MAGA believes the Epstein list is about the kids. It's not. It's about the grift.
Does this mean the cult is over? Well...not quite.
Why is MAGA clinging to the Epstein list like the last passenger on the deck of the Titanic?
It is connected to an almost decade-long conspiracy tied to the idea that MAGA, QAnon, Alex Jones, and all those other blowhards gave a flying you-know-what about protecting kids from sex trafficking and pedophiles.
The Simple Definition of a Conspiracy Theory
Visualization of what most of us imagine conspiracy theories to be.
Before I connect the dots, let’s stop and get a working definition for conspiracy theories. First, conspiracy theories set up an imaginary battle between good and evil. Pitting two sides against each other is great for social media because it drives anger and, therefore, engagement (read money) for anyone who stokes the conspiracy.
The Nature of Conspiracy Beliefs: Unifying Mythologies
In A Culture of Conspiracy, political scientist Michael Barkun defines it this way: “The essence of conspiracy beliefs lies in attempts to delineate and explain evil.... A conspiracy belief is the belief that an organization made up of individuals or groups was or is acting covertly to achieve a malevolent end.”
Conspiracy beliefs—like cults—provide a unifying mythology so encompassing as to be able to explain everything.
MAGA, or at least some of MAGA, believed their life was anchored by a mission to protect the children. That was their cultic worldview.
The “protect the children” conspiracy theory started with #PizzaGate moved to QAnon, and ends (for now) with the Epstein list.
Origins of the “Protect the Children” Conspiracy Belief: #PizzaGate
Protester holding a #PizzaGate sign and megaphone.
Below is an excerpt from my book, Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults, where I explain how #PizzaGate became the anatomy of this social media conspiracy.
#PizzaGate was a conspiracy theory based on the notion that Hillary Clinton was sexually abusing children in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor called Comet Pizza—a restaurant that, by the way, had no basement. Beyond the fabulousness of the story, the speed with which this blew through social media and the vitriol it engendered was unprecedented. So much so that one day a North Carolina man felt compelled to action, showing up in D.C. with guns blaring.
The conspiracy began on Reddit, quickly wending its way through the internet. Reporting in Rolling Stone (in conjunction with the Investigative Fund and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting) identifies the original #PizzaGate post as one that appeared on Facebook. It appeared on the site in late October 2016, the day after then–FBI Director James Comey said the bureau was reopening the Clinton email investigation. The investigation was being reopened because former Representative Anthony Weiner had been found to be sending pornography online, and his wife was an assistant to Clinton. The Facebook post, by a user going by the name of Carmen Katz, said, “My NYPD source said its much more vile and serious than classified material on [Anthony] Weiner’s device. The email DETAIL the trips made by Weiner, Bill and Hillary on their pedophile billionaire friend’s plane, the Lolita Express. Yup, Hillary has a well documented predilection for underage girls. . . . We’re talking an international child enslavement and sex ring.”
The reporters didn’t peg this poster as someone who would connect the dots of this conspiracy in the prism-like way it was done. They consulted a cybersecurity expert named Clint Watts, who explained that “Katz fits neatly into a well-worn blueprint for disinformation campaigns. For a story to gain traction, propagandists plant false information on anonymous chat boards, hoping real people will pick it up and add a ‘human touch’ to acts of digital manipulation.” The Facebook poster became an unwitting conspirator in this disinformation campaign.
From there, it gets convoluted as these things are meant to do. Police message boards and Facebook groups started posting. It then jumped to Twitter, where a user called Eagle Wings, who claimed to be a middle-age female air force veteran, posted about Clinton. Researchers determined this was a bot account, and it was one of many. Another likely bot Twitter account was @DavidGoldbergNY, which posted a screenshot of the original Facebook post. From the time of “his” post, “Pizzagate was shared roughly 1.4 million times by more than a quarter of a million accounts in its first five weeks of life.” The story was picked up and boosted by right-wing sites like Breitbart and InfoWars. InfoWars at that time was reaching 7.7 million unique visitors a month. After a broadcast of Alex Jones’s show on November 2, the story exploded. This, of course, led to more influencers like Betsy DeVos and her brother, Erik Prince, posting and tweeting about it.
On its face, it seems odd that the story was still being perpetuated after the election. On November 22, InfoWars produced a video called “Pizzagate Is Real” and continued to post more during the following weeks. If your party has already won the election, the only reason to keep pushing a fake story about Hillary Clinton is for cash. It was InfoWar’s over-the-top content that led Edgar Maddison Welch to head to D.C. with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a .38 handgun.
From MAGA to QAnon
In 2017, the conspiracy shifted to QAnon, whose core belief was “that a secret, pedophilic cabal of major news figures, celebrities, authors, billionaires, elected officials, and Democratic Party officials is conspiring to take over the world.” President Trump was supposedly fighting a surreptitious war against them, and he is the only thing standing in their way.
For the purposes of this discussion, the key thing to know is that Q used #SaveTheChildren as a hashtag.
#SaveTheChildren Hashtag Mobilized People into Sharing Conspiracy Beliefs
Q specifically co-opted this hashtag to avoid being kicked off social media, and attracted a new demographic: women. Lifestyle influencers and mommy influencers used the hashtag, creating what religion and radicalization researcher Marc-André Argentino dubbed “Pastel QAnon,” a conspiracy theory wrapped in pink and baby blue.
This hashtag also attracted New Agers and yoga instructors, particularly during the COVID pandemic. Spiritual practitioners were pulled into this conspiracy via #SaveTheChildren fueled the rise of conspirituality—the mix of conspiracy and spirituality.
Of course, what the children were being saved from and by whom was never clearly defined.
The “Protect the Children” Conspiracy Theory Returns
Like #Pizzagate, QAnon crumbled, which brings us to Jeffrey Epstein. Dan Bongino, a MAGA influencer and media personality, has long promoted that he was going to get on the inside and get “the list” exposed.
Well, now he’s on the inside—he’s the #2 guy at the FBI—and he’s done nothing. Almost daily, Trump is asking why everyone still wants to talk about Jeffrey.
So why has this become the fracturing point for MAGA? For almost a decade, this conspiracy has been drummed into people’s heads that they were the protectors of children. They believed the Dan Bonginos and the Alex Joneses and the Joe Rogans. They bought into the conspiracy theory about pedophilia. They believed that Donald Trump was going to annihilate anyone who hurt children.
This time, the narcissistic cult leader didn’t just lie. He lied about the fundamental beliefs, the mythology behind MAGA. If Trump can’t or won’t produce the list, then the worldview that has propelled their actions for years has got a Mack Truck-sized crack in it.
Bookshelf Theory of Why & How People Get Out Cults
When experts talk about people leaving cults, we talk about a bookshelf. And on that bookshelf are the doubts that the cult member didn’t want to look at. But over time, the doubts, like books, begin to pile up. A family farm lost in Kansas. A husband who was snatched up in an ICE raid. A family member who can no longer afford to go to college. These cognitive dissonances, the inconsistencies between belief and what one sees in the world, pile up. Hiding the list taps into their fundamental belief system about who they are. This, then, becomes the book that finally breaks the shelf.
One final, personal note: what infuriates me about using children as the basis for this conspiracy—beyond what it has done to our country—is that I have seen what it takes to fight for children. My sister was the Bureau Chief for Domestic Violence and Child Abuse cases in Suffolk County, New York. She came home at night and watched child pornography. When her husband asked why, she said, “I have to know what I’m prosecuting.” She went to every crime scene. She interviewed young kids sold into prostitution by their parents. Most people last in these positions for 3 years, my sister did it for 30. She died protecting kids…and she didn’t do it with a podcast or a hashtag.