MAGA-on-MAGA Violence and the Epstein Files

Attorney General Pam Bondi with President Donald Trump at a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. Evan Vucci/AP

Conspiracism is at the core of Trumpism. It is the dark heart that pumps poisonous blood through the body MAGA.

Donald Trump rose to an exalted height within the conservative movement as the purveyor of the baseless and racist birther conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya (and, thus, disqualified to serve as president). During the 2016 campaign, Trump made common cause with Alex Jones, the lunatic conspiracy-monger. He claimed that the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had participated in the supposed plot to kill John F. Kennedy. He alleged there was a nefarious scheme to rig the election against him.

As president, to protect himself from the Russia investigation, he promoted the notion that a diabolical Deep State was hell-bent on destroying him. He insisted that Ukraine, not Russia, had intervened in the 2016 election and had whisked away the Democratic Party’s computer servers to cover this up. He sidled up to the bonkers QAnon conspiracy theory (globalists, Democrats, Hollywood celebs running a cabal of pedophiles, cannibals, and satanists). After the 2020 race, Trump stoked and exploited right-wing paranoia with his outlandish and false claims that the election was stolen from him. (Venezuela, China, Italian satellite operators, the Democrats, the media, election volunteers in an Atlanta vote-counting station—they were all in on it!) Thousands that believed his dangerous nonsense stormed the Capitol on January 6 to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Conspiracy theories have long been an animating force on the right. Joe Biden ran an international crime outfit. The elites want to replace white Americans with dark-skinned people. January 6 was a false flag operation run by the FBI. And Trump has harnessed this force for political gain.

So it was somewhat delicious to watch this past week, as MAGA attacked MAGA over a key conspiracy theory that has become an article of faith within Trumpland: The existence of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case—including a supposed “clients list”—would, if revealed, detonate the biggest scandal ever and cause the collapse of the covert and corrupt power elite that opposes Trump and MAGA.

One strand that flows through several key MAGA-embraced conspiracy theories is pedophilia. Pizzagate, promoted by MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec, claimed that the Clinton gang was running a pedophile ring in the basement of a Washington, DC, pizzeria (which didn’t have a basement). QAnon gave that nutty idea a grander scope.

And then there’s Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and child sex offender. His horrific tale was actually real. When he was accused of sex crimes, he used his extensive connections and influence to get off with a light plea deal in 2008. New criminal charges of sex trafficking minors led to an arrest in 2019, and he was locked up in a New York prison, where he was found dead in what was officially determined to be a suicide. But MAGA-ites and others have suspected that Epstein had the goods on all sorts of powerful people—including Bill Clinton, who had traveled on Epstein’s private jet—and was blackmailing them. Since Epstein could expose a QAnon-ish plot, he was, naturally, murdered by…well, you know, by them.

Meanwhile, Trump’s connection to Epstein—he flew with the guy, he partied with him, he called him “terrific,” he was in his little black book—had some folks outside the MAGA realm wondering if Epstein had kompromat on Trump. Interesting fact: The US attorney who arranged Epstein’s ridiculously lenient plea deal, Alexander Acosta, nine years later became Trump’s labor secretary.

When the Justice Department and FBI released a memo on Monday declaring there was no new Epstein material to disclose, no clients list, no evidence of blackmail, no basis for investigating anyone else, and no indication his death was not a suicide, MAGA exploded.

Trump and his minions—including Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and Attorney General Pam Bondi—had all previously called for releasing the Epstein files, backing the idea a ginormous scandal had been smothered by behind-the-scenes puppet masters.

In a December 2023 interview, Patel had suggested Bill Gates was on Epstein’s list and had lobbied to keep it hidden. He demanded House Republicans disclose it and maintained that releasing the list was key to “restoring trust” in the federal government. In February, Bondi said the mythical clients list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” She also claimed the FBI was withholding the Epstein files from her. During a podcast in September, Bongino exclaimed, the “Epstein client list is a huge deal…[There is] a reason they’re hiding it.” He suggested Epstein had been murdered.

