No, The ‘Cabal’ Isn’t Pulling Trump’s Strings

Fatalism is the Swamp’s Favorite Weapon Against Reformers, because Surrender is Exactly the Victory the Permanent Class Needs

OPINION: By Walter Curt

A swelling chorus proclaims that a shadow‑soaked “Epstein client list” would topple the mighty, that its suppression proves the existence of an untouchable cabal ruling from smoke‑filled back rooms. The latest fuel came when Attorney General Pam Bondi fumbled the public roll‑out of the Epstein archives, letting rumor fill the vacuum faster than a Beltway lobbyist finds a PAC. Her misfire has inspired some to insist that President Trump—having spent every sunrise since January cracking down on the border, deregulating industry, and restarting the engines of Middle America—has suddenly been captured by a secret fraternity of degenerates. The script writes itself on certain corners of the Internet: a satanic oligarchy, impregnable to elections or law, calls the shots while patriots are mere stage props.

That melodrama flatters frustrated citizens but insults common sense. It ignores that two separate Departments of Justice, under two very different administrations, each reviewed the Epstein evidence and reached the same conclusion: no hidden roster of puppet masters large enough to rewrite the republic. It overlooks the elementary question any county prosecutor could ask: if Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s DOJ—having emptied the federal arsenal to indict Donald Trump ninety-one times—truly possessed a silver-bullet dossier that would have annihilated his candidacy, why wasn’t it deployed on the evening news? Political knives that sharp are never left sheathed. Politics is war by other means; generals do not hoard ammunition.

That basic logic lands harder than any meme. Those who cling to an omnipotent bogeyman confess a deeper pessimism: the suspicion that no vote, petition, or prayer can matter because unseen billionaires invariably win. Fatalism masquerades as sophistication. In truth it is the psychological cousin of conspiracy theorizing, teaching good people to quit before the contest begins. History, inconvenient to the cynic, records that entrenched elites can be pummeled. Andrew Jackson stared down the Second Bank and shattered its monopoly. Reagan faced a Soviet superpower that television said would last forever—until it didn’t. Donald Trump himself broke a bipartisan cartel that had fed on globalization like pigs at a gilt trough. Each victory required the opposite of despair; it required confidence that the vaulted ceilings of power are held up by nothing sturdier than public acquiescence.

Of course corruption exists. No republic should pretend otherwise. Jeffrey Epstein counted princes and presidents among his acquaintances, and only the grace of God knows which invitations were declined. But corruption is not sorcery; it is merely sin wrapped in expensive stationery, vulnerable where sunlight penetrates. That is why the Trump administration ordered a full declassification review on Day One and tasked Bondi—who made her name chewing corporate wrongdoers for breakfast—with executing it. Her bungled press rollout, all mixed messages and missed deadlines, looked less like malice and more like the bureaucratic incompetence patriots were promised would be drained from the swamp. The cure is not retreat into superstition but sharper political management and, when necessary, sharper heads rolling across K Street carpets.

Legal prudence also matters. Many Epstein documents describe minor victims whose identities remain protected under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. Redaction is therefore not a cover‑up; it is the law shielding the innocent. But nuance rarely survives the algorithm. Social‑media seers prefer to splice redaction with ransom: “If those black lines disappeared, kings would fall!” That claim confuses courtroom drama with comic‑book lore. Blackmail only works while secrets remain hidden; once published, leverage evaporates. If a hypothetical ring truly controlled senators via kompromat, the last thing it would permit is a public archive searchable at the click of a laptop.

The populist task is more disciplined than hashtag outrage. Congress possesses subpoena power; state attorneys general may convene grand juries; citizens may file Freedom of Information Act demands until clerks beg for mercy. Conservative legislatures can tighten plea‑bargain loopholes that once let Epstein skate. The answer, then, is not mystical resignation but ordinary republican muscle. When truckers convoyed against vaccine mandates or parents flipped school boards from Portland to Pittsburgh, they demonstrated that the American system—though dented—remains responsive to concentrated willpower. The same tenacity will pry loose every legally releasable page of Epstein’s wicked ledger, whether or not it satisfies social media fantasies.

Meanwhile, skeptics should take inventory of 2025’s facts on the ground. A border wall is climbing mile by mile. Inflation, that invisible tax on paychecks, has retreated below three percent. Energy prices have fallen faster than legacy media’s ratings. These wins arrived precisely because voters refused the paralysis peddled by professional conspiracists. A citizen who believes all strings are pulled by faceless predators never volunteers for a precinct walk, never drafts model legislation, never mentors the next candidate with dirt under his fingernails and a Constitution in his pocket. Hopelessness is the establishment’s favorite cologne because it convinces the working man to stay home.

None of this absolves Bondi for allowing speculation to outrun truth. Her next press conference ought to begin with an apology, continue with a clear timetable, and finish by releasing every line that does not re‑victimize the abused. Americans are a forgiving people, but they do not tolerate mixed messages from public servants tasked with exorcising elite decay. Deliver clarity or step aside for someone who will.

Until then, the republic keeps its own counsel. Reality has never granted safe conduct to the permanently powerful. Titus Oates lied about Popish plots; Joseph McCarthy fingered “205” communists who never materialized; internet sages today whisper of a tribunal that will perp‑walk the entire ruling class. The pattern repeats because the human heart prefers cosmic explanation to the slower work of politics. But liberty rests on the plain‑spoken premise that no man is above the law and no cabal is above the ballot. Americans have proved that premise at Yorktown, at Antietam, at Normandy, and—yes—in rust‑belt counties that flipped an election pundits called impossible.

So the question narrows. Will citizens embrace the impotence implicit in the cabal myth, or will they choose the muscular optimism of self‑government? The answer will not ride in on a “client list” dumped wholesale on social media. It will march through school boards, county committees, grand juries, and voting booths—one deliberate, un‑glamorous, emancipating step at a time. The enemies of ordered liberty fear that kind of patience far more than they fear a keyboard warrior demanding the moon and accepting disappointment as proof of omnipotent evil. The stout‑hearted know better: in this republic, power leaks where vigilance enters. A free nation does not kneel to phantoms; it cross‑examines them, hauls them into court, and if guilt is proved, slaps on the cuffs—no matter whose yacht they once boarded. That work is long, often dull, and utterly within reach. Believe otherwise, and the cabal has already won without lifting a finger.