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So much of the potency of the Epstein conspiracy is that it speaks to a core feeling for many Americans that the alienation, stagnation, and fear they experience is all the result of a genuinely evil class of elites. The feeling is tied to distrust in institutions and to any person or thing that could potentially be labeled as part of a vague establishment. (And, as with many conspiracy theories, there is also a strong thread of anti-Semitism that emerges in many Epstein discussions.) The sexual deviancy of Epstein, just like the obsession among QAnon adherents with pedophilia, provides a moral framework for this hatred and disgust. It suggests that the people keeping you down are evil, doing sick things"and joking about it.The book is not the smoking-gun proof of the pedophile ring that many theorists were looking for, but it is proof of the conspiracy's overarching worldview: There is a festering rot among at least one group of powerful elites with an abiding belief that their money and power make them invincible.

And yet it is not clear that any of this will go away, no matter what happens next. The dynamic of conspiracy theories is that they build, in scope and in tension. In doing so, they become a limitless repository for people's excitement, fears, and resentments. Because of this, conspiracy theories are not really supposed to resolve. Resolution, in fact, can be the most unpredictable outcome. It is the point at which highly invested people find out whether the reality they've been clinging to actually exists.