When Jack Abramoff dominated Washington lobbying within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, he noticed that there have been two varieties of individuals on the town: those that “get the joke” and those that don’t.
Those that bought the joke understood that the entire metropolis’s discuss of concepts and rules was flimflam to hide self-enrichment on the public’s expense. Those that didn’t—didn’t.
On the identical day that Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned, The New York Occasions reported accusations that President Donald Trump’s handpicked director of the Kennedy Heart, Richard Grenell, had used the fine-arts establishment’s $268 million funds to dole out favors and enrich mates and allies. If the claims—which Grenell disputes—are appropriate, Abramoff would acknowledge a advantageous instance of “getting the joke.”
Greene didn’t get the joke. Elected to Congress in Georgia in 2020, she turned one of many loudest voices in American life for crackpot conspiracy claims: Pizzagate, QAnon, 9/11 trutherism, and a fantasy that California wildfires may need been attributable to area lasers managed by Jewish bankers. She repeated 2020-election denialism and promoted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda about his struggle on Ukraine.
For a very long time, Greene’s seemingly fathomless gullibility certified her as a MAGA chief in Congress. However the gullibility truly did have a restrict. Someday after her election, she started to comprehend that she’d been made a idiot of.
Of all of the ridiculous issues Greene believed, maybe the one most ridiculous was that Trump, of all folks on earth, was main a heroic battle towards a world community of pedophiles.
Trump has a protracted and ample report on the sexual abuse of weak folks by highly effective males. He’s for it. “If you’re a star, they allow you to do it,” as he defined. He has been accused of sexual assault by about two dozen ladies. One among them gained a multimillion-dollar defamation verdict towards him after he known as her a liar. He boasted to a radio interviewer about deliberately strolling into the altering room of a teen magnificence pageant that he sponsored. He fantasized aloud about courting his daughter. He maintained a detailed friendship for years with Jeffrey Epstein, understanding full properly that the financier favored women “on the youthful aspect,” as Trump instructed New York journal in 2002. Even earlier than Trump went into full cover-up mode about Epstein this 12 months, you needed to be as thick as a pallet of bricks to think about that Donald Trump would need justice for sex-abuse victims.
MAGA-world insiders bought the joke. They knew that a few of their supporters had satisfied themselves that the Democratic Get together was led by Devil-worshipping, child-sacrificing-ritual cannibals. In addition they perceive that any precise investigation of Epstein relating to little one abuse needed to be shut down, lest it implicate Epstein’s former good friend and fellow accused intercourse offender Donald Trump. MAGA insiders performed video games with the Epstein story, as J. D. Vance did in a tweet throughout the Joe Biden years: “What potential curiosity would the US authorities have in protecting Epstein’s shoppers secret? Oh …” Vance was tickling the paranoia of the loopy fringe—with out committing to any particular motion that could be embarrassing to Epstein’s most intimate associates.
The double sport was greatest symbolized by an incident in February 2025. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi invited 15 right-wing social-media influencers to the White Home, the place she distributed thick, white binders labeled, The Epstein Recordsdata: Part 1. The binders actually contained no new materials of significance. Even the influencers themselves fastidiously admitted their disappointment. However what might they do? The joke should go on.
However sustaining the joke turned harder within the fall of 2025. Even because the FBI and Division of Justice reversed former guarantees of transparency on the Epstein situation, supplies started to leak from the deceased financier’s property: a birthday greeting to Epstein that bears Trump’s signature and incorporates a cartoon picture of a unadorned lady; emails from Epstein himself testifying to his shut relationship with Trump—together with one which described Trump spending hours alone with one in every of Epstein’s trafficked victims.
Doubts unfold among the many non-joke-getters. Doubts expressed themselves in murmurings, then in open revolt. Republican Home members joined Democrats in supporting a discharge petition to induce the discharge of Epstein supplies from the DOJ and FBI.
Trump resisted for a lot of weeks. He known as the Epstein story a “hoax,” his go-to transfer for maximally damaging accusations. He endorsed major challenges and different pressures towards Republicans who continued on the Epstein path after had Trump ordered them to cease. The speaker of the Home, a detailed Trump ally, saved the chamber closed for weeks to present the president time to push Republican petition signatories to reverse themselves. Ultimately, it was Trump who reversed himself. He needed to settle for a vote to launch the Epstein supplies after which search for extra delicate methods to proceed masking up no matter it’s that Trump desires to hide.
However someplace alongside the way in which, Greene’s defection turned extra radical and everlasting. On November 14, Trump posted on his social-media platform about his efforts to clarify the joke to her:
It appeared to all start once I despatched her a Ballot stating that she shouldn’t run for Senator, or Governor, she was at 12%, and didn’t have an opportunity (except, in fact, she had my Endorsement — which she wasn’t about to get!). She has instructed many individuals that she is upset that I don’t return her cellphone calls anymore, however with 219 Congressmen/ladies, 53 U.S. Senators, 24 Cupboard Members, nearly 200 Nations, and an in any other case regular life to steer, I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s name each day. I perceive that fantastic, Conservative individuals are fascinated by primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up together with her and her antics and, if the fitting particular person runs, they’ll have my Full and Unyielding Help.
The joke nonetheless eluded Greene. Trump known as her a “traitor” on digicam and shrugged off the dying threats she acquired. Efforts to recruit a major challenger to her accelerated. Because the cut up widened between Greene and Trump, the embattled congresswoman started to obtain friendlier media consideration: a respectful interview on CNN, a visitor look on The View.
Gullible as Greene was about crackpot theories and her political associations, she appears to have been clear-eyed about her personal direct private pursuits. She was some of the lively and profitable inventory merchants in Congress, in various circumstances betting for or towards firms about which she doubtless had advance info. She timed her resignation to take impact two days after her congressional pension vested. She’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington provided that the cinematic Mr. Smith had returned dwelling to Montana massively enriched by well timed speculations on land holdings close to the Boy Ranger camp he championed.
However she by no means did get the joke on the largest joke on the town, the joke that MAGA is about something greater than manipulation, exploitation, corruption, lust, and cruelty. She appears to have sincerely believed the lies that shrewder gamers merely mouthed. She gained her personal tens of millions with out appreciating that her allies had been scheming for billions. She balked on the self-abasement earlier than each one in every of Trump’s whims that’s indispensable to MAGA survival and success. Her failure on these scores is her one service to the nation—as a result of it helps different Individuals, the joke’s final victims, higher perceive what is occurring to them and why.