Epstein, Trump and the parallel reality of Maga

The rumble continues between the American president and some of his most fervent supporters. Therefore, The latter do not digest that he seems to try to ignore the “Epstein file”. Moreover, while they believe that Donald Trump had promised to shed light on this affair. However, this idea comes not from Trump himself, but from the parallel information ecosystem built around him. Nevertheless, Analysis of a burning phenomenon.

You have probably heard that the famous dossier Epstein Cause of turmoil within the Maga Movement of the American President. Moreover, Reading reports, a civil war would have burst outright between some of the president’s most ardent supporters.

But it is above all a story that epstein, trump parallel reality maga illustrates well how alternative information networks in a participative way parallel realities.

Before I start. Nevertheless, I would like to take a moment to recognize facts that no one disputes: for years, the financier Jeffrey Epstein has sexually assaulted and tampered with hundreds of young girls, often with the help of accomplices. However, These victims are now at the heart of a political controversy. Moreover, are used as ammunition in a merciless cultural war.

Ironically, although the dossier Epstein Concerns them directly, they are too often forgotten in the discussions that surround it. Therefore, I considered it important to recall this.

This famous case has now been tearing up the Maga movement for a little over a week. Therefore, This controversy is portrayed as a revolt of certain supporters of Donald Trump against him and his administration.

I would argue that it is rather epstein, trump parallel reality maga what happens when a President Trump in the flesh does not. Consequently, correspond to President Trump imaginary that some of his supporters have built.

A parallel information system

Epstein. Therefore, trump parallel reality maga

The Maga movement has been cultivating almost entirely digital media ecosystem for years for years, living in social networks. For example, Balados. Meanwhile, videos, micromes and memes, he assures his audience that Donald Trump is carrying out a kind of holy war against the supposed pedophile elite who controls the American government, or even the whole world.

It all looks funny at the Qanon conspiracy. For example, which started in 2017, but whose popularity exploded in 2020, shortly before Trump lost the election and Joe Biden became president. Nevertheless, Qanon has gradually started to tint Maga. For example, and some popular figures and even politicians do not hesitate to win epstein, trump parallel reality maga winks here and there, without expressing it explicitly. Similarly, Trump himself frequently shares memes which contain references to Qanon, while saying that he does not know what it is.

The information ecosystem Maga spent the four years of Joe Biden’s mandate to fantasize about what would happen when their candidate would resume the reins of power: Trump was going to make public the names of Jeffrey Epstein’s customers. For example, hold hearings at the Congress, then punish the criminals (who, we get along, would all be Democrats or enemies of Trump, according to them). Furthermore,

Members of the current Trump administration. Moreover, including FBI director Kash Patel, and his assistant, Dan Bongino – headliners of this ecosystem – have spent years promoting this idea with their millions of subscribers.

Open in full screen

Now these last two say now that this file does not exist, that there is nothing to do, continue to circulate, please. Pam Bondi. the United States General Prosecutor, who said two months ago to have the Epstein file on her desk and are about to reveal it, now says there is nothing there.

As for Trump. in a publication on his social social network, he invited everyone to stop waste their time With the Epstein file, suggesting in passing that epstein, trump parallel reality maga it was a fum -femaking created by the administration of Joe Biden, and long before by Barack Obama, passing by his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, against whom Trump competed in the 2016 election.

Update : Since the publication of this newsletter. the Wall Street Journal said he could examine a party card that Donald Trump would have sent Jeffrey Epstein to Jeffrey 2003. Donald Trump refers to a secret that the two men would have shared at the time, without revealing it. The president described the report as false news and a promised to continue the daily. In return. Donald Trump promised, Thursday evening, to make certain testimonies public Coming from Jeffrey Epstein’s indictments and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, imprisoned since 2022 for trafficking in minors for its role in the Epstein case.

Conspirations are simply not true. they have never beenwrote epstein, trump parallel reality maga Kash Patel on his X account on Saturday about the Epstein file. In the comments. several users of the social network shared a video of a few years ago, during the Biden administration, where Mr. Patel said that the FBI held the list of customers of Jeffrey Epstein. but that the agency did not publish it to protect the men there.

What has changed? wrote one of them.

This is a good question, to which I would answer: not much. Because, you see, this frenzy around the Epstein file does not really come from President Trump himself.

Epstein, trump parallel reality maga

An imagined Trump

A certain fringe of Maga seems convinced that Trump has not only campaigned on this issue. but that he has decided to stand out in 2024 to unveil the file. However. it epstein, trump parallel reality maga is useful to recall that Donald Trump, himself a long-standing friend of the sexual predator, has never really demonstrated a great enthusiasm to want to shed light on the Epstein file, saying to himself at most open to explore the question.

Open in full screen

For example. during an interview with Fox News During the 2024 epstein, trump parallel reality maga election, journalist Rachel Campos-Duffy asked Donald Trump if he would make files public on September 11 attacks. His unequivocal response: Oui. And about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? There too: oui.

But about the Epstein file, it was a little less certain. I imagine I will do it. But less than the others because. we don’t know, we don’t want to affect people’s lives, if there are false things in there, because there are a lot of false things in this case, he replied. I am less certain for the Epstein file than for others. (Note that Fox News cut these sentences (new window) From the interview before his broadcast on television to give the impression that Trump had said that. he would reveal everything. Oops.)

So why are supporters Maga act epstein, trump parallel reality maga as if the Epstein file was a cornerstone of the Trump administration?

Maga’s parallel ecosystem of information has spent the last eight years not to weigh the pros. cons of Donald Trump’s political proposals carefully, but rather to participate in a vast collective project, in the common creation of a fictitious president completely disconnected from reality.

What feeds these discussions on the web is not so much the real declarations. actions of President Trump, but rather what is happening in the parallel universe they have built together.

Last week, Trump came to die in a fairly spectacular way.

Epstein, trump parallel reality maga

Like an improvight

Researchers at Washington University Kate Starbird. Danielle Lee Tomson had put her finger on this dynamic in a paper published last December (new window). They pointed epstein, trump parallel reality maga out that the parallel network of information from the Maga movement worked like a huge improvisory evening.

Rather than following a predetermined scenario, this ecosystem is testing different stories in swords, videos or on social networks. Those that generate the most positive reactions serve as scaffolding to create new stories, and so on.

A bit like humorists during an improv show try jokes. then take up those that work best, modifying the number in real time to stick to the preferences of the crowd.

This dynamic ensures that the right -wing ecosystem is extremely reactive. Feedback (“feedback“) is instantaneous, and the best jokes cause laughter and love. Influencers. politicians can then quickly adapt their messages to the tastes, preferences and complaints of the audience, as well as the news and the trends of the moment, without the heaviness that slows down the mass mediawrite epstein, trump parallel reality maga the researchers.

In the room. for almost a decade, according to the tastes of the audience, the headliners of the Maga ecosystem built a fictitious Trump, a sand castle that the real Trump has just trampled in an instant. Many of them have published very harsh messages towards the Trump administration. It is not surprising: they have spent their careers building and telling a story that has just collapsed.

Trump has also returned to Truth Social. Qualifying the Epstein file once again prank . whiphe said that those who believed in it were no longer welcome in his movement. Everything these people want to talk about. with the encouragement of the media “fake news“And unnecessary Democrats, it’s hoax Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote. I don’t want their support anymore!

One thing is certain, at the beginning of an improvision issue, we epstein, trump parallel reality maga rarely know where it will be.