How Trump Primed His Base to Turn Against Him

The Atlantic

16-07-2025

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In his first term, President Donald Trump was assiduous in courting his base of committed supporters, often at the expense of voters who were persuadable. Those decisions helped lose him the 2020 election.
Trump isn't doing much more to reach out to the center in his second term, but he is more willing to snub his core backers. In recent weeks alone, he has flouted his longtime claims of being anti-war by joining an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran; dropped his demand that Ukraine make concessions and worked to supply it with weapons against Russia; endured an acrimonious breakup with his high-profile, deep-pocketed pal Elon Musk; and used his One Big Beautiful Bill Act to slash entitlements, which he had claimed he'd never do.
Each of these has brought grumbling from subsets of his coalition, but none has been so sustained as the backlash over the administration's reversal on releasing the so-called Epstein files. Now some of Trump's most ardent backers are angry at him for purportedly hiding information, and he, in turn, is lashing out at them. 'The Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again!' he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social missive this morning. 'Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bullshit,' hook, line, and sinker.' Thinking about why this schism has emerged, and whether it will last, is helpful for understanding Trump's political appeal and future.
What exactly these files might contain is not clear. One theory is that they include a list of famous men for whom Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, procured underage girls for sex. (Epstein's 2019 death in a federal jail in New York City was ruled a suicide, but public doubts about its circumstances have persisted ever since.) Although Epstein had many famous friends, some of whom flew on his plane or visited his private island, no obvious evidence that such a client list exists has emerged.
But interest in the files has been whetted largely by Trump and his allies. Before entering the government, FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, both spread dark rumors about cover-ups related to Epstein and demanded the release of the names of his associates. Trump said during the campaign that he would publish materials related to Epstein—though in retrospect, his hesitation to fully commit during a June 2024 interview is conspicuous. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the Epstein client list was 'sitting on my desk right now to review.' Now her Justice Department says it doesn't exist. Trump claims he can't believe anyone is still talking about the story.
There are a few reasons this story has managed to stick in Trump's side in a way others have not. The first is that, unlike many of the other conspiracy theories propounded by Trump and his allies, questions about Epstein's cause of death and what secrets the government might be keeping are acceptable in polite company. Like Lee Harvey Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby, the death of a man connected to so many powerful people just seems weird, even if it was actually suicide. In a recent Economist /YouGov poll, 79 percent of Americans support releasing all the Epstein documents. Two-thirds believe the government is covering up evidence about Epstein. A separate YouGov poll found that 39 percent of Americans believe Epstein was murdered, 40 percent aren't sure, and only 20 percent believe he killed himself. And Democrats are eager to fan the flames, this week forcing House Republicans to take a vote on releasing the files. (The GOP majority voted it down.)
Second, the administration's behavior indicates that officials are hiding something, though probably not a client list. Good reasons may exist not to release all of the materials: For example, they likely contain privileged grand-jury information. They may include witnesses who testified confidentially. Very clearly, information about underage victims of sex crimes is involved.
But Trump's frenzied insistence that there's nothing to see suggests that there are secrets he'd like to keep. The men were, by Trump's account, pals for a time—and he was well aware of Epstein's reputation. 'I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,' Trump told New York magazine in 2002. 'He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' This relationship makes him a bad messenger for dismissing the story, but no other official has the credibility with MAGA voters that he does.
Earlier this month, the FBI released 'full raw' video from the jail where Epstein died, saying it showed that no one entered his area in the time around his death. But Wired reports that the video was neither raw nor full: It was edited to remove almost three minutes of footage, in the most interest-piquing splice since Watergate's 18-and-a-half-minute gap.
Third, and perhaps most important, the questions about Epstein cut directly to the core of Trump's political appeal. Although many of his supporters (or should we say 'PAST supporters'?) opposed military raids, like the Iran bombing, and support for Ukraine, their affection for him is not about policy. It's personal. His fundamental proposition to voters was: I will tell you what the other politicians refuse to tell you. That's why backers hailed his 'authenticity' and 'honesty,' even though he was the most prolific liar to ever occupy the Oval Office—no small feat.
Trump has spent a decade telling Americans that they can't trust the government. He's said a 'deep state' of unelected officials is plotting against them and hiding information. He's told them they can't trust what they've been told about vaccines, the John F. Kennedy assassination, or what they saw with their own eyes on January 6, 2021. Now Trump wants the nation to just trust a bunch of government officials without seeing evidence to back it up. (If it were true, as he claims, that the Epstein material is a hoax by government officials, you'd think he'd want to investigate that, as he has in far-less- credible instances.)
His gambit might work. The power of polarization and affective partisanship is strong and tends to draw people back to their corners. Already, some of the MAGA media are moving on and falling in line. But even if the whole flap leaves only a small dent in Trump's armor, it reveals an irreconcilable conflict in his political identity. Running against power is a smart campaign trick, but once you're in office, you can't keep blaming others for things that the government does. The buck stops with you, whether you like it or not.
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The Senate is poised to pass a package that would result in a combined $9 billion in funding cuts for international aid and public broadcasting.
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