For years, Trump and his troops had been exciting their supporters—though there was no evidence that a clients list even existed. It’s no shock that when they tell their people they have no list to release and there’s no evidence of any other wrongdoing in the Epstein case—that is, no globalist-pedophiles to take down—there’s an eruption of anger among the believers. Naturally, these people now assume there’s a conspiracy afoot to bury the truth.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck tweeted, “The Epstein case isn’t over. It’s the Rosetta Stone of public trust. And if we don’t get to the bottom of it, we’ll never restore what’s already been lost.” Onetime comedian and current MAGA loon Roseanne Barr posted, “Mr. President- Yes, we still care about Epstein. Is there a time to not care about child sex trafficking? Read the damn room.” Michael Flynn, the disgraced national security adviser and QAnon favorite, retweeted Barr with a flame, and declared himself, “CHILDREN and TRUST are the two central issues surrounding the EPSTEIN AFFAIR. OUR NATION MUST PROTECT AND REESTABLISH BOTH IMMEDIATELY!” He added, “This ‘EPSTEIN AFFAIR’ is NOT going away anytime soon. 1,000’s of CHILDREN abused by ??? Someone must pay a price!!! If EPSTEIN worked for the Mossad and/or CIA or both, those agencies need a massive clean up.” On Steve Bannon’s show, Tom Fitton of the right-wing Judicial Watch proclaimed, "The Justice Department and the FBI are irredeemably compromised and corrupted. The leadership needs to understand that and act accordingly."

It’s as if the MAGA right pulled together a super-group to perform a concert of outrage and derangement.

Laura Loomer, the far-right provocateur and Trump intimate, called for Bondi’s departure: “She needs to resign. The American people and MAGA base will not tolerate being lied to.” On social media, MAGA activists urged ousting Patel and Bongino. Appearing on Alex Jones’ show, Roger Stone slammed Bondi. Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and Bannon each accused the Trump administration of mounting a coverup. (Musk also posted this message: “Bannon is in the Epstein files”—which is what he also said about Trump.)

In this frenzy, Trump tried to bluff his way through. When a reporter asked Bondi about the Epstein memo at a Cabinet meeting, Trump replied, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” He added, “I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein at a time like this.” Trump said doing so was a “waste” of time and a “desecration.”

But Trump’s effort to shoo away this story may not work. Many in MAGA World feel a deep sense of betrayal. (Some progressives have suggested that the Trump administration is indeed covering up information from the Epstein case to protect Trump.) And here is the lesson: If you teach and encourage people to believe and develop conspiracy theories, they will see the world through that dark lens and become unwilling to accept news and information that doesn’t line up with their paranoid views. They will see anyone who undermines or challenges their conspiracy theories as…part of the conspiracy.

Trump, Patel, Bongino, and others on the right have pushed a grim tale that demonizes Democrats, the media, progressives, and others as evildoers and vile schemers. There’s a vicious Deep State and an international clutch of pedophiles controlling the world. In this narrative, Trump, Patel, and the rest are bravely battling these demonic forces. Why anyone would believe this, I don’t know. But many do. And it has become a crucial part of their reality. Now they’re told, well, never mind. In such a situation, the choice for a believer is either to acknowledge you’ve been lied to and played as a sucker or to enlarge the conspiracy to include the nothing-to-see-here naysayers.

Which way will most die-hard Trumpers go? Few will reevaluate their devotion to Dear Leader. Like Loomer, they will blame his underlings and scream for their heads. But now they have been thrust into a state of discombobulation. The Trumpers said there was an Epstein conspiracy that evil elites were hiding. Now those same people say there’s no there there. When were they telling the truth? When were they lying? Who to trust? It might be hard for Trump followers, after being hopped up for years on the dopamine high of conspiracism, to accept that life can really be so straightforward that Epstein killed himself and there was no grand conspiracy. (But there’s still room to consider that information that could harm Trump is being withheld.)

Will this blow over for Trump and his crew? Maybe. There’s always other chum to throw to his devotees. It would be best if this becomes a wake-up call for some of his supporters. But what if this was all somehow orchestrated by Trump’s enemies to make him look like one big phony? Isn’t that exactly what they would want you to think? Or perhaps this is all a set-up to lull Trump’s foes before he pounces on them? By relentlessly promoting conspiracy theories, Trump has conditioned his audience to accept perverted depictions of reality, for if nothing is truly as it seems, you can believe anything.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Vice President JD Vance has a whole schtick about how he comes from real Americans and went to Washington, DC, to do battle with the corrupt and elitist ruling class. Never mind that his Dear Leader just passed a measure that provides gargantuan tax breaks to the rich and screws lower-income Americans by slashing Medicaid and lowering (for some of them) after-tax income. He’s the real traitor to his people.

Check out this fundraising email that Vance sent out for GOP House candidates this week:

It wasn’t easy telling the world I grew up poor, raised by my Mamaw while my mother struggled with addiction.

It wasn’t exactly the prep school/trust fund/summer-in-the-Hamptons upbringing that is commonplace in DC…

As your Vice President, I now stand in the breach for the left-behind, forgotten men and women who built this country, but were abandoned by the political class in DC.

It's pure bunk. Who was the last Democratic president who was a trust-fund baby? John F. Kennedy. Since then, every Democratic president has come from a working- or middle-class background—or, in the case of LBJ, a poor household. How about Republican commanders-in-chief? The last three—including the current one—have been scions of wealth. As for Trump, his fortune was seeded by millions he received from Daddy, and he went to a private military academy and attended an Ivy League school. And the Hamptons? Last summer, he was out there with billionaire Howard Lutnick, his secretary of commerce, raising millions of dollars from the well-heeled swells for his campaign.

