Liberals don’t usually traffic in conspiracy theories. We think of ourselves as rational people who defer to the authority of facts. We believe we can shape perceptions of reality, but not reality itself.
It’s because we are the reality-based community, however, that we can’t sidestep what’s becoming clearer every day about Donald Trump.
He’s a sexual deviant.
And there’s a conspiracy to cover it up.
The latest in a string of revelations came during an interview with Michael Wolff. The author of All Or Nothing, a book about the 2024 election, Wolff said the source of a Wall Street Journal report about Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein was his accomplice.
“The salacious birthday greeting that Donald Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 on the occasion of his 50th birthday was a leak from the Maxwell family,” Wolff said, referring to the family of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.
“In the White House, they regarded this as ‘a shot across the bow’ – a threat that Ghislaine has damaging material on Donald Trump.”
Wolff said the leak is why the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, who was also Trump’s criminal defense attorney, interviewed Maxwell in prison to see what other incriminating evidence she might have. The meeting is widely seen as an attempt to either silence Maxwell with a presidential pardon or induce her to lie about Trump’s enemies.
About two weeks ago, the Journalreported on a birthday greeting featuring the outline of a naked woman. Trump had drawn breasts and signed his name so the signature suggested pubic hair. There was also a card with imaginary dialogue between the men in which Trump seemed to joke about a secret interest in sex.
The Wolff interview was posted the same day the president explained why, after decades of friendship, he had a falling out with Epstein.
The White House had said Trump kicked Epstein out of his Florida resort for being “a creep.”
Trump, however, suggested the real reason was that Epstein “stole” Virginia Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago.
Though there are more than a thousand victims, Giuffre is perhaps Epstein’s most famous. She revealed that, as a teenager, she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” to wealthy untouchable men who have escaped accountability to this day. She grew up to become an advocate for victims of child-sex crimes. She killed herself in April.
It’s unclear why Trump said this is the reason for his breakup with Epstein. What is clear is that it muddles the timeline and raises more questions. Ahmed Baba noted that Giuffre “was recruited in 2000.” He added: “Trump praised Epstein and said he likes young women in 2002. Reportedly sent him a birthday card in 2003. Didn't cut ties until 2004.”
In any case, revelations about Giuffre came less than a week after another report by the Journal. US Attorney General Pam Bondi met with Trump in May to discuss his name appearing multiple times in the Epstein files. The implication is that for this reason, she decided against releasing them, despite them being central to his campaign. The Journal report suggested Trump agreed with Bondi’s decision.
Some will say these details build on what’s already known. Trump has a long history of sexual deviance. He bragged he was so famous he could grab women by the pussy. Before the election, a judge used the word “rape” to describe how he victimized E Jean Carrol. With respect to Epstein, there have been intimations of pedophilia for decades.
So from a certain point of view, what we’re seeing now is indeed a conspiracy to cover up for Trump’s deviance, but that conspiracy has been obvious for a long time to anyone who has been paying attention. The question, from this point of view, might be: what’s different now?
I think the answer is that the primary means of covering up the conspiracy has come undone. By that, I mean conspiracy theory.
In that story, Epstein is part of a shadowy group of elites who control the government, the corporations and the media. This cabal is so powerful it can commit any crime — including the most heinous, like pedophilia and even cannibalism — and get away with it, all while conspiring with allies, foreign and domestic, to bring America down.
And in that story, Trump is supposed to be the hero, the “chosen one” who is supposed to save the country from an evil so great that he must do whatever it takes to defeat it, even commit massive crimes. This story, and variations of it, was told so frequently and so loudly by Trump’s media allies that the volume drowned out legitimate suspicions obvious to anyone who was paying close attention.
All that changed after Bondi met with Trump to determine that his name appeared in the Epstein files too many times to risk releasing them, despite the central role that information played. Her decision, which Trump agreed with, forced his followers to choose between belief in him and belief in their enemies. It was MAGA’s crisis of faith.
A phony conspiracy theory, sometimes referred to as QAnon or “the deep state,” covered up for the real conspiracy. But now that the conspiracy theory is no longer effective in doing what it had been doing — now that it is fading somewhat in importance to those who clung to it most fiercely — the actual conspiracy is coming to light.
And now that the actual conspiracy is coming to light, liberals have no reason to be squeamish about saying what is increasingly obvious.
Donald Trump is a sexual deviant.
And there’s a conspiracy to cover it up.