I mean, I mostly agree. I would say that most Trump supporters don’t actually know what’s in the constitution beyond the 2nd amendment, and that’s why Trump is able to wipe his ass with it. If he were to directly say, “I don’t care about the constitution,” a lot of his supporters would denounce that. Similarly, I think a lot of his conspiracy supporters are willing to fold any contradictions he makes in the Epstien stuff into their conspiracy, but if he tries to denounce the conspiracy, he will be denounced. But only time will tell if they will, or if he even needs them now that he’s in power.

the only way to Democrats made their way back to the whitehouse was with an entirely new generation/brand of democratic politics under Bill Clinton, which embraced free trade and deregulation (i.e, the “third way”). So far, progressivism has not won in the way that this new brand of liberalism has.

This is a little too simplistic. First, it’s important to note how weird the 1992 election was. It was the first time in modern history that an independent candidate had a legitimate shot at winning; in fact, Perot was leading in the early polls, and very well could have taken the presidency if he hadn’t mismanaged his campaign, dropped out, and then re-entered the race. While he was somewhat centrist, he held a lot of populist and progressive positions like Medicare for all, assault weapons bans, opposition to NAFTA, and criticism of Reagonomics. Clinton ultimately won, but that probably had more to do with the 1990 recession than anything Clinton did, and, again, he very well could have lost to Perot’s platform had Perot been a more competent campaign manager.

As for the failures of the progressive message after that point, I don’t think that’s true, at least when looking at Presidential races. Obama governed as a centrist, but he campaigned as a progressive, promising Wall Street regulation, home owner bailouts, and universal healthcare. He abandoned all of those goals early on, but they are still what got elected, and he even made income inequality the focal point of his reelection campaign (which he again abandoned immediately upon reelection).

While Biden would never be called a leftists, he was a savvy campaigner, and he correctly read that the country wanted a progressive candidate in 2020. He leaned heavily on his strong pro-union history and had Sanders help him craft a highly progressive platform to run on. To his credit, I believe Biden did earnestly try to pass that platform, and it’s failure wasn’t do to a lack of desire. (He also funded a genocide and refused to step aside despite his advanced age, so fuck him, but the point is he got elected on a progressive platform).

Now let’s look at the presidential losers. Al Gore, a centrist technocrat, lost to Bush (sort of). John Kerry, a moderate war hero, lost to Bush. Hillary Clinton, who made the centrism of her husband’s presidency the cornerstone of her campaign, lost to Trump. And Harris (who, granted, was cobbling together a campaign at the 11th hour) ran a campaign of tepid centrist reforms and lost resoundingly to Trump.

So, tl;dr: Bill Clinton was the only candidate who won on an openly centrist campaign, and that was a very unusual election. The two other presidents, while also being centrists, won in progressive campaigns, while explicitly centrist Democrats lost.

How do these Q idiots reconcile the fact that neither Fox News or Donald Trump has said a peep about the story?

Well, like I said, it was easier when Q was active and there were a bunch of influencers crafting a narrative. If I remember right, the public Trump was mostly an act, while behind the scenes he was a more solemn man working with, “white hats,” to free children. That’s where all those memes about Trump’s, “sacrifice,” come from.

I honestly think it has less to do with anything conspiracy theory related and everything to do with good old fashioned racism, bigotry, and hypocrisy.

These things aren’t as disconnected as you might think. Conspiracy theories often create a permission structure for bigotry. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion made the internment and extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany acceptable. QAnon conspiracies about child trafficking are creating the same permission structure for the persecution of immigrants (there’s a reason Kilmar Abrego Garcia is facing trumped-up human trafficking charges now).

Conspiracy theorists are also often on the front-line of fascist movements, and following Q has kept me ahead of the curve on some of this stuff. While everyone was wondering who the hell the buffalo guy was on Jan 6, I was thinking, “Of course the QAnon Shaman is here.”

I’ve always found conspiracy theories and cults interesting, and I had started hearing more about Q during lock down (I think it was the mole-children under Central Park story that caught my attention). I found a podcast called QAnon Anonymous that I started following because it was funny and informative. Over time, I started gaining a better understanding of MAGA and the right-wing ecosystem by following them. Then, in the lead up to the 2020 election, it started becoming less funny and more newsworthy, and now it just seems important towards understanding how we ended up with a fascist government.

Maybe. I think a problem they’ve been having since the collapse of the Q account is that there is no centralizing force to help craft narratives. In the past, when Trump would make an move incongruous with their conspiracy, Q could release a cryptic statement and a series of Q influencers would step in to turn it into a something that fit the plot. Now Q is gone, and Q influencers are in the White House, so there’s less cohesion behind a narrative and less excuses for why the, “deep state,” hasn’t been exposed. Conspiracy theories work best as an opposition movement, not a governing party.

I think if I don’t know anyone it’s happened to in decades of living in large cities means its probably not very common.

I think that’s true for some MAGAs, but the QAnons have invested deeply in the child-trafficking conspiracy. I think if he created a narrative of, “Yes, I’m on the client list, but it was a double agent for the deep state,” they would swallow it (most of them already believe some version of that), but telling them that their is no conspiracy and they need to move on will not go over well. (Of course, claiming to be an Epstien double-agent is gonna make him look crazy to anyone not Q-pilled, so he can’t do that).

