Drawn to President Trump for his pledge to take down the political elite, some of his young constituents say he has failed them.

“Not to be trusted.” A “betrayal.”

This is how some young people on the right have characterized President Trump and his administration’s response to the Justice Department’s latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files. For them, the Epstein story is something of a full-circle moment in their political lives — a reason they cast their ballots for Mr. Trump in 2024 that has calcified into anger and disillusionment.

. . .

[T]hey say their faith in Mr. Trump has diminished in recent weeks as they have observed the administration’s response to the Epstein scandal. For his part, Mr. Schwemmer thinks the president has demonstrated a “lack of seriousness” and a pattern of “obfuscation” as communications related to Mr. Epstein have revealed a globe-spanning web of ties to powerful figures in politics, finance, professional sports and the arts. Included in the recently disclosed files are the names of six current administration officials, Mr. Trump’s among them.

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I read something recently, I don't recall where, that focused on a group of young people who voted for Trump in '24. For them, Trump had dominated politics for most of their living memory, and they're too young to remember what politics was like before him. Many of them viewed him as "normal," and lots took him at his word when he said he was going to do certain things. I'm glad they're waking up to the reality.

I never realised how low the bar is for them

Oh yeah no, the bar is literally in Hell. It is a goddamned tripping hazard in Hell. Like Biden did some good things don't get me wrong, but the average person never felt them and you had to be super plugged in to politics to even know they happened.

So you've legitimately got a huge section of the electorate whose entire living political memory consists of the shitshow of Trump 1, the PR Nothing Burger of Biden, and now the somehow even worse shitshow of Trump 2.