Any Democrats who are chortling and popping popcorn at the intra-MAGA blowup over the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein should be aware that what MAGA really wants is a witch-hunt against Democrats that Trump may well give them, as I explained at New York:
Observers seeking to understand the intense furor that has swept the right in the wake of Donald Trump’s efforts to dismiss the “Epstein files” are now wondering if millions of people really do believe Epstein was at the center of a global cabal of pedophile elitists and that the “files” the federal government collected about him were a sort of Rosetta Stone for understanding a host of political and cultural evils.
But in MAGA-world, you don’t have to be a full-on rabbit-hole dweller who buys into the more cosmic interpretations of Epstein’s significance to be bitterly disappointed by Trump’s “nothing to see here” dismissal of a long-awaited moment when the veil hiding the many crimes of the opposition would begin to lift. Perhaps for many, the files were just an appetizer for the revelations that would bring the heavy hand of justice down on the many devils of the MAGA imagination.
The underlying reality is that for all of Trump’s audacious actions since taking office, he has failed, so far, to fully undertake the campaign of retribution he promised his supporters again and again and again on the campaign trail. The Bidens are at liberty. So are the Obamas and the Clintons. So are the members of the January 6 committee. So are the prosecutors in New York and Washington and Atlanta that persecuted Trump personally. Not a single “enemy of the people” journalist has been jailed (though some have been silenced by their employers or intimidated by Trump and his lawyers).
Now, perhaps those who go too far in taking Trump “seriously but not literally” figured all these threats were just political theater. But his most avid supporters heard them many times, as Politico’s Ankush Khardori observed at the height of the 2024 campaign:
“In the most volatile presidential campaign of the last 50 years, one thing has remained remarkably constant: Donald Trump’s stated intention to prosecute a wide swath of his opponents if he wins the White House.
“The list of targets has been growing for years. It includes an array of Trump’s political and legal antagonists — real or perceived — ranging from President Joe Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Anthony Fauci, the members of the Jan. 6 committee and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Just a few weeks ago, Trump put hundreds — maybe thousands — more of his political opponents in his prosecutorial crosshairs by threatening unnamed Democratic lawyers, political operatives, donors, voters and election officials.
“Trump has talked about his plan for a prosecutorial revenge tour in public speeches, press interviews and a litany of social media posts. It is subtly embedded in the official Republican Party platform, which proposes to ‘hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents.'”
And it’s not just a matter of Trump holding grudges against those who allegedly “weaponized government” against him. Throughout his political career, but most intensively during his last campaign, Trump has not just promised to “make American great again.” He’s promised to punish those who ruined the country before he came on the scene to redeem it. So naturally, MAGA folk are dissatisfied at his accomplishments so far. Yes, it’s wonderful to see the federal government undertake the mass deportation of immigrants. But in a conspiracy theory fully and formally embraced by Trump, his campaign, and increasingly his party, they were told repeatedly that the people running and supporting the Biden administration had deliberately and with criminal intent “opened the borders” in order to enroll millions of aliens as illegal voters to perpetuate their disastrous regime. Are these traitors to escape any reckoning for their crimes?
This may be the fear underlying the angst over Epstein. Trump had given them every reason to believe the “files” might be a Pandora’s box that could begin the “retribution tour” with a bang. Now the claim they are a nothing-burger must feel to many MAGA activists like conquering the enemy castle only to find that the evil king’s treasure chest is empty.
That’s why the most likely way out of the political trap Trump has laid for himself is to scratch the itch that underlies the Epstein furor. Yes, he needs a distraction to change the subject. But for his base, the best distraction would be some investigations, arrests, perp walks, show trials, and consequences for the terrible villains who wrecked the country for so long. If you’ve ever been on a Trump “enemies list,” it would be a good time to hunker down and lawyer up. Trump needs some heads on pikes, some trophies for his base. And he needs them now.
I’d tend to agree with shai but would also caution about more worrisome, though perhaps counter-intuitive implications of this population shift. I’ve heard reports, although I can’t remember where (perhaps NPR?) in which politicians and demographers have noted that the country is actually becoming more, not less politically homogeneous. Conservatives and liberals are tending more and more to live in neighborhoods (and perhaps states) with residents that are more like them. Therefore I’d throw out the possibility that many of the snowbirds moving south are Republican/conservative leaning, hence the willingness to move to the south in the first place. They might prefer the family values and nascar culture that already exist there or maybe they’re moving for lower taxes and thus they are moving there to be amongst their own kind.
I remember reading predictions in the 80s and 90s that Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina would be defeated because of all the population growth from the north to the state. It turned out at that many of the people moving into the state were conservative white northerners, not representative cross-sections of the states from which they came (based on exit polls).
This is not to deny that there are many other groups such as Hispanics moving into fast growing red states too, in fact, doubtlessly at faster rates than northerners. But the trends I described above might play out here too. For example, if you look at exit polls it’s easy to see that Hispanics vote much more Republican in states like Georgia and Utah than states like New York and New Jersey. They may also be attracted to those who are politically and culturally like them.
This may also be why Florida, despite so much heavy population growth from northern White baby boomers and non-Cuban Hispanics between 2000 and 2004, actually became more Republican on a state and national level.
I don’t have a solution to this and do believe long-term trends favor Democrats in the country overall, but since our electoral college system is based on geography rathe,r than the popular vote for electing presidents I consider the trends very worrisome.
I personally don’t care about the south; let them have it. We won’t see a blue south in a presidential election for a long time. However, the growth in population in other red states (such as the mountain west) will favor the Dems. As a former New Yorker/Washingtonian who relocated to Denver in ’03, I see the shift happening and am very pleased to be a part of recent Dem success in CO. And, if the Dems play their cards right in ’08, CO’s 9 votes will go blue. Then all we need is 9 more . . . .
With the demographic character of Sun Belt populaltion increases already sited, another factor in the mix is the fact that evangelicals seem to be slowing peeling off the GOP elephants hide, kind of like dandruff on a black shirt.
While it may be true that population shifts might just make red states more purple, the political implications may still be important for a while to come.
In presidential elections, it’s hard to see Texas going for a Democrat for a long time, even if the state is slowly becoming more Democratic. This could be because even a massive influx of new Democrats is not enough to outweigh the already considerable advantage Republicans hold in the state. It could also be because new (potential) Democrats count in the census but do not vote, in some cases because they’re not citizens.
Moreover, an effective gerrymander regime could easily mute the effects of a massive influx of Democrats, by sifting them into already heavily Democratic districts. Thus, Democrats could lose a House seat in the north but not gain it in the south.
Finally, the effects filter all the way down to the low-level races. My wager is that all the new Democrats in the south and west will be less likely to run for and win dog catcher races, for a variety of reasons: for example, they may not be qualified (too young or not citizens), or they may not have the community ties to understand how politics works in their area or to garner a base of support. Transient Democrats are at a relative disadvantage compared to stable Republicans.
I could easily be proven wrong about any of these scenarios, and I certainly hope to be wrong. But I think that we should not rest on our laurels just because population gains in red states are due to Democrats moving in.