MAGA’s New Target: Trump

People often become what they scorn. Donald Trump has become the deep state.

He is the keeper of the secrets. He is the one stealing away people’s liberties. He is the one weaponizing government and protecting the ruling class.

With ICE and DOGE, Trump deputized wolf packs to root around in Americans’ personal information. He got Republicans to give Stephen Miller his own army. Trump manipulates government to hurt his perceived enemies. He obscures rather than reveals, pushing aside reporters who ask penetrating questions in favor of Pravda-like partisans who take his side.

Trump’s supporters thought he would shed light on shady elites protecting their own money and power. Now MAGA is reckoning with the fact that Trump is the shady elite, shielding information about Jeffrey Epstein.

“So the guy who spent his lifetime saying the deep state hides things from you and represses you is now saying ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, trust me,’” said the Trump biographer Tim O’Brien. “And the people who follow him don’t. They think he’s just as bad as the people he criticized before he became president.”

It’s mythic, being devoured by the forces you unleashed. Trump has trafficked in conspiracy theories since the despicable “birther” one about Barack Obama. Now that whirlpool of dark innuendo has sucked him down. He can no longer control the Epstein conspiracy madness inflamed by his top officials.

Trump always reminded me of Lonesome Rhodes, the charismatic, populist entertainer whose “candid” patter with plain folks garners him enormous power in Elia Kazan’s 1957 movie “A Face in the Crowd.”