Is the Trump ‘Mystique’ Broken? Does MAGA Sense Betrayal?

Alastair Crooke, 28 July 2025

The Epstein cloud is metastasizing and becoming a rallying point for deep-seated popular alienation from certain ruling strata. The public begrudgingly has become resigned to accept that their ‘rulers’ routinely lie and steal, but nonetheless they (particularly within the MAGA faction) have dimly come to understand that there may be vice within the body public which they regard as too detestable to imagine. People have caught on that Trump was in one way or another (even as a by-stander) linked to that whole degraded culture.

This is not likely to pass easily -- or perhaps pass at all. Trump was elected to drain all such tangled webs of interlinked oligarchy, power structures and of intelligence services acting to unseen interests. That’s what he promised: America First.

Distraction from Epstein likely won’t work. The exploitation, abuse and destruction of the lives of untold numbers of children in the pursuit of power, wealth and diabolical debauchery cuts to the deepest quick of moral being. It cannot be distracted away by pointing to other élite vile monetary and power-plays. The abuse (and worse) inflicted on children stands apart in its own hellish category.

Trump may say that he's done nothing legally wrong. But the point is that he's now tainted -- very seriously. He may consequently be entering Presidential lame-duck territory, barring some deus ex machina occurrence sufficient to deflect public attention.

Just to be clear, it is in Trump’s character to mightily resist becoming a ‘lame-duck’ President. And here lies the geo-political danger. Trump needs headline distractions and he needs ‘wins’.