MAGA's Reaction to the Epstein Files Reveals Total Moral Collapse

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/epstein-maga-trump-morals/

No paywall link
https://archive.ph/boBCI

I’m not sure we’re terrified enough about the American right’s scrapping even its own scant moral boundaries.

Every segment of the Trump-backing right wing—America First nationalists, Trump loyalists and rank-and-file MAGA activists—has unsubscribed from the idea that there is any such thing as right and wrong, much less that wrongdoing should result in consequences. In effect, there is no behavior Trump’s GOP sees as too wrong to vote for. In late July 2025, almost half of Republicans said they would keep voting for Trump even if he were “officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking activities.” Crime is legal, where right-wingers are concerned, however heinous the crime is.

At least, for themselves. The right still has morals for days when it comes to Black folks, immigrants and trans people. Its moral code has always been selective and conditional; rigorously enforced and mercilessly punitive toward “outsiders” and “others,” but generally indifferent to even the worst acts by those on the right side of whiteness and power. Wilhoit’s Law—coined by music composer Frank Wilhoit in a now-famous 2018 comment on a political science blog—neatly captures this truth. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition—there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Now it’s ditching even its in-group protections.

The right’s reaction to the Epstein files disclosures is the clearest evidence of this. For the better part of a decade, conservatives lurched from one pedophile-focused moral panic to the next, proclaiming themselves the true saviors of children. They didn’t mean all children, of course; these are the same people who gifted a white woman with $750,000 just for calling a 5-year-old autistic Black boy the N-word. Their concern was always reserved for the white children they saw as fully human. They insisted pedophiles were hiding in pizza parlor basements; obsessed over Q drops and waved signs calling us to “#SavetheChildren” and “Stop Child Trafficking”; and pushed anti-LGBT “groomer” hysteria alongside anti-drag bills. Roughly half of Trump voters said they believed elected Democrats were running child sex rings in surveys from 2020 and 2022; a majority of 2020 Trump voters told pollsters that Trump was actively working to take down “an elite child sex trafficking ring involving top Democrats.” White lives mattered to conservatives, especially the youngest white lives. At least in theory.

And at least as long as they thought their political opponents were responsible. But the more we know about Epstein, the less they care. The nearly half of Republicans who said the Epstein files mattered at least “a little” to how they assess Trump’s presidency in July 2025 dropped to just 36 percent by November. (That figure is 64 percent for Democrats.) Faced with at least one allegation in the files that Trump sexually assaulted an underage girl and well-documented associations between their leader and Epstein—as well as other alleged sexual predators—the right isn’t just overlooking the implications; they’re abandoning the principles. The right has “gradually de-emphasized” the Epstein issue, CNN writes, choosing to “largely move on.” It was all political calculation.

*snip*

[underpants]

1. Fox barely covers it. They should 5 minutes of Pamela Jo's "Mean Girls" bit

The only thing they really hear about it is 3rd string Watters saying Epstein wasn’t really that bad AND Trump saying he was totally exonerated.

[B.See]

2. Their "morality" was ALWAYS a fallacy.

Judgment reserved for US, not them.

They were ALWAYS capable of ANYTHING.

Nice to know the world is finally waking up to that fact.

[msongs]

3. their new messiah is a se worker loving serial adulterer. MAGAns have no morals nt

[SWBTATTReg]

4. A disgusting cult, that's all this is. Thank God it's a minority, although this minority yells and screams like a bunch

of spoiled brats when they don't get their way. Just like tRUMP. These people need to be aware that one day, all of this will be gone and then we'll be there instead.

And this time, whoever is representing the democratic leadership in the WH and Congress, the Senate, had better not nominate someone like Garland. He was so worried about doing governance the correct way, but I hope that he's looking at all of the illegal ways tRUMP is putting governance in play illegally now. Garland is now forever on my list of worthless doers, never to appear on any of my fave democratic leaders.

[PatSeg]

8. And those "spoiled brats" are often heavily armed

and extremely violent. They're looking for a fight and any fight will do. What's the point of all those guns if you're not going to use them?

[IronLionZion]

5. MAGA loves Q-anon conspiracies but ignores real evidence and witnesses

[creon]

6. Accusation equals confession.

When the RW accuses Liberals of something, the RW is admiiting to it.

[CanonRay]

7. They still have a sense of right and wrong.

If they do it, it's right. if we do it, it's wrong.