Editors’ Note: The release of the Epstein files in January 2026 led us to different conclusions than those reached in this article. Please read our February 26, 2026, story, “The Epstein Conspiracy Wasn’t What We Suspected.”
Over the last decade, Democrats and the media have described President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition as a cult of personality, arguing that Trump’s supporters would simply go along with anything he said or did. Trump himself joked in 2016, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”