It's as if someone had deliberately did a lot of work to make it really, Really, REALLY look like a high-level conspiracy.
Of course, it doesn't take much work to make a conspiracy look like a conspiracy. And how likely is it that the incompetents involved could manage to fake one convincingly? Or even do a lot of work to try to?
2025-07-16 18:31:03
The evidence could go missing, but to the people who have built influencer careers out of Epstein conspiracies, that would likely just fuel the fires of speculation.
And if I were Bondi, I'd be sure to stash the evidence somewhere that Trump couldn't get to it, rather than destroying it.
And she doesn't even have to stash the evidence. A copy of the evidence would be just as good, maybe even better, for convincing the conspiracy theory enthusiasts that it's real. "The Elites destroyed the original. But we've gotten a copy out and we'll destroy them with it!"
Of course, the minute there's one copy out, there will be a dozen (hey, I said the first minute) variations splashing across the Internet. No doubt Trump will feature in at least some of them.
2025-07-16 14:14:13
“It’s much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you’ve been lied to for the last eight years.”
I think this is where the Lewis goes wrong. They don't have to struggle with the idea that they've been lied to. They just have to maintain their outrage at the Elites for covering this up. Doesn't matter that Trump might have lied to them (ya think he might have?). All that matters is that they are heavily invested in the idea of a conspiracy to cover up massive Elite morality. And that now there is a chance to drag it into the open.
In the end, they're more wedded to their conspiracy beliefs than they are to Trump. And massively more so than to anybody else in his administration. Hence the immediate demands for Bondi's removal. I agree with hsh that his best course would be to just shut up about it. Let the ravening hordes focus of the rest of the administration, and throw them to the dogs as necessary. But he's probably incapable of that. His loss is the country's gain.
2025-07-16 08:59:07
Just for the benefit of anyone coming to this in the future, the last three entries in the Plus ça change... thread are also on this topic.
Apologies to those here for not making it a thread initially. Unfortunately, I was on my phone and didn't have easy access to create a new thread. (Probably ought to fix that....)
It's as if someone had deliberately did a lot of work to make it really, Really, REALLY look like a high-level conspiracy.
Of course, it doesn't take much work to make a conspiracy look like a conspiracy. And how likely is it that the incompetents involved could manage to fake one convincingly? Or even do a lot of work to try to?
The evidence could go missing, but to the people who have built influencer careers out of Epstein conspiracies, that would likely just fuel the fires of speculation.
And if I were Bondi, I'd be sure to stash the evidence somewhere that Trump couldn't get to it, rather than destroying it.
And she doesn't even have to stash the evidence. A copy of the evidence would be just as good, maybe even better, for convincing the conspiracy theory enthusiasts that it's real. "The Elites destroyed the original. But we've gotten a copy out and we'll destroy them with it!"
Of course, the minute there's one copy out, there will be a dozen (hey, I said the first minute) variations splashing across the Internet. No doubt Trump will feature in at least some of them.
“It’s much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you’ve been lied to for the last eight years.”
I think this is where the Lewis goes wrong. They don't have to struggle with the idea that they've been lied to. They just have to maintain their outrage at the Elites for covering this up. Doesn't matter that Trump might have lied to them (ya think he might have?). All that matters is that they are heavily invested in the idea of a conspiracy to cover up massive Elite morality. And that now there is a chance to drag it into the open.
In the end, they're more wedded to their conspiracy beliefs than they are to Trump. And massively more so than to anybody else in his administration. Hence the immediate demands for Bondi's removal. I agree with hsh that his best course would be to just shut up about it. Let the ravening hordes focus of the rest of the administration, and throw them to the dogs as necessary. But he's probably incapable of that. His loss is the country's gain.
Just for the benefit of anyone coming to this in the future, the last three entries in the Plus ça change... thread are also on this topic.
Apologies to those here for not making it a thread initially. Unfortunately, I was on my phone and didn't have easy access to create a new thread. (Probably ought to fix that....)