A day before the so-called Epstein list was supposed to drop, far-right conspiracy theorists buzzed with excitement over the expectation that it would crucify prominent figures on the left for their involvement in sex trafficking. It’s a wildly popular notion in that world, where Pizzagate and QAnon fantasies run rampant.
The truth, of course, was far different: The material made public in federal court last week, with more now being released, wasn’t some kind of Jeffrey Epstein client list, as had been speculated online. It was actually documents from a court case filed by one of Epstein’s victims that did include people’s names, but provided little new information on whether they knew of or participated in Epstein’s heinous crimes.
To get a sense of why conspiracy theories centered on sex trafficking and pedophilia — and now the “Epstein list” — are so buzzy in MAGA circles, POLITICO Magazine called up Mike Rothschild, author of The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything and Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories.
Rothschild pointed to a toxic stew of age-old antisemitism; the worst incentives of today’s social media; and the right’s unending obsession with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump pops up in the documents, including some released on Monday, but that’s typically not a problem for his hard-core supporters. As with most conspiracy theories, adherents create their own reality.
“There’s nothing Trump can do that will lose these people’s loyalty,” Rothschild said. “Anything that is inconvenient, that alters their worldview, they’ll just ignore it, or they’ll make up some bizarre justification for it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are the conspiracy theories surrounding the so-called Epstein list?
The conspiracy theories are that this new release of documents is going to finally be the thing that brings down the elite trafficking cabal that's been running the world for 6,000 years. There's this perception that there's been information that’s been held back by the courts or by politicians or the media, this is finally going to put everything out in the open.
And because I've studied these movements for so long, I know that these movements really revolve around this idea that there will be a document or a memo or a list or a recording. And that will finally be the thing that finally ends the evil grip of the New World Order, and it never does. They always move on to the next one.
A common misconception is that the list documented Epstein’s clients who partook in sexual acts with minors, but that’s not the case, right?
It's not the case at all. It's a dump of documents related to the case. It's not the smoking gun that's going to finally bring down all of these powerful ones. A lot of the information and many of the names that are being revealed in these documents have already been known. Some of them were redacted.
But so far, I don't really think there's much of anything that we've learned that really changes our perception of what Epstein did and kind of who in his orbit knew what, because we know a lot of that already. We know it because of tenacious reporting, and the courage of the accusers who have faced him.
Then why was there so much excitement........© Politico