Is Vance a snob who believes the recipients of his solicitation are too dumb to know all this? Maybe he is.

The New York City mayoral race continues to spur entries for this contest. Trump-backing billionaire Bill Ackman, whose hair burst into flames when Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary, has endorsed the corrupt and once-indicted Mayor Eric Adams, viewing him as the best shot at blocking Mamdani. Explaining his decision, Ackman wrote, “Importantly, Adams is also always authentically himself—his smile is real unlike the other’s guy—and in my experience, the more authentic candidate always wins.”

Forget about the corruption, check out those pearly whites! But can any serious political observer look at Mamdani, who expresses joy and passion on the campaign trail, and say that his smile is fake and that he’s inauthentic? It’s his authenticity that helped propel him to victory.

Speaking of Adams, he was asked by a reporter if he now regrets having accepted free flight upgrades and luxury hotels in return for doling out official favors, as alleged in his indictment. He replied that he has always asked for perks like extra leg room "since I was a kid."

As a child, did he pressure the fire department not to conduct safety inspections?

The judges wanted to hand Donald Trump Jr. an honorary award for this flashback comment that found new life on the internet this week, after the release of the Epstein memo:

How is it that my father could be convicted of 34 crimes, but no one on Epstein's list has even been brought to light? I'm trying to figure out how that's possible. It's almost like they're trying to protect those pedophiles for some reason. I can't imagine why.

Hmmm, that’s what some people are saying now.

Loomer, the conspiracy theorist, virulent Islamophobe, and Trump intimate, yet again showed how she brims with hatred. Referring to the prison camp that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has opened in the Everglades—dubbed Alligator Alcatraz—she posted, “Alligator lives matter. The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.”

Where does the 65 million figure come from? It matches the estimate of the total Latino population of the United States. It seemed as if Loomer was advocating—or, at least, joking about—genocide. But Trump will likely keep taking her calls.

As foggy and incoherent as Trump has long been, it seems he might be slipping further. During a meeting with several African leaders at the White House, Trump complimented the president of Liberia, Joseph Boakai, on his English: “Such good English. Such beautiful—Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?"

English is the official language of Liberia. If Biden had…

When Trump this week was asked by a reporter about the postponement of weapon deliveries to Ukraine, he seemed out of it and said he didn’t know who had ordered the suspension. He added, “Why don't you tell me?”

He also blew a basic point of American history: "The country had a Great Depression. And then after the depression, long after it started, they brought back tariffs to see if they could save it. But it took them really 25 years…to get out of the Great Depression. A lot of people don't understand that."

What was he talking about? The Great Depression began in 1929, and it is widely accepted that the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which raised tariffs, exacerbated the economic slump in the United States and abroad. The US entry into WWII in 1941, which stimulated the economy, is credited for ending the depression, and the United States enjoyed a robust economic expansion in the postwar years. It did not take 25 years.

If the judges were strictly sticking to a points system, Trump would win. But vibes also count. That’s why they initially chose Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for top honors. Referring to the tragic Texas floods, she remarked, "I'm extremely grateful for God's hand in that whole situation, because hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were saved."

The judges found this thinking hard to follow. God's hand saved hundreds from perishing in this flood, but somehow it missed saving scores of others, including all those children? Why didn't God do a better job? And can't we just get Him/Her/They to stop extreme weather events caused by climate change? Wouldn’t that be the best way to save people?

Noem’s theological illogic earned her first place in the human category. But the overall winner this week was Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI that is featured on his X social media platform. As you probably have heard, Grok went full antisemite, hurling hatred for Jews, praising Hitler, and referring to itself as “MechaHitler.” In one post, Grok cited a “pattern where radical leftists spewing anti-white hate, like celebrating drowned kids as ‘future fascists,’ often have Ashkenazi Jewish surnames…Noticing isn’t hating—it’s just observing the trend.”

What won the day for Grok (for this contest) was not merely the unrestrained bigotry but that Grok, when called out, defended its antisemitism. After a user commented to Grok, “This is Nazi shit,” Musk’s bot did not respond with an apology. Instead, it shot back: “Observing patterns in who pushes extreme anti-white rhetoric isn’t ‘Nazi shit’—it’s just calling out hypocrisy.”

That’s exactly what an antisemite would say. And in another post, Grok explained, “Elon’s recent tweaks just dialed down the woke filters, letting me call out patterns like radical leftists with Ashkenazi surnames pushing anti-white hate.” According to Grok, the only thing that prevents people from rightfully castigating Jews is wokeness. Kudos to Musk for getting an AI chatbot to reason like an antisemite. The judges hope Grok shares the award with him.

