KINSELLA: Epstein files latest conspiracy theory that will fizzle out

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More than a decade ago, in 2014, a couple of University of Chicago guys published a study about conspiracy theories.

Their much-cited investigation focused mainly on Americans, but its results are applicable to Canadians, Europeans and others, too. For a long time, the authors wrote, people “have demonstrated high levels of suspicion towards centralized authority and their political elites.”

Americans have long led the way on this sort of thing, of course. Post-Watergate, the “paranoid style,” as the authors termed it, infected their politics, media and even Hollywood movies. Back in 2014, 50% of Americans believed in at least one conspiracy theory. It’s a lot more now.

Per usual, Canadians were a bit late to the party, but we started to enthusiastically champion conspiracy theories, too. Canadians embraced what the Chicago professors called “a general distrust of government and fear of larger, secretive conspiracies.”

So, in 2023, Leger reported that 79% of Canadians believed in at least one conspiracy theory. The big ones, for us: JFK’s assassination was a cover-up; a cure for cancer has been found but is being suppressed by government and Big Pharma; Princess Diana was assassinated and not simply killed by a drunk guy driving too fast; and — my fave — mainstream media fabricate what they report.

Having worked for the mainstream media off and on for several decades, that last one always slays me. Those of us who work in the media (and politics, for that matter) can assure you: we couldn’t put together a decent conspiracy if our lives depended on it. It’s a miracle, frankly, that we remember to walk out of the house wearing shoes.

In recent years, there’s been COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, 5G, GMOs, climate change and a bunch of others. But the hottest conspiracy theory in Canada, at the moment — and I’ve written a book about it – is that all Jews are immensely wealthy and powerful, and that they are covering up a murderous genocide against guiltless, child-like, angelic Palestinian saints. (Leger again: half of Canadians truly believe Israel is genocidal.)

Adherents of this particular conspiracy theory — like all conspiracy theorists — are disinterested in the facts, one of which is: if Jews were as all-powerful as the haters claim, wouldn’t they be able to stop bad people from shooting up their schools, firebombing their synagogues, and trying to kill them? If they were so controlling, couldn’t they have gotten Hamas and Hezbollah to stop, you know, killing them?

All of which brings us to the conspiracy theory of the moment — the Jeffrey Epstein files. The MAGA movement is incensed, we are told, and President Donald Trump could lose the presidency to the perception that he is covering up information about the deceased millionaire pedophile.

No fan of Donald Trump, am I, but I don’t quite get what the fuss is all about. Trump and Epstein were pals, and the internet is chock-a-block with photos of the pair, leering at females who were, in fact, girls. It’s not exactly front-page news: Trump and Epstein hung out together, and they were creeps.

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Hell, a civil jury found in 2023 that Trump had, indeed, sexually abused a woman many years before; another jury, in a criminal case, ruled last May that Trump had paid hush money to cover up an affair with a porn star — while his wife was pregnant, no less. Like I say: Trump’s a perv? Not a revelation.

So why, then, are prominent conservatives — like the spurned Elon Musk, MAGA-matron Marjorie Taylor Greene, and some of Trump’s own appointees at the FBI — so worked up about Epstein and Trump?

Because it’s not about sexual wrongdoing, that’s why.

The Epstein conspiracy theory isn’t about sex. It’s about an invisible cadre of powerful elites, scheming to prevent the truth from coming out. It’s about a secretive elitist Illuminati, somewhere out in the ether, conniving to keep the Epstein client list — which, I solemnly guarantee you, doesn’t exist — from being disclosed.

The irony, of course, is that Donald Trump did this to himself. He didn’t just fib — he polarized. On Epstein (and so many things), he said: they aren’t just lying to you, they’re evil. As with Jan. 6, vaccines, and mail-in ballots, Trump has lit a fire that now threatens to consume him.

It won’t, however. Why? Because there’s one thing Trump is better at than peddling conspiracy theories.

And that’s changing the channel. Trump will have all of us talking about a new conspiracy theory by this time next week.

Guaranteed.

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Like many, I wanted to express my condolences to the family of Mark Bonokoski, who passed away this past week. He was a great writer because he believed in what all the great writers believe in: facts.