I’m not sure if you guys have heard of the Bulwark, but it’s a news site made up of Never Trumpers (a few key people worked for The Weekly Standard and started the site after the former shut down.) Three of the pundits there, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Jonathan V. Last (JVL), recently had a discussion about the impact the Epstein story is having on Trump. I haven’t been paying attention to the Epstein story, ever, but Longwell’s explanation as to why she think this could really affect Trump’s support interested me.
To get a better understanding of it, I’m going to try and sum it up here.
One faction of Trump supporters believe in the existence of “a uniparty, an establishment, a global cabal of people who will not tell you the truth about things.” They support Trump because he’s not a normal politician (i.e., he’s not part of the uniparty, and he promises exposes truths that have been hidden. Proof of this is the people Trump has chosen in key positions–specifically, at the DOJ and FBI (Bondi, Patel and Bongino).
These Trump supporters trust that Trump will be the one to reveal these hidden truths.
Because of that, Trump, Bondi, et Al, abruptly moving on from the Epstein files, without revealing anything substantial, after previously promising they would reveal the files, Longwell believes this is a big deal. And Longwell believes this because she believes the narrative of Trump as an outsider revealing ugly truths the elite government establishment has been hiding is the whole reason this faction is engaged in politics. If I understand Longwell correctly, if the narrative above turns out to be untrue, these supporters will stop participating in politics–e.g., they won’t vote.
What I want to do next explain the reasons I find this analysis persuasive, and I’ll do that in the next post.
Whether Sarah is right or not, what she’s saying is completely believable to me. For one thing, there is an overwhelming amount of information about politics and policy needed to evaluate a politician and understand politics. And the information is complex, nuanced and often not cut-and-dried. The narrative about the uniparty hiding things and Trump coming in to reveal them is not only easier to understand, but it is compelling and can engage and excite these citizens. In comparison, understanding important policies are confusing and boring. So I believe the narrative can really get people into politics–including getting them to vote–and if the narrative fizzles or proves untrue, it’s believable these people will disengage with politics.