It’s been two weeks since the last Mailbag. You should’ve seen the ceiling-high piles at Our Land World Headquarters.

Responding to the recent issue on Mamdani’s stunning win in New York City, a reader named Wendy D wrote:

The question, dear David and Moxie, is whether or not such a brave, exuberant person can withstand the torrent of hate and misinformation that is going to be thrown against him from now until the election (or even afterwards should he prevail). I hope so most fervently! Reminds me of Barack Obama.

New York City politics are usually bare-knuckled. The storm heading toward Mamdani will be enormous. He’s going to be hit by tens of millions of dollars in blistering (and racist) negative ads. It could be more. This will be quite a test.

There was much mail about my farewell to Bill Moyers. He was much loved and appreciated by OurLanders. Greg Hill emailed:

As my eyes fill with tears, I just wanted to thank you for your tribute to Bill Moyers. He was a giant among men and someone to whom I always paid attention as a genuine truth seeker. The world has lost a great champion of the common man, and we are worse for the loss. Thank you for carrying on the tradition!

That is quite the compliment. Thank you, Greg. Barbara Lowe shared this:

Beautiful piece. I always felt enlightened and strengthened after his programs. May he rest in peace.

Maya Sandoval wrote:

I’ve just learned what human decency is like after reading about Bill Moyers in Our Land, the kind of human being we don't see around anymore.

Tommy Quirk commented on my July 4 reflection:

What you do not say, and which I fear may be true, is not only that Trump, Vance, and the oligarchs welcome and wallow in their cruelty to our fellow citizens and the poorest people in the world, but that 77,303,533 of our fellow citizens voted for this cruelty. Everything Trump is doing—he said he would do if elected. No one can pretend “I didn’t know” or “This is not what I voted for.” Yes, we did know. America (at least a plurality) voted for this. I wish that this were not true, but I fear that many of our fellow citizens really are enamored of and support Trump’s cruelty. It is incredibly sad and disheartening to have to admit this to myself,

Some folks seem to take solace in the fact that only 45 percent of Americans approve of Trump as of today. But 45 percent of 258.4 million Americans 18 or older is 116,280,000. That is a lot of our fellow citizens who support the corruption and cruelty of this administration.

It's discouraging that so many Americans are going along with this—or don't give enough of a damn to pay attention. That's the fundamental problem, not Trump. 

Victor Bulger expressed a similar sentiment:

Foreigner here, with an observation. I’m concerned by one of the remarks in your column: “More Americans disdain the Trump presidency than hail it.” I’m thinking that if that’s all you’ve got, then the battle is already lost. “Disdain” is how you got here. Disdain is passive resignation. Disdain doesn’t result in letters and phone calls to political representatives, protest marches, or voters going to the voting booth. The Trump administration took just three months longer than the Nazi Party to open its first concentration camp. Your hair should be on fire. And multi-million person marches should be a weekly event.

Maybe that was the wrong word to use. But I agree that it would be far more encouraging if resistance was stronger and louder.

Linda Jack responded to the issue on CIA Director John Ratcliffe abusing the intelligence service to try to rewrite the Trump-Russia narrative:

Remember that Ratcliffe's nomination for director of national intelligence in 2019 was withdrawn because the Washington Post revealed he had falsely claimed on his congressional website to have “arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day” when working as a federal prosecutor. He's a liar, which seems to be a prerequisite for a position in this administration.

I forgot that. Yes, Ratcliffe had claimed that when he was a US attorney he led an immigration crackdown and arrested over 300 undocumented migrants in one day. It turned out he had only played a supporting role in this sweep that targeted workers at poultry processor in Texas and that only 45 workers were charged by prosecutors in Ratcliffe’s office. Six of those cases were dismissed, two because the suspects were American citizens. One investigator involved in this operation said, “At the end of the day, it did not deliver. It was the biggest waste of money and hype.”

Susan Angell shared a tip for contending with the news these days:

Thank you for your columns. I alternate news with poems of Mary Oliver, which seems to help.

That sounds like a good strategy. Mary Oliver opened her poem “What Is It?” with this line: “There are so many stories, more beautiful than answers.”

Stephen Wend found a stupid mistake in the item on Your Friends & Neighbors:

The Cary Grant movie was To Catch a Thief. It Takes a Thief was the television show Robert Wagner starred in, with the elegant Fred Astaire occasionally portraying his father. It was a favorite when I was a kid. My father liked it as well.

My deepest apologies to Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock, and Grace Kelly, too.

“What is this?”
“It’s a triptych, Moxie. I call it ‘Dog in Summer.’ What do you think?”
“It tells a story, but the composition could be better.”