The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER

Do you remember QAnon?

It was a conspiracy theory that gained significant traction during the first Donald Trump administration. As explained in the US mainstream press, QAnon is “the idea that Trump was recruited by the military to take on a paedophile cabal that runs the world”.

This “cabal” is also referred to as the infamous, insidious, perhaps non-existent “deep state”. And the QAnon mentality offers some insight into the current MAGA crisis sparked by actions by the Department of Justice and the FBI concerning the potential release to the public of more information about infamous financier Jeffrey Epstein.

To most people, QAnon’s conspiracy theory is so outrageously far-fetched that it taxes the imagination.

But it’s real to millions of Trump supporters and MAGA zealots, disaffected American voters and millions more folks who are just generally aggrieved. And while QAnon regards the military as a bulwark against the deep state, other conspiracy theorists see American armed forces as the deep state’s tool.

About six years ago, a perfectly reasonable-seeming county tax assessor shared some views that still seem relevant today. This man had in his hands and in his calculator the power to raise or lower his town’s real estate taxes. He held a very responsible position that could impact individual people’s lives in fundamental ways. Let’s call him Dave.

“I think Donald Trump was sent to us to save us from the deep state,” Dave said. “I’m a religious man. I go to church services every Sunday. My wife and I live a life that corresponds to our religious beliefs. But there’s a sinister force out there that we fear and that we have committed ourselves to oppose. Most people have no chance against the deep state.

“I’m pretty sure that the deep state controls our weather, for instance. I think that climate control through manipulation of the clouds in the sky is one of their primary tools to keep us regular people on edge and not able to think clearly.

“I think the deep state is grounded in American coastal elites who think only of their own wealth and powerful positions. They influence or control our elections.

“Here’s a great example of what they do: They provoke and wage wars constantly. Look at the US in the past 60 years! We’ve been at war most of the time: Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Bosnia and the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, now Iran and Palestine through our support of Israel. The list is endless. And I dare you to tell me how any of these wars actually help ordinary people like me.

“The deep state makes a fortune off arms sales. They don’t care about our military soldiers who die overseas somewhere hardly anyone could find on a map. See what I mean?”

Experts on conspiracy theories believe the ascendancy of Trump in the years leading up to his 2016 election unleashed a latent base of people in the US who were seeking some kind of explanation for the fact that they seemed to be falling behind economically and even socially while the country seemed to be booming.

Millions of people, while perhaps not able to articulate their feelings, nevertheless knew they weren’t doing better than they had been doing. They needed an explanation.

No doubt many assigned the blame to themselves and worked to change their situation via job or location change, training, etc. But for many more, conspiracy theories offered a seductive alternative.

Back in 2016, many Trump supporters clearly felt that he would be able to change their lives materially. Some of the people closer to the fringe have admitted that they believed Trump could lower prices, reduce the economic bite of home and car mortgages, and generally relieve the economic stress that kept them up at night.

Among the principal villains, as convincingly portrayed by Trump, were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They were, after all, educated at Harvard and Columbia Universities. They rose from obscurity almost overnight to help lead the Democratic Party to surprising victories. Now, during Trump’s first term, the Obamas and Clintons were living lavish lifestyles in expensive mansions and jetting around the world. Where did they get the money to do that, if not from the deep state?

No responsible commentator is suggesting that Obama or Clinton are paedophiles. So QAnon doesn’t indict them individually. But QAnon does certainly indict Jeffrey Epstein, whose mysterious fortune and powerful acquaintances and glamorous lifestyle were linked to federal charges that involved abuse of women and underaged children.

One commentator writing in the New York Times noted that there do seem to have been many scandalous sex abuse issues involving celebrities in recent years. “These scandals did actually exist, and they involved people like movie producer Harvey Weinstein, America’s TV dad Bill Cosby, the Catholic Church paedophilia scandal. And now we have the Diddy (music entrepreneur Sean Combs) parties and grotesque allegations.

“On one hand, QAnon theory is outlandish. But on the other hand, there actually is a recurrent pattern of networks of powerful people or individuals abusing women or children. And it’s not just covering it up. It’s the fact that this horrible behaviour was known to other powerful people – public figures – who did nothing about it.

“There is a palpable truth to the notion that you cannot trust the elites to somehow expose and prosecute this behaviour. People see something true in QAnon and come to believe the wider theory is valid.

“When you say that the absolute worst things that you can imagine are happening, and those people are going to get away with it and they rule over you, that really resonates with a lot of people.”

Historians will likely chronicle a conspiracy theory continuum developing early in Trump’s first administration and then catching fire during the COVID-19 pandemic with all of its social and economic dislocations, Trump’s feckless attempts to make it go away and disdain responsible public health prescriptions from experts, and the overarching, jarring reality of over a million people dying in the US.

Dr Anthony Fauci was transformed from a trusted, avuncular public health adviser to someone representing and fronting for a shadowy, sinister group of anonymous conspirators whose aim was to cull the population through an induced plague.

Trump in his oblique, calculating way gave credence to QAnon and conspiracy theorists by referencing their social media posts or in casual comments to the press. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is perhaps the most prominent QAnon theorist in contemporary public life, with a long history of social media posts.

In 2019, Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell, having been indicted for various crimes including sex trafficking. The Times writer explained that “when Epstein was indicted and then found dead, that made the whole business just explode because this was now a case where you didn’t appear to be a crazy person if you wondered what Epstein was doing. How did he have all these connections to people like Clinton and Trump?”

For most of this month, Trump and his administration have been clearly evasive on Epstein and related “papers”. No doubt Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI leaders Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have not helped by their occasional public feuding and general clumsiness in trying to sweep the issue away from public attention.

Lots of old debris from earlier outrage about Epstein, including a shady plea deal done for Epstein by a Florida prosecutor who later became Trump’s Secretary of Labor, has risen to the surface again. House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday abruptly dismissed the House for its annual lengthy summer break, deflecting a move to subpoena records and call witnesses with potentially explosive Epstein testimony.

It looks like a clumsy attempt by Trump & Company to conceal and cover up some embarrassing truth about Epstein. The whole mess seems to confirm the old axiom that “what goes around, comes around”.

Lots of media are reminding us of Trump’s 2002 quote: “I’ve known Jeff (Epstein) for 15 years. Terrific guy. Lots of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, many of them on the younger side. Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Now Trump says “nobody cares about Epstein”. But millions of the president’s followers do care.