Trump’s conspiratorial base are hugely and reliably animated by stories about impunity for elite sex predators. As well they should be! Elite sex predators get away with all kinds of crimes – not just Epstein, but the whole universe of powerful men, from Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump, who systematically abused women for decades and got away with it – bragged about it, even!
But despite these very real abusers, the conspiracists in the Trump base are mostly concerned with imaginary abusers – Qanon’s shadowy cabal of adrenochrome-guzzling pedophiles, tirelessly freighting trafficked children from one nonexistent pizza parlor basement to the next, packed inside of very mid Wayfair home furnishings….
“ … we have a socioeconomic system that concentrates nation-state level wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals, with virtually no checks on what they can choose to do with it.”
"Indeed, one of the strangest things about the Epstein case is that it's the rare instance in which right-wing conspiratorialists care about actual people, rather than imaginary ones."
@pluralistic Care about actual people? Not really. I hear a lot of talk about the list and who's on it, not much about the victims and making life better for them. That's true for both MAGA and anti-Trump voices.
Mitch Wagner
"Trump's conspiratorial base are hugely and reliably animated by stories about impunity for elite sex predators. As well they should be! Elite sex predators get away with all kinds of crimes -- not just Epstein, but the whole universe of powerful men, from Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump, who systematically abused women for decades and got away with it -- bragged about it, even!
"But despite these very real abusers, the conspiracists in the Trump base are mostly concerned with _imaginary_ abusers -- Qanon's shadowy cabal of adrenochrome-guzzling pedophiles, tirelessly freighting trafficked children from one nonexistent pizza parlor basement to the next, packed inside of very mid Wayfair home furnishings.… "
