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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.
Mike Rothschild 