I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but it does not seem accurate to categorize this as a fringe theory. According to a Insider poll conducted in 2019, over 40% of respondents thought that he was killed and less than 20% were convinced that he committed suicide. I also think it is inaccurate to categorize the issue as having sharp clarity in either direction as you are doing.
Sorry but lol at Insider being your source for robust polling of the American zeitgeist. In 2019 Certus put the figure of Americans believing he was murdered at 35%, with the remainder believing it to be suicide or "don't know".
"Don't know" is the critical thing here: there aren't too many more crazy conspiracists who could be shown the overwhelming evidence of suicide and conclude that it was murder.
And, of course, irrespective: literally any thinking person who can read the DOJ report will immediately conclude that it's suicide. It's just inarguable (hence the arguments in this thread being mainly "b-b-b-b-but shadowy cabal of powerful people!!!1" and not anything to do with, for example, Epstein already having attempted suicide once, or the camera footage showing nobody entering his block, etc.
I used it as an example of polling, as I thought it was merely an interesting poll result, but I never said I had any given opinion of the source. I looked up the Certus Insights poll you've mentioned, which also had interesting results. The results were that 37% believed it was likely suicide and 35% believed it was likely murder. That is a 51.3% vs 48.6% split for those who did not respond that they were unsure. These two figures are quite close. To add to that, the Certus poll found that over 30% each of Democrats, Independents and Republicans believed it to be murder. That is not a tiny fringe as you claimed it to be.
As an aside, I don't believe that most of the 1/3 of each party's members that were polled think that there is some sort of "dark cabal". That is just you baselessly projecting, just as was your unnecessary projection of opinion of using an Insider poll.
It isn't interesting or useful because conspiracists fail to interpret "don't know" or "unsure" appropriately given the context of polling. It doesn't mean "I have reviewed the facts and I am undecided".
> Certus poll found that over 30% each of Democrats, Independents and Republicans believed it to be murder.
I believe the Certus poll found that of those who believed him to be murdered, that was the split along political lines.
> That is not a tiny fringe as you claimed it to be.
Three in ten is a tiny minority – winning a vote with 70% would be considered a landslide – but you're right it's a scarily high number of loudmouthed imbeciles.
The good news is that you don't have to worry! Adults are in charge! Hundreds of thousands of smart, capable people are employed to investigate things like this, and will cheerfully tell you that it's far more likely that the unmonitored and illicit phone call made by Epstein directly before his suicide was him being told to have another go or risk the lives of friends or loved ones. (What with that being fucking orders of magnitude easier to do than having a hitman break into solitary confinement in a prison.)
> just as was your unnecessary projection of opinion of using an Insider poll.
Business Insider is right up there with Yahoo Answers for robust, disinterested polling data.
The sentence that you snarkily attempted a grammatical correction on, does not contain a grammatical mistake. Considering the text of your comments contained in this exchange, with the sparse attempts at employing correct grammar, I'd recommend against attempts at grammatical correction like this in the future.
Since it is not clear that English is your first language due to your poor grasp of my comment, the sentence in question contains "it" in reference to the circumstance of the death, as an object of the verb "believed", not the person of Epstein. The phrase "it was murder" is a complement to the verb "believed", meaning that subject of "Democrats, Independents and Republicans", had an belief that what occurred (it) was murder.
Also, the percentages I mentioned, which were cited in the linked page, do not represent the split along political lines, but represent a separate percentage for each, as I said. Since you also don't seem to recall elementary arithmetic, 40% + 32% + 33% = 105%, not 100%.