I think its a little more nebulous than you’re making it out to be. I think there are a of factions within the conspiracy MAGAs with different degrees of dedication. Some of them are just entertaining the idea because they like calling Democrats pedophiles, while others are QAnon true-believers that have been investing in this for the better part if a decade. I’m not sure what percentage of MAGA are true-believers, but they are his most loyal followers, and I do believe he might lose them if he can’t find a way to keep feeding them breadcrumbs. Plenty of MAGAs won’t give a shit, but I think they’re also more fickle and more likely to abandon him over something like his tariff policy fucking up their 401K.

This is just my gut feeling as someone who’s been following the Q movement fairly closely since the pandemic. I could be wrong, and we’ll see how it shakes out.

I mean, here’s a poll published 2 months later stating that Democrats want the party to be more progressive. Couple that with the fact that the 62% of Democrats want to throw the centrist leadership out on its ass and I’m not sure, “people want moderates, actually,” is a reasonable conclusion anymore.

Oh, that’s the tip if the iceberg. There’s one comic where he smashes up the city’s slums because he finds out the government will replace them with nicer, rent-subsidized apartments. There’s another where he traps a mine owner and all of his rich friends in a cave-in because of unsafe working conditions. Then there was the time he decided to take on traffic safety by smashing cars until the mayor promised to start enforcing traffic violations. Old-school Superman was one of those violent, radical-leftists the conservatives are so scared of.

Superman as an immigrant’s story is one of the oldest and most obvious analyses of the character. It’s barely even subtext; it’s just text. Imagine how he’ll react when he finds out Superman was originally a New Deal socialist who went around smashing up corrupt capitalists’ businesses for safety violations.

I mean, he’s not pulling that out of his ass entirely. The prosecutor who gave Epstien a slap on the wrist in 2007 claimed he only let him off easy because he was told Epstien, “belonged to intelligence.” That may be entirely bullshit, or it may he that the intelligence got wind of his sex-trafficking and offered to keep him out of prison if he set up a few honeypots. I would guess that it’s at least partially true, since the authorities seem to he withholding a lot of information from the public, but in any case, there’s no way he was a CIA agent or, “Patriot.”

Trump really painted himself into a corner by promising the QAnons all of the dirt on Epstien, and I’m very curious to see if a narrative like this can dig him out. They’ll usually twist reality into knots to keep their narrative alive, but, “Epstien was a white hat,” might he a bridge too far, even for them.

What exactly about the past decade of American politics makes you think that this is even remotely possible?

I significant amount has changed over the last 10 years, including how Trump has engaged with QAnon and the conspiracy-element of his base. Early on, he didn’t address or acknowledge Q, and only started dropping small dog whistles towards the community late into his first term. It was enough to keep them holding on without making direct promises.

The Q account evolved as well; they started off making bold predictions, like the imminent arrest of Clinton and other Democrats. When that became less tenable, they pivoted to vague, meaningless predictions like, “Watch the Water,” or just throwing out a date with no context. The account functionally died after Trump’s 2020 loss, and hasn’t really been relevant since.

During the Biden years, the community pivoted towards Epstien, with promises of unredacted files, flightlogs, client lists, and video evidence proving that prominent Democrats were all part of a Q-like conspiracy. The problem is, unlike the original Q conspiracy, which was based on imagined, malleable nonsense, this was based on real events with tangible evidence, which Trump directly promised to reveal. That means that, while the conspiracy has more credibility, its goal posts are harder to move.

This is already making it hard to keep the conspiracy-pilled MAGAs happy. Early on, Bondi gave a bunch of Q influencers copies of, “the Epstien files,” and when it turned out to be a bunch of information that had already been disclosed, they got pissed. They’ve also ripped Kash Patel and Dan Bongino apart for saying Epstien didn’t kill himself and Bondi for claiming she already had the client lists. So far, it hasn’t trickled up to Trump yet, but if he doesn’t figure something out, it will eventually. The only thing more important to these people than Trump is the conspiracy they created around Trump, and if he doesn’t find away to keep that alive, they will leave him.

Yeah, that’s certainly what they’re doing with Bondi, and I’m sure they’ll find other people to attack. But Trump is starting to wade in himself; in a press conference the other day, when a reporter asked him about Epstien, he answered directly, saying something to the effect of, “Why are you still talking about this, who cares?” And the answer is, “his most loyal followers,” so we’ll see how it shakes out. If he can keep using surrogates to take the blame, he’ll probably be fine, but if he keeps commenting directly, he might be in trouble.

This is funny, but it’s not really what I’m seeing from them. They all seem real upset that the Epstien files aren’t being released. So far they’re mostly blaming Pam Bondi, but if Trump keeps telling them to forget about Epstien, they might abandon him. They’ll bend their conspiracy theories around Trump, but if tries to break them, they’ll turn on him (…or say he’s been replaced with a deep-state body-double clone).

Yeah, I rode the Subway and T for years during rush hour, I used to work in Times Square, and I’ve of course been to tourist events in that time. In nearly 40 years of city living, I don’t know anyone who’s had their pocket picked, either in busy areas or, “Main st.”

That’s not true! He supported Medicare for all!*

^*who ^want ^it.

I grew up in New York City and now live in Boston and I’ve never encountered a pickpocket. I’ve been mugged three times and had a mentally unbalanced homeless guy punch me in the face unprovoked, but I’ve never been pickpocketed.