It’s almost difficult to remember now, but in 2021, Donald Trump left his first term as one of the least popular presidents in American history. Weeks before he left office, not entirely willingly, his supporters stormed the US Capitol, and much of the democratic world recognised in him and his movement an existential threat.
He lay dormant for a while but then re-emerged like a growing storm. Much of his second rise was fuelled by his fall, a kind of political trampoline act that left observers scratching their heads and historians of populist putsches clanging the alarm bells.
Donald Trump had a long-running friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.Credit: AP
Donald Trump had successfully positioned himself as a victim of a “deep state”, a political system bent on excluding his supporters. He was merely their token, their icon. And after an assassination attempt, he became the closest thing to a holy martyr that still walks the earth.
Some of this centred around the “Epstein files” – Department of Justice documents relating to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein that Trump had promised to release if elected.
A few years prior, Epstein had been outed as a notorious sex trafficker, a case made all the more scandalous by his connections to the rich and powerful around the world. The revelations around his plane and island, and his alleged book of clients, took down a few minor characters at first, the sacrifices that the even-wealthier people were willing to make to stop the fire from reaching their doorsteps.
After all, they had just watched the Me Too movement fizzle out in a swing of the cultural pendulum. And so his backers made their bets, even after Trump took office and prevented the release of the Epstein files, becoming a defender of the very system he campaigned against.
But something interesting is happening with Donald Trump here. Since his inauguration in January, this anger over Epstein, and his links to it, won’t go away. His reputation of being immune to any and all scandal, absorbing their energy and translating it into armour and ammunition for himself, isn’t holding the way it used to. His supporters aren’t looking the other way, as they did with the Access Hollywood tape or being convicted on multiple felony charges.
His supporters have even been willing to go along with obvious lies about his ties to Epstein. There are photos and videos of the two together, and evidence that they had a close relationship. None of it really seemed to matter to the 35-40 per cent of Americans who have been in lockstep with him enough over more than a decade to send him to the White House twice.
But something seems to be changing.
