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Josh Marshall makes a good point about the MAGA obsession with pedophilia, Trump, and Epstein [1]

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Date: 2025-07-24

Donald Trump has a long history of abusing women. He’s cheated on his wives, and has been found guilty of sexual abuse in a civil trial among other things. So why has his MAGA base seemed so indifferent to it — but is all steamed up over Epstein and the possibility that Trump engaged in pedophilia?

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo explains why this is different. It’s not because they care about the victims.

…There are a few different ways to answer this. At one level, in MAGA world, Donald Trump is different. No rules apply to him. It’s good to be the king. At another level, it’s a complicated question comparing the horror of different kinds of sexual predation, or whether a person who does one is likely do do another. But there is one level of MAGA’s hyper-focus on pedophilia and sex trafficking conspiracy theories which needs to be emphasized. Because at a basic level, that obsession has nothing to do with pedophilia as a thing in itself — not as most of us might understand it. One of the most telling aspects of this MAGA obsession is the focus on the punishment of the “elites” who are behind it. At a basic level, the victims never really take center stage. And that is the heart of it. In the MAGA world, pedophilia isn’t a crime or abuse that needs to be stopped. It is more a legitimating tool which provides a license for cleansing acts of retributive violence and revenge. This is what’s at the end of the story in every far-right/MAGA conspiracy: a wave of eliminationist, cleansing violence led by someone like Trump in which the bad guys, the liberals, the Democrats, the globalist elites, etc etc are wiped out. And that’s why whether it’s Pizzagate, QAnon or the more outlandish versions of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories, they always keep coming back to pedophilia. Because pedophilia summons a level of disgust, anger and revulsion that makes the perpetrators seem uniquely inhuman, less than human, people against whom total violence is acceptable and necessary. In other words, these conspiracy theories are systems of thought that provide sanction and legitimation for what you want to do to your enemies. They’re about the enemies. The role of pedophilia in these stories is just a means to an end, making what you want to do with your enemies okay.

emphasis added

That’s the gist of it, but read the whole thing.

Marshall has hit on an important point here, in my opinion. The MAGA mind is wired differently. Right wing authoritarian followers grant their leaders carte blanche when it comes to their acts. The deal is they expect their leaders to protect them and wreak havoc on their enemies in exchange for their loyalty.

It takes something they can’t explain away to make them question that unswerving loyalty. The possibility that Trump has engaged in pedophilia and has been lying to them about it isn’t a simple problem in the sense of a crime — it’s that it feels like a personal betrayal .

They want a leader who can make the world simple for them — black & white, us vs. them simple. The Epstein blow up is more than they can handle.

Democrats should be unrelenting in demanding Trump come clean. The more he flails around, the worse he looks to his base. Don’t let him change the subject. The Republican Party is trying to act like a meat shield to protect him. Make sure they get included in the blast zone too.

And for the love of all that’s holy — Democrats need to stop beating up on their own. Rahm Emanuel and Josh Shapiro tag-teaming in The NY Times to attack Zhoran Mamdani is political stupid on steroids. Do not feed the media reflex to portray Democrats in disarray, and stop handing Republicans ammunition when they are desperately looking for distractions.

One more thing.

I’ve borrowed heavily from TPM for this. They are in the middle of a fund raising drive, so throw them some love if you can. They do good work.

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