PerspectiveJeffrey Epstein’s Death and Our Age of Conspiracy Theories

In response to the news of Epstein’s death, conspiracy theories exploded across social media on Saturday. The hashtags “TrumpBodyCount” and “ClintonBodyCount” trended nationally, the former in no small part because President Trump himself retweeted the Clinton body count hashtag.

America has always had a bipartisan taste for conspiracy theories, because humans are wired to selectively connect dots that fit a preconceived narrative. Every society has its own pet notions of secret cabals and mysterious plots. If anything, the United States is less prone to such things because conspiracy theories thrive in undemocratic cultures where rulers are unaccountable and probably are scheming behind the scenes. The rule of law, elections, and a robust free press are great antidotes to such thinking.

Jonah Goldberg writes in National Review that that’s why in the U.S., conspiracy theories have historically thrived among groups that feel locked out, whether it’s Jim Crow–era African Americans or 19th-century white farmers during the Know-Nothing era who believed the “Pope in Rome” was plotting against them.

What makes this moment so different — and dangerous — is that elites who presumably know better, or should know better, have become increasingly paranoid as well.

“That’s what’s so awful about the Epstein story, however the facts pan out. It lends validation — perhaps not factual, but certainly psychological — to the craziest voices and will make it harder, for years to come, to argue against the new paranoia,” Goldberg concludes.