To paraphrase the Bard, “Cry hoax and let slip the dogs of Infowars (and Fox, all the Cabinet toadies and more).” Normally Trump uses the word hoax as an offensive weapon to put the Democrats on the back foot. In the Epstein files case, he’s using it as a deflection, in other words, as an offensive defence. But let’s go back a bit to put a bit of meat into the muddled stew that constitutes Trump’s life.
Having stroked his ego with the successful realIty TV series, The Apprentice, Trump decided to create the biggliest ever reality TV show based on the US Presidency. Having flirted with a variety of political parties, he eventually settled on the Republican Party to contest the 2016 election. He saw there was a bunch of disgruntled conservatives who had a variety of gripes and completely distrusted the Federal government. They hated the rich financiers who they reckoned controlled everything, they hated the weak, commie leftist liberals who embraced LGBTQIA, Black and women’s rights and were soft on crime. At the same time, they bought into every conspiracy theory, no matter how wacky. With his fact free and loose freewheeling style, this was something he could work with. He created the MAGA slogan which actually became a movement itself. What was to become the (MAGA) Base, comprised rabid right-wing podcasters, conspiracy nut jobs, Qanon, The Proud Boys, the alt-right, The Oath Keepers, in fact, anyone who had a grudge. He also got the unquestioning backing of Fox News who daily sacrificed their journalistic integrity to support him and he somehow managed to get the evangelicals onside even though he is the antithesis of everything they stand for.
Like a good farmer, he assiduously nurtured his Base, mulching and watering them daily. Using lies, misdirections, misrepresentations, exaggerations, deflections and hoaxes faster than a school shooter spits bullets from his AR 15 assault rifle, he won the 2016 elections against the polling expectations and probably even his own. When he assumed office, it was obvious that he hadn’t thought things through. Like the dog that actually catches the car it’s chasing – what does he do with it? Using medieval English royalty monikers, he would have been called, King Trump, The Unready. After four chaotic years the Orange Jesus was ignominiously booted out of office by a sentient Zimmer frame.
Emboldened by the Base, Trump denied losing and still uses it as a rallying cry for them along with all his victimhood falsehoods. Rallying for his re-election in 2024, he turbocharged his trusty playbook. He added talking points of inflation, that all illegal immigrants are probably MS 13 or Trens de Aragua gang members, of shredding the Federal behemoth and how he was going to use tariffs to screw the whole world to usher in America’s new Golden Era. In between all this he appealed to the heart of the Base by repeatedly promising to release all the files of their favourite conspiracies – Area 51 and UFOs, the JFK and MLK assassinations and finally the Epstein paedophile files.
He kept his promise but the releases were been decidedly tepid. Over a month ago when Pam Bondi was asked about the Epstein client list which the alt-right were salivating about, she said it was sitting on her desk. It is undeniable common knowledge that Epstein and Trump were bff’s for over a decade before they had a falling out over a real estate deal so it is obvious that Trump’s name would feature prominently given their shared proclivities as regards women. Even if they were not lolitas, the optics would be disastrous and that is one thing that Trump is attuned to. When the list was not published, the Base started erupting. Bondi then revised her statement to remove the specific reference to the client list. The frustrated Base went wild and rebelled when they realised they had been played.
In a classic Trumpian manoeuvre, he reframed his promised drive to get to the bottom of the Epstein case as a hoax perpetrated by the Biden administration as he stated, “I can say this. Those files were run by the worst scum on Earth. They were run by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen.”
This is classic political gaslighting – making people believe the opposite to reality. The ultimate shell game – now you see it, now you don’t.