this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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IT’S HARD TO imagine a worse moment for Donald Trump to be caught in the Epstein dragnet than at the tail end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, with food benefits rattled, “affordability” on everyone’s minds, and his own voters starting to wonder if the guy in the red tie is actually on their side.

On the same day Trump finally signed a bill to reopen the government after 43 days of chaos, a coalition of House Democrats and Republicans dropped a tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails that punches holes straight through the president’s carefully curated story about a distant, long-ago acquaintance, with Epstein alleging Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours at my house” with one of the victims.

While the messages don’t show criminal conduct by Trump, they landed at a moment when Americans are already furious with his handling of Epstein’s files, the shutdown, and the basic question of whether their government works for the powerful or for everyone else. Together, they form a pincer around a president who keeps promising transparency and law and order, then flinching the second those promises threaten him personally.

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[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It’s funny that people still think his base is going to turn on him.

[–] turdcollector69@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I blame social media for making voters complacent. For like 10 years it's been the same bullshit, "there's a schism in the repubs," "his base will turn on him," " he's liable to stroke any day now," ect with absolutely no progress.

It's been a nonstop stream of promises that this will sort itself out or that his opposition is guaranteed to win.

If the target has been to make people not feel like voting that's been achieved multiple times over.

[–] Ancalagon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Latinos already turned. They were literally lied to during the election. The translations were not accurate.

[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Man, you are wrong about that. I want you to be right.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

I'm sure that they will turn against him, much like the face-eaten crowd, right up until the next election when they will miraculously forget and yet again vote GOP no matter what. Only Democrats vote against their politicians for perceived or real infractions.

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 48 points 3 days ago

It's weird and disturbing that the headline is probably true.

If the world made sense, it would be more than enough that he is, right now, moment-to-moment, obviously deeply mentally ill and wantonly destructive - a grotesquely corrupt pathological liar, vindictive narcissist, and raging sociopath who blatantly has done and is doing more harm to the US than any president at least in the modern era and quite possibly ever.

How has that not already been enough? I don't think I'll ever really understand that.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No it won't. They're already making excuses for the pedophile

[–] tym@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

What about the part where he puts penises in his mouth though?

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It was the only thing for a period of time, but now they think sex with 13-15 yr olds is fine and that the Epstein files are BS.

It’s over. Enough time has gone by that MAGA is okay with Trump in the Epstein files. It’s over. Those people are beyond fucked.

[–] jdredbeard@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They've been beyond fucked for a while. While most of the civilized world have been eliminating child marriage, Republicans have been trying to lower the ages. They want to lock in underage girls while they're "ripe" and "fertile. :

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

And inexperienced/naive.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I been hearing this bullshit about Donald Trump's imminent demise most of my adult life. This guy was outed as a cunt in the 80s. Wrong country. There are no consequences for anyone wealthy in America.

Bloom county shit on Trump for years. Even transplanted his brain into a cocaine addicted cat.

Oh, that's still going on. This is from earlier this month:

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Where does this optimism come from? All evidence to the contrary. His base knows he's a criminal scumbag already. They think it's cool. Please come back to this comment and downvotes it in the future if I'm wrong. I hope I am, but I'm not.

[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. There could be photographic evidence and a confession from Trump that he had sex with a 9 year old and His supporters would turn around and say pedophilia is actually good and a strong Christian value. These guys love Trump because He's Trump. It doesn't matter what he does and says because their entire world view is based on what He says. They worship Him as their true God.

The fact that he's saying that the full files will be released now either means he's like yeah, fuck it, there's nothing I can't get away with, or he's already gotten away with scrubbing them.

[–] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

We could have the pee tape and 80% of his supporters would call it fake. His supporters don't live in reality.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The “pee” tape everybody talks about was not actually “pee” in the report. It was “P tape”. Which at the time was speculated by many to be shorthand for pedo, and that has only become more and more likely to be true over the last decade

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago

In actuality, they brought pterodactyls back from extinction, just so the ultra rich could fuck them. Pterodactyl tape= P tape, and then he fucked a minor in the mid credits scene.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Idk, there will be a lot of holdouts that will quietly change their opinions about all this overnight and continue supporting him.

