drops in October 2017, there has always been an ever-present axe hanging over the Democratic elite’s head, and it’s only a few weeks or one more memo or whatever until it falls, sending their collective evil heads into the basket. They would be arrested over their child trafficking, their links to the “Russiagate” hoax (which of course is not a hoax in any way), their ties to various corrupt companies, rigging elections (including ones they won), their money laundering, their anti-Trump conspiracy, or just because they’re bad people who hate freedom.

When Trump, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, and whoever else make noise about Obama running a coup against Trump, it hits a particular note that will always resound with MAGA believers. Sure, the mass arrests were supposed to happen a decade ago, and Trump could have unleashed “the storm” whenever he felt like it. And sure it makes no sense for Obama to have run a “coup” against Trump, or that Trump won “rigged” elections when he was out of power but lost them when he was in power. It never has to make sense. It just has to sound good. You’re not buying a ticket to the Beach Boys for it to sound pristine and reach new heights of creativity – you want the formula and the good feels. Whether it’s “Fun Fun Fun” or “All these people will be eliminated,” the dopamine hits are the same.

QAnon worked as well as it did because it touched basic, primal forces deep in the souls of its believers. Bad people had done terrible things, and Trump was going to be the one who finally brought them down. Put aside the codes and the drops and the memes and that’s what you have left: these people are sick, Trump is the cure.

Of course, the sickest one of all was Jeffrey Epstein – a figure of dread and depravity mentioned in dozens of Q drops as a trafficker, a torturer, a vicious pedophile, and a key figure in the elite Luciferian cult that has controlled humanity for thousands of years.

And that’s the one guy we’re not supposed to talk about. This is where the betrayal of Trump’s base by Trump really hits home. Epstein was the guy who was supposed to bring everyone down – that’s why they were so adamant that he didn’t kill himself. The Clintons and their fellow cultists had to kill him to stay safe and in the shadows. If Epstein were alive, if the truth about what happened on his planes and his submarine and his island and his temple and his penthouses ever came out, well, as Q put it, “The truth would put 99% of people in the hospital.”

Instead of the truth, we’re getting a bullshit song and dance, a juggler tossing shiny balls in the air to keep us distracted. The band is playing the hits and hoping we’ll sing our way through them, not hearing how shitty they sound and how cynical the whole thing is. After years of telling their fans that Epstein would go down and take the cabal with him, conspiracy influencers are now being told that Epstein was no big deal, everything about his “files” and “list” is a Democratic hoax, and that there’s nothing to see here.

Most people would walk away in disgust and shame from a political movement that treated them so cheaply. But we’re long past the point where hardcore conspiracy theorists are able to see how they’re being exploited. Many don’t want to see it, and those that do usually come crawling back to the movement they’ve given so much of their time and money to.

“Don’t fuck with the formula” works because “the formula” has power. There is comfort in the familiar, and where there is comfort, there’s profit. Trump is able to go back to the conspiracy theory hits because he knows what his audience wants to hear, knows what gets them shelling out for the new merch, and knows what keeps them happy. And when they’re happy, they don’t think much about how they’re hearing the same old songs again and again.

So the well-worn hits will keep getting trotted out, day after day, press conference after press conference. Obama’s coup, Comey, Hillary, “Good Vibrations,” Russiagate, rigged election, “Little Deuce Coupe,” deep state, Steele Dossier, “409.”

Just not Epstein. That’s not on the playlist anymore.

The Golden Carrot

Mike Rothschild

I have spent way too much time thinking, writing, and talking about QAnon. And one of the reasons it took off in the way it did was that it offered an explanation – not for something that was happening, like most conspiracy theories, but for something that wasn’t happening.

Most conspiracy theories work because they attract people out of power looking for who actually has it. But QAnon was the opposite, it gave the extant most powerful person on earth – President Trump – even more power in the form of a secret military intelligence operation that would, on his command, go into action and rid America of all the evil doers. But it had to be done in a certain way: in secret, following certain rules, and only once certain conditions were set. Of course, those conditions were never actually set. The pieces were never in place. So Trump and Q never actually did rid America of all the evil doers. That seems like it should matter, but it never does.

When Trump lost the election, the appeal of QAnon as a “secret plot carried out at the highest level” disappeared immediately and Q stopped posting. But mostly, Q believers were so distracted by the stolen election discourse that it didn’t matter. How could Trump lose if Q was real? Why did the pedophiles and wreckers not get swept up if Trump was in power? Nobody asked. The two things just didn’t fit together.

