Category: The Hill
‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’
Here are the basic rules.
First: If the corporate left-wing press doesn’t like a claim, it invariably becomes a “right-wing conspiracy theory,” usually with the tag “without evidence.” The evidence may exist. It may even sit in plain sight — but the press decides what counts.
The ruling class wants your trust back. It hasn’t done the first thing to deserve it.
Second: Some claims get taken seriously no matter what. Those become “allegations.” Allegations quickly morph into “fact.”
Take the recent example of Democrats who alleged on X that President Trump spent Thanksgiving in 2017 with Jeffrey Epstein. The story collapsed in minutes — presidents don’t slip away unnoticed on major holidays to meet notorious sex criminals — but the claim still got ample attention. Point it in the right direction, and it gets a hearing. Point it at the wrong people, and it gets the back of the hand.
Sharon Waxman’s recent column at the Wrap follows the script. The former Washington Post correspondent was shocked to discover the Epstein emails prove that “conspiracy theorists were right.” She writes as if she uncovered some long-lost truth.
Hardly.
Waxman’s column is less revelation than admission: For years, the people who run newsrooms turned a blind eye to the obvious. Donald Trump wasn’t the big fish in those files. Their sources were.
The Epstein email cache runs more than 20,000 documents. Nothing in it should shock any honest observer. The messages show politicians, financiers, academics, diplomats, think-tankers, and media figures seeking introductions, favors, and even dating advice from a convicted sex offender.
Some wanted Epstein’s contacts. Others wanted his money. Some wrote to him while serving in public office. This is not rumor. It is record.
And yes, Epstein talked a lot about Trump, which should surprise no one. They ran in the same social circles. They were friends until they fell out.
Waxman’s piece matters because of what it shows about her profession. Reporters are oddly incurious creatures. They love the line: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. In practice, the checking stops the moment a story threatens the wrong interests. Then skepticism fades. The questions stop. The story dies.
Epstein proved this in real time. His 2008 sweetheart deal with the feds should have made him untouchable. Instead, it signaled that he was protected.
After that deal, Epstein did not retreat. He didn’t slink off into the shadows. He worked the same world that lectures the rest of us about “norms” and “Our Democracy.™” He gave the very married Larry Summers advice on how to seduce a colleague who happened to be the daughter of a high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party. He dined with Bill Gates. He hung out with Ehud Barak and ex-Prince Andrew.
Americans saw this and reached the obvious conclusion: rules for the public, exemptions for the powerful.
Say that aloud, though, and the press rolled their eyes and muttered “conspiracy theory.” The famous rule about checking every claim never applied to Cabinet officials, donors, university presidents, or tech titans until the obscenities were too outrageous to let pass.
The press know their own history. They know the government lies. They know institutions close ranks. They know networks protect themselves.
They know about the Tuskegee experiments and MK Ultra and the Gulf of Tonkin sham. They watched the Wuhan “lab leak” go from preposterous to plausible. “You will own nothing” and the “Great Reset” aren’t right-wing fever dreams — they’re actual publications.
But when a live case of elite protection appeared in Jeffrey Epstein, suddenly none of this counted. Suddenly it was unthinkable — not in their circles, not involving their friends, not touching their institutions.
Waxman’s column accidentally exposes the pattern: Our establishment manufactures ignorance and then uses that ignorance as proof that nothing is wrong.
Remember the 2017 Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity? The same experts who drone on about “no evidence of widespread fraud” attacked the commission for probing “unsupported claims” — while states withheld the data needed to determine the truth. When a system blocks audits and then declares itself clean, it isn’t proving confidence. It is proving fear.
That is how Epstein was protected. Not through lack of evidence, but lack of curiosity. Evidence didn’t vanish. Inquiry did. And anyone who noticed was treated as the problem.
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Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
But trust isn’t owed. Trust is earned.
And the people who demand it have done the most to destroy it. The loss of trust didn’t come from memes or bots. It came from watching Jeffrey Epstein remain welcome among the same people who so archly declare that “democracy dies in darkness.” It came from watching the press spend more time policing public suspicion than scrutinizing powerful friends. It came from institutions that treat questions as insults.
Now Sharon Waxman tells us the “conspiracy theorists” were right.
Gee, thanks, Sharon. Better late than never, I guess.
America didn’t need that revelation. The country has seen it time and again, as the “conspiracy theorists” turn out to be right. The only people who pretended otherwise were the people paid to find the truth.
The ruling class wants your trust back. It hasn’t done the first thing to deserve it.
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