I have a MAGA relative that was very much in the camp of Epstein leading a pedo cabal (of Democrats!) and that he didn't kill himself (Democrats/Soros did it!!!). Then, as more evidence came out, they got quiet for a while. Then, just a few days ago, I see them now calling all this "The Epstein Hoax."

They will justify and rationalize ANYTHING for Trump.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

My mother claims to be a hippie. She says the coverup surrounding JFKs death lead her to being a Republican. She acknowledges some of Trump's problems, but excuses or dismisses all others. There is no amount of facts or evidence you can give these people to make them change their mind. Their brains simply don't run on logic or information. They run on feels or vibes. If we ever recover from this, we NEED to make sure it can never happen again.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

I'd kind of imagine that he's not developing these ideas on his own, that rather some media that he's consuming is providing him with them.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yes that's spot on. They get their marching orders from Fox News, various right wing YouTubers, and their other MAGA friends.

[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

The organization you’re looking for is called The Heritage Foundation.

Thats a more scary thought. It would imply when he finally kicks it. We'll soon have a new one.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A lot of his most likely insane followers were the original Q Anon weirdos who were believing every word of the Hillary Clinton/ Pizzagate/ Child Sex trafficking nonsense that got way out of hand, and then Trump courted those people because he had no problem with their ridiculous bullshit. Game recognizes game.

But I'd been following Jeffrey Epstein for a long time, since before his first arrest, and knew of his connection with Trump, and wondered how long it would take before the bets went around the table enough times that eventually it would come time to call the bet and show his cards - and we have finally reached that moment, and suddenly he doesn't want to show his cards.

We hung in this long, kicking into the pot on each round and raising, and now we've reached the end, and we want to see those cards.

[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

This ain’t the end. Trump will block the release no matter what anyone else says.

I feel like even aside from turning Trump's base against him, history should always remember the valuable lesson about the domino effect that can happen when you refuse to let shit go.

Think of the long trail of elite assholes who were thrown under the bus as a distraction/sacrifice in an attempt to kick the can further down the road. Unrelenting public scrutiny was directly responsible for a member of the royal family having his titles revoked. For something his family had already known about for decades and tried to ignore/hope eventually we would just let it go.

[–] tornavish@lemmy.cafe 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

No. Trump voters get hard when children enter the room. All 100% of them. Change my Mind.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

also any ivanka look alikes, or ivanka herself.

[–] tal@lemmy.today -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] tornavish@lemmy.cafe 3 points 2 days ago

Honey, women get erect. They also molest children. Perhaps if you were to ever pleasure a woman, you would know that—well, one of those things… I hope.

[–] GaryGhost@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I want to see that rapist squirm in embarrassment but what about the fucking ACA funding? Seriously, we need healthcare

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's still just so baffling that this same base that supports Pedonald could also be so obsessed with his best friend Epstein.

I mean, I know they like to tie themselves into knots in support of their ideology, but this one just defies belief.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

also because trump promised to released them many times. and he "faux" gave binders to influencers earlier in the year. hes planning to released on if his name and other conservatives are redacted from the files.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think there's a couple things. Him blowing Clinton might turn them away faster than...the party that constantly fights to lower the marriage age happening to harbor pedos...

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The thing is, you’re right, despite the him blowing Clinton probably being humour based on Lewinsky and not something that actually happened. But the image will still get stuck in his base’s minds, as it seems like something a pedophile would do without a second thought (which was likely the point of the original joke).

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago

Don't be so quick to dismiss the Blowjob Photo.

Absolute historical fact: Trump's (and Roger Stone's) political mentor was the psychopathic mob lawyer Roy Cohn, who died of AIDS in the 90s, denying he was gay to very end. One Republican leader said that Cohn wasn't gay, he just enjoyed sexually dominating young blonde men. Apparently that isn't gay in MAGA circles. Whatever you have to tell yourself...

Anyway, it should be noted that when Trump and Roger Stone were under Cohn's mentorship, both were young blonde men.

Secondly, we've always seen that Trump is intensely focused on his place in the pecking order. He shits on all those he feels are below him, and kisses the ass of those he feels are above him, like legitimate dictators like Putin and Un.

So doesn't it make sense that back when Clinton was in power, an aspiring Sociopathic Oligarch like Trump, might show his appreciation for some request he is making from the government? Surely doing things like that to get what you wanted was part of Cohn's tutelage.

I want to believe it.