In conspiracy world, things don’t ever actually need to fit. There’s always another great hope, a golden carrot to be dangled in front of the desperate digital soldiers that will reward all their patience and sacrifice. All those hours spent researching, those holidays spent alone eating baloney sandwiches while your family gets together and enjoys the seasons have to mean something – right??

So it’s no surprise that Trump has spent a great deal of campaign time promising various podcasters that he would finally reveal all of the nation’s secrets and the truth about the vast conspiracies at the heart of American life – but only if he gets another term.

Trump has recently promised to release a “client list” belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, something he describes as “UFO footage” along with proof of alien life, all the “remaining files” about the JFK assassination, and all the secrets of the US intelligence agencies as far as other assassinations goes – including the one he nearly fell victim to. These are the big secrets, the ones that will destroy the deep state and usher in the new era of peace and freedom.

Naturally, conspiracyland was ecstatic about Trump’s pledge.

These sorts of promises are incredibly alluring to people who base their lives around uncovering “secret knowledge” that “they don’t want us to know about.” And it’s not hard to see why. What could be more important that whether aliens exist and have been to our planet? What secret would be more powerful than at long last revealing who really killed JFK? It’s the final payoff for everything they’ve been working toward for years or decades.

In fact, these secrets are so compelling that one has to wonder why Trump didn’t do any of this in his first term. Why do you need to tell people all the hidden truths you’ll reveal in your second term when you didn’t reveal any hidden truths when you had the chance? What changed from then to now – other than needing to scrape together enough votes to win a few swing states?

This is the essence of how QAnon works, and why it doesn’t stand up to critical scrutiny in any way. If the Q team was going to sweep up the deep state and save the millions of children being trafficked through their secret tunnels, why didn’t they, you know, do it? Why wait so long that you lose the power to enact these changes? Isn’t the blood of every child who is sacrificed on you, not the deep state?

If the “Trump reveals all the secrets of the Kennedy assassination” rap feels familiar, it’s because he already released a bunch of JFK files in 2017. Many offered intriguing depth to the swirl of insanity around the assassination, but didn’t change the “official story” in any way. Trump, of course, claimed when asked about the partial declassification that he wanted to release even more files, but was blocked by those evil dunderheads in the CIA. But he’ll definitely do it this time.

“It’s going to be done early on,” he told the Silicon Valley-themed podcast All-In. “A lot of people want to see that and whatever it may say – I won’t say it, I have an idea – but whatever it is it will be very interesting for people to see and we’re going to have to learn from it.”

It’s always something, right?

But why is it always something? Trump was the president. He could just declassify whatever he wanted. He’s already claimed he can declassify documents telepathically, just by thinking about it. Why not JFK? Why not Epstein? Why not UFOs? What’s the problem? And why do none of his followers hold him to any sort of standard. If he’d been sitting on these explosive secrets for years and didn’t reveal them, isn’t he just as bad as those who decided to keep them secret in the first place?

The problem with prophetic conspiracy theories is that eventually, something either has to happen or you need to come up with a convincing reason why it didn’t. Otherwise, people start to lose faith in the prophecy. Really talented gurus are good at coming up with such excuses – the UFO didn’t land because the aliens questioned our commitment, the Great Flood was delayed because I read one of the numbers wrong, etc. Q didn’t bother – whoever was making the posts just stopped posting. There was no need for any other cryptic riddles. Likewise, Trump hasn’t needed to come up with a reason he didn’t do any of this the first time, because nothing matters to him and his fans. He’ll do it now, they reason. This time it’s different.

So he can claim he’ll reveal all the secrets that he could have revealed at any time during his four years in office. This time, he’ll really do it. The pieces will all be in place. The timing will be right.

Unless it’s not. Maybe he’ll need a third term to really get all the files out.

Why Do QAnon Believers Think Jeffrey Epstein Faked His Death? Because They Have To

Mike Rothschild7 Comments

Disgraced pederast Jeffrey Epstien’s suicide on Saturday kicked off the Olympic Games of conspiracy theories.  Twitter was overwhelmed by people of every political affiliation, status, profession, and nationality speculating wildly on what “really happened” to the convicted sex offender who was reported to have killed himself while in solitary confinement in the Manhattan Correctional Center.

While conspiratorial beliefs are bipartisan, most actual conspiracies fall under liberal or conservative lines. Not this one. It was the Clintons adding to their body count! It was Trump to cover up his crimes! It was Russia, because Russia can do everything! It was the Royal Family! It was Obama! It was Saudi Arabia! It was Alan Dershowitz!

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