Epstein death brings birth of mainstream conspiracy theories

HARRIS08/10/2019 07:17 PM EDTJeffrey Epstein — his perversions, and the perversions of justice swirling around his case — has lived for years on the margins of politics because of his association with two presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, among others in a long roster of people with respectable titles who spent time in his disreputable orbit.Epstein’s death by what authorities called suicide in a Manhattan jail cell Saturday morning moved his case to the center of American politics. But the convicted sex offender’s resonance as an emblem of the dark side of national character — a stimulant of suspicion, contempt, and paranoia, in addition to plain nausea — likely will last longer and with more intensity than if he had lived.At a minimum, the Epstein death is now political even if one takes the details at face value: How was the person who at the moment was arguably the most prominent defendant awaiting trial in the world, who had already apparently attempted suicide a couple weeks earlier, able to take his life at a federal detention center? You can unsubscribe at any time.This president’s political movement began with Trump’s disproven allegations that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and rose to power in an election that was manipulated by a Russian propaganda campaign, leading to an administration with near-daily denunciations of well-documented journalism as “fake news.” It is not an environment conducive to giving any official utterance by an authority figure the benefit of the doubt — especially when the facts are authentically murky, as they are so far in the Epstein death.The furious reaction from mainstream public officials as well as a swelling chorus of prominent voices on social media — it wasn’t just from professional conspiracy theorists or guys at the bar — as soon as news of his death broke showed how pervasive this reaction is.