Why the base isn't breaking, the scandal doesn't land, and the real crisis is still being misunderstood.

A viral tweet claimed the beginning of the end — 67% of Americans, including half of Republicans, allegedly believe Donald Trump is covering up Epstein evidence. The replies were predictable: “The cult is cracking.” “They’ve finally seen the truth.” “Dumpster fire!” And yet none of it rings true. These aren’t signs of collapse. They’re symptoms of projection — projection from people who still don’t understand what the red hat ever stood for in the first place.

Trump’s base — the real one — didn’t form around his virtue, integrity, or moral superiority. It formed in rejection. Rejection of elite consensus. Rejection of institutional sanctimony. Rejection of globalism, cosmopolitanism, progressive condescension, and every smirking pundit who wrote off their towns, churches, and trades as relics. The red hat was never a crown. It was a signal flare: “You’ve lost us.” That kind of loyalty isn’t undone by scandal. It’s reinforced by it.

To Trump’s core supporters, Epstein isn’t shocking — it’s background noise. They already believe the entire power elite is sick, corrupt, and trafficking in children. Trump’s vulgarity isn’t a disqualifier. It’s proof he’s not subtle enough, clean enough, or polished enough to be one of “them.” In their view, he didn’t attend the right rituals. He didn’t take the blood oath. His sins are public, carnal, and crude. Theirs are hidden, ritualized, and sacred. Trump, they believe, is a traitor to the real cult — not a member of it.

Which is why, even now, Epstein won’t be the kill shot. The left keeps mistaking scandal for a spell. Like if you just say the right cursed name three times — Russia, Access Hollywood, Classified Docs, January 6, now Epstein — the walls will crumble. But Trump passed the Alex Jones test in 2016. He survived the full-spectrum accusation suite and still walked. Because to his base, he’s not the evil — he’s the interruption. They don’t need to believe he’s good. They only need to believe that everyone else is worse.

If Trump is losing anything, it’s not his base — it’s the ideological fringes. The purity cults. The “Woke MAGA” types radicalized into absolutism. The suicide-vest faction who want Trump to be the final prophet, not the first pragmatist. But they were always unstable. The core remains: the ones who want deportation, domestic industry, American pride, a nation not ashamed of its own flag. These people aren't peeling away because of Epstein. They were never “Epstein voters” to begin with.

So no — the base isn’t cracking. The red hat hasn’t fallen. What we’re witnessing is another round of wishful thinking from people who mistake performance for politics. Who think a poll is a prophecy. Who’ve been waiting since 2016 for the moral arc of the universe to deliver a neatly packaged reckoning. But you can’t cancel someone whose base doesn’t believe in your high priests anymore. You can’t shame a man who already absorbed every shame you threw.

This isn’t the unraveling. It’s another episode of projection. They’re not watching the red hat fall — they’re chasing a red herring.