this is a long awakening I've been biding my time for. I encouraged Epstein discourse amongst my MAGA family, bought my dad a "Epstein Didn't Kill Himself" Christmas Sweater, he got as much into it as I am. I'm really hoping this is what will break their programming
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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Anyone with a semi working brain was flabbergasted how the MAGA crowd pushed a topic
- that started under Bush (Epstein plea deal with the US government was in 2007, Obama was elected 2008)
- that had significant events happen during Trump's term
- heavily involved Trump personally
Yeah, Dems and their donors are probably involved as well but... all the super shady stuff was under Republican rule, and it feels like there are more pictures of Epstein with Trump than without him... it makes no sense to me to push the topic from a right wing position, but I guess this was the only connection to fringe conspiracies they could find. And now, big surprise, they don't want to follow up on their rhetorics... and MAGA is surprised? How much hate-flavored Kool-Aid do you need to drink to not make the most basic connections?
it IS interesting and worth examining. couched in all those moving parts are simultaneous appeals to populism and also disgust for pedophiles. over time those values got overwritten by hero-worship and schadenfreude, but they started somewhere less evil. it's kind of why I felt deep down like maga people could be saved by degrees if leftists actually wanted to deradicalize the right.
too late now, the fascism train has no brakes. but there's something about the human psyche to be studied here.
I respect the long game, hope it works out for you.
Is it working so far? People at work still are still wearing the damn hat.
not a whole lot. throughout the course of this MAGA people have actually created some mental tricks for themselves to detach themselves from reality. picture basically the narcissists prayer. if my Dad finds himself surrounded with enough other maga people who are collectively waking up, he will too. but whenever something like this happens, which it has several times, he distances himself from all media to do his praying and reinforce the worldview.
cards on the table, he's probably going to throw away the sweater I bought him 😔 in a month he'll be back to celebrating how great Trump has been for his retirement fund (he hasn't)
I've been seeing that a lot, especially on posts about Stephen King saying that the Epstein List isn't real. Really fun to watch people try to defend actual pedo stuff with "You just don't understand the context!"
The die hards don’t care as long as he’s doing racism.
The weaker and more stupid people are, the harder they have it owning up to their own shortcomings... but that's already assuming that underneath all of this, their humanity is still intact. Even if the average Republican could understand they were all conned because they're dumb and everything (the entire American populace and since forever but one step at a time), would they take it in humility and as a lesson instead of doubling down yet again? And if they did, would they then do their part to heal their nation and the world? Do they have it in them? Is it in the cultural characteristics of the Anglo Saxon man?! 🤷 The imperialistic liberals never have and they're the 'smart' and 'soft' Americans! 😂 I wouldn't bet a dollar on it.