Only one man is to blame for this MAGA crisis of faith

Liberals should bear in mind that recent revelations by the Wall Street Journal would not have the impact they are having if the president had not already triggered a crisis of faith in the cult of MAGA.

The Journalreported this month that Donald Trump had given Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious child-sex trafficker, a birthday note in which he appeared to joke about their shared interest in sex with underage girls.

The Journalreported last week that Trump was informed in May that his name appeared multiple times in Epstein files, along with hundreds of others. The implication is that his presence in the files is the reason the Department of Justice decided earlier this month to close the case.

From the liberal view, this is damning confirmation of what we already know, including that Donald Trump is an adjudicated rapist with a documented history of association with Epstein. The revelations merely add to our understanding of the president, as a man who will corrupt the government if that’s what it takes to cover up his crimes.

And because we already know these things, some of us are prone to believing these revelations, and any revelations to come, will make no difference at all. As one liberal put it today, in frustration: “The Epstein files thing is so baffling — like Trump supporters would find out that he's guilty of pedophilia and suddenly they would stop supporting him? They love all his criminality. And his corruption. And his lies.”

But if it made no difference, we must account for why Trump’s normal diversionary tactics are not working, and why so many Republicans and MAGA media personalities are not letting the Epstein scandal go.

It is not because these people are suddenly concerned about their leader’s apparent complicity with America’s most famous pedophile ring. Liberals are correct to be skeptical about that. Where liberals should be open is in the fact that the president himself triggered a crisis of faith — by way of covering his ass. As a result, people around him sense weakness and some are now using the crisis as a means of positioning themselves advantageously for a post-Trump future.

To explain, I need to remind you of something I said last week — that as far as MAGA was concerned, for the last decade or so, Trump has been the exception to the rule of everything, such that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support. He could lead an attempted paramilitary takeover of the US government and not lose support. He could be friends with a child-sex trafficker and not lose support. No matter what he did, MAGA never held him accountable.

Why? In large part, because MAGA is in thrall to conspiracy theories that claim to explain how things work. One of them holds that the world is dominated by shadowy elites who control the government, the corporations and the media. This (Jewish) cabal is so powerful it can commit any crime — including the most heinous, like child-sex trafficking and even cannibalism — and get away with it, all while conspiring with allies, foreign and domestic, to bring America down.

Belief in these stories was so strong that even when Trump was found guilty of committing crimes, as he was before the election when a jury convicted him on 34 counts of fraud, he couldn’t possibly be that guilty in the eyes of MAGA. After all, his conviction was seen as proof of the conspiracy against him and America. The MAGA faithful was never going to believe he was a felon, because they believed he was just like them — a victim of a conspiracy of galactic proportions that justified virtually any reaction. If Trump had to become a dictator to defeat it, so be it.

If this were still the context for the president, recent revelations by the Wall Street Journal would not have had the impact they are currently having, because Trump’s followers would have understood those reports as proof of the conspiracy against him and America. News about Trump being in the Epstein files would have been seen as affirmation of the faith. News about Trump covering up his involvement would have been understood as a necessary move in the battle against evil.

But Trump can no longer have confidence in a context that made him the exception to every rule, because the MAGA faithful are now beginning to doubt whether he really is like them, which is to say, whether he really is a victim of the conspiracy against America.

When the Department of Justice closed the case on Epstein earlier this month, Trump’s followers were forced to choose between their leader and their belief in a pernicious plot to destroy their way of life, and because they were not going to stop believing in their imaginary enemies, they were suddenly open to the possibility that Trump isn’t the man they believed him to be. It was a crisis of faith.

This crisis of faith is why Trump’s normal diversionary tactics are not working as they used to. With assistance from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, he tried to draw attention away from the Epstein scandal by accusing Barack Obama of “cheating” in the 2016 election.

That might have worked when MAGA believed Trump is a victim of the deep state (which, in MAGA world, is controlled by those who control Obama) but now that Trump won’t release the Epstein files, it’s no longer clear to MAGA whether he’s against “the globalists.”

This crisis of faith is also being seen as an opportunity by Republicans who believe the president has outlived his usefulness. With the GOP’s reconciliation bill now signed into law, there are very few policy fights left that do not take more than they give. MAGA media personalities are not going to stop catering to people who are themselves not going to stop believing in their imaginary enemies. Meanwhile, Trump is old. He is in poor health, reportedly. He is nearly a spent force. We are seeing the conditions, as Steve Millies told me, in which party operatives are quietly figuring out who’s going to lead the party after Trump.

How this ends is anyone’s guess. I’m not ready to speculate. No one should be. But whatever happens will be a product, in part, of liberals properly understanding what’s going on, and from that, devising a plan of action. As of now, liberals seem stuck on the idea that MAGA is in revolt because they realize Trump is what liberals have been saying about him for a decade. As one liberal said today, also in frustration: “They elected a rapist, now they’re upset that he’s a rapist?”

Not exactly.

The MAGA faithful were willing to overlook any of Trump’s crimes — if they recognized them as such — with the understanding that his were nothing compared to the crimes committed by perceived enemies so powerful that bringing them to justice required a man of action ready to break all the rules to get the job done. To MAGA, Epstein represented those enemies. To MAGA, Trump was that man of action. But now it looks like he’s not their criminal. He’s just a criminal, same as the rest.