The Epstein files give MAGA a post-Trump future

The Epstein files give MAGA a post-Trump future
Even his loyal followers can see Dear Leader is getting quite old

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published July 23, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) All this stress Donald Trump is under appears to have caused him to confuse his old friend, Jeffrey Epstein, with his uncle. It’s a weird mistake. Epstein was a convicted sex offender and accused pedophilic sex trafficker whose efforts at pretending to be intellectual were embarrassing. John G. Trump, however, was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who did genuinely good work fighting Nazis. The only thing the two men have in common is that Trump admired them both, though in the only way he can admire someone, by talking about how their greatness — or, with Epstein, a “wonderful secret” — reflects well on him. However, it appears that the 79-year-old president mixed up the two men when telling one of his digressive stories, this time about Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber.

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Despite the elaborate combover, heavy orange bronzer and poorly-applied makeup to cover his old man hand bruises, Trump’s advanced age is getting harder for even his most loyal sycophants to ignore. His legs swelled so much recently that the White House even admitted the self-described “perfect physical specimen” has been diagnosed with a vein condition. But there’s also the visible general decline. Though he’s as loud-mouthed as always, Trump speaks more slowly, and his already tiny vocabulary has shrunk to the point where, in denying the provenance of a naked woman doodle he reportedly sent to his pal Epstein, Trump said, “I never wrote a picture in my life.” (This, too, is a lie.)

For MAGA influencers, the pressing knowledge that Trump won’t be around forever must be frightening. It’s not unusual for fascist movements to be incoherent in their ideology or goals. But with MAGA, it’s especially pronounced because Trump so thoroughly dominates and defines them through a cult of personality. If the movement is to survive, however, they need something other than Trump worship as a central organizing force. The best that most MAGA influencers have come up with is conspiracism. Spinning non-stop lies about secret cabals conspiring against red America keeps their audiences hooked, and it also isolates them from reality-based society. That combination of nuttiness and alienation is their best bet for continuing the MAGA cult after the leader dies or ages out of his capacity to control them.

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These efforts to throw a few crumbs at MAGA and call it a meal have shown mixed results so far. In the past few days, Kirk and other major MAGA media figures have dutifully shut up about Epstein, pretending to believe Trump’s claims that full transparency is coming down the road. But there still seems to be a steady drumbeat of anger from everyday MAGA folks. They’ve spent years of their lives invested in the lie that Trump was going to release their fantasy version of the Epstein files, which they hope will put away everyone they hate, from Bill Clinton to Beyoncé. On Tuesday, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and podcast host Tim Dillon were right back at it, saying the White House’s “nothing to see here” story “doesn’t make any sense.” The clip immediately went viral, underscoring the economic incentives these influencers have to keep up the Epstein chatter. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/23/the-epstein-files-give-maga-a-post-trump-future/