Trump’s Epstein Betrayal Is Actually Great News

Beyond the disillusionment are opportunities for real change.

Last year, I received countless angry social media comments from MAGA voters insisting I was wrong about Donald Trump. If I didn’t see that he was coming to save us from the communist Democrats, globalists, Washington D.C. swamp, deep state, and elite pedophiles controlling the world and destroying America, I was lost. Sometimes, I was worse than lost: I was a fraudulent grifter knowingly denying the good word of MAGA and Daddy Trump.

Fast-forward to this week, and many Trump supporters feel disillusioned about his presidency. Evidence has been mounting (since his first term) that Trump is not the anti-establishment savior he often paints himself to be. From his elevation of the technocratic oligarchy to his subservience to the state of Israel and many other damning policies that violate his campaign promises, cracks in the facade have been deepening.

“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?”

Nothing has been so jarring to so much of the MAGA base as the Trump administration’s conclusions on the Epstein Files. Many Trump voters were hopeful if not certain that Trump’s return to the presidency would include transparency and mass arrests of powerful people who participated in Epstein’s perversions. Despite multiple insinuations that extensive Epstein information would come to light during the second Trump presidency, nothing has materialized. The Department of Justice announced this week that there is no list of clients, and Epstein committed suicide. Trump has since waxed exasperated that people still want more information. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he asked a reporter seeking more details.

This is all a direct contradiction of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s assertions earlier this year that many names would be exposed (this statement came amid the great binder bamboozle). While Trump’s most committed followers are convinced he is simply playing 5D-chess against the establishment, many MAGA members are starting to see through the smoke and mirrors.

That’s why, despite the sting of disappointment and disillusionment, Trump’s betrayal on the Epstein issue is great news. It’s not great that members of his administration made a huge fuss about releasing damning information about Epstein’s conduct, clients, and crimes—promising harsh retribution—only to flip-flop. But this will very likely catalyze many to shake off the system’s trance.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you”

Every election cycle, it is frustrating to watch people clamor to voting booths and place blind trust in untrustworthy politicians with track records of hypocrisy and dishonesty. Every election cycle, I am told the stakes have never been higher and that I must support this or that candidate to save the country. Every election cycle, it’s the most important election of our lifetime. Civilization hangs in the balance of the battle between good and evil. According to many voters, the politician they’re voting against is obviously the embodiment of evil. The politician they’re voting for is obviously fighting for good (or at least less evil). And every election cycle, nothing changes. The ruling class stays in power and continues chipping away at liberty while gaslighting the public with talking points and veneers of progress.

I understand how and why people get sucked into the false promises of politicians. The state of the world and politics is grim. Faith in governing institutions is staggeringly low, and the problems this system has created seem insurmountable. The hopelessness can feel overwhelming, so when a charismatic politician validates your concerns and promises to fix everything, the temptation to place your faith in them can be too strong to resist. Add in the fact that we are all taught the virtues of representative government and elections, and it’s no wonder people become entranced by political rhetoric.

I am no stranger to this experience; my near-fanatic trust in Barack Obama (based on his rhetoric, not his record) led me down the same path. But when contradictions kept mounting during his presidency, it became harder and harder to cling to his campaign promises. When I realized Obama failed to live up to the election rhetoric that led me to vote for him, I faced disappointment similar to what many MAGA voters feel now. I felt betrayed, angry, and even a bit ashamed to have fallen for it. But as the Sufi poet Rumi is often credited with saying, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” (I can’t confirm Rumi said exactly this, but the sentiment is applicable regardless of the source).

As painful as the experience was, it allowed me to open my mind to other possibilities. If the politician I trusted so wholeheartedly was just like all the others, what hope was there for a political solution? On one hand, this was even more demoralizing. The mechanisms for social progress and accountability I was told were sacrosanct (voting, elections, and representative government) were actually vehicles for control, abuse, and authoritarianism. The very system I was taught gave me power and agency was keeping me subservient to the machine and unable to see possibilities outside of it. I was caught in a mental and existential matrix.

On the other hand, beyond this heartbreak was a chance to fully shake off that matrix. If no one was coming to save me and political institutions were rotten to their core, I no longer had to hang onto the lies and narratives that went along with them. My emotional and material dependence on “civic duty,” politicians, and “democracy” or “the republic” evaporated. While this was uncharted territory in my mind, it was liberating. The great betrayals of Barack Obama were integral to my conscious evolution away from the propaganda prison of politics. Just as in the film The Matrix, breaking out of the programming can be terrifying and agonizing as you become aware of the true nature of reality. But on the other side, there is freedom.

My hope is that Trump and his administration’s betrayal of the MAGA base (on many fronts, but especially with the Epstein news this week) leads to a mass exodus from the cult of politics. This optimism is tempered by the stark reality that many people will simply pivot to another politician they hope will save them from the many ills of the world. In that case, they will learn one of two things: 1) the same lesson (as many times as they need to) or 2) that sincere people who go into politics with integrity and an authentic desire to drive positive change never make it far up the authority totem pole. In either case, there is rich, fertile soil for a renaissance of free thinking and autonomy.

While it is tempting to gloat that I and many others saw through the MAGA propaganda, I believe it is far more effective to empathize with the people who trusted it. Many of us who saw through it this time were unable to do so in the past, and remembering the power of this programming with humility and compassion is essential in inviting the newly disillusioned to think and live differently.