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Political and psychological motivations behind Epstein conspiracy theories

Lauren Stephen
5 min readAug 12, 2019

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Even before Jeffrey Epstein died from an apparent suicide, conspiracy theories were running wild about him. In an attempt to shield President Donald Trump, who had publicly praised Epstein and posed in photos with him, some Trump supporters started a conspiracy theory about pictures of Epstein and Bill Clinton being scrubbed from Google. Complete bunk of course. An obviously politically motivated conspiracy theory.

Some conspiracy theories are real, but most are not. Once a conspiracy theory is proven, of course, it ceases to be a theory and becomes a fact, an actual conspiracy. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. One thing the media is really good at — news media, social media, Hollywood films — is sensationalize things, make the world seem more sinister, more conspiratorial it actually is.

We want to believe conspiracies because believing that someone is in control of everything is more comforting than the truth. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and many people and organizations are simply shockingly incompetent. Our systems are under-funded, over-burdened, and people make mistakes in life-and-death situations all the time. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Epstein death bad news for Trump and…

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Lauren Stephen
Lauren Stephen

Written by Lauren Stephen

Writer, editor, technical writer, part-time lecturer, and semi-professional stand-up comic based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

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