The GOP, Pedophilia, and Child Abuse

[TygrBright]

Why Are Right-Wing Conspiracies so Obsessed With Pedophilia? (Mother Jones)

Conspiracies centering on the vulnerability of children are neither new nor distinctly American. Wild claims of Jews killing Christian children and using their blood in rituals—the “blood libel”—date back to at least the 12th century and have popped up every so often since then, and long before that Christians were suspected of performing similar rites. “Hurting children is one of the worst things you can say someone is doing. It’s an easy way to demonize your enemy,” says Kathryn Olmsted, a professor of history at the University of California-Davis, who has studied conspiracy theories.

Why do child-abuse conspiracies explode into public consciousness at certain moments? Explanations offered for the peculiar resonance of Pizzagate and QAnon tend to focus on pathologies in the media ecosystem—epistemic bubbles, polarization, the unruly growth of social media. But years before the fracturing of mass culture and the dawn of Reddit and 4chan, the McMartin accusations fed a national spectacle during which scores of people were wrongly accused of sex crimes against children.

The continuities between the McMartin case and Pizzagate suggest a broader explanation for pedophile conspiracies: They aren’t the residue of malfunctions in our media culture. They’re an outgrowth of the normal workings of reactionary politics.

...

With Pizzagate and QAnon, the molesters have changed from day-care workers to the liberal elite, and the politics behind the theories now are more explicitly spelled out. But the general context is more or less the same: conservative retrenchment after a period of progressive social gains. If women’s entry into the workplace in the latter half of the 20th century triggered deep anxieties about the decay of traditional gender roles and the family unit, in the 21st century it was same-sex marriage, growing acceptance of transgender rights, and the seeming cultural hegemony of a social justice agenda. “Q found that fear,” says Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher and a host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

One thing this article, excellent as it is, does not touch. But I'd like to bring it up:

If harming children is one of the worst things to accuse an enemy of to demonize them, and 'defending children' is the absolute moral high ground... why are GOP activists not lining up outside the concentration camps to demand those childrens' freedom and restoration to their families? Why are they not carrying torches and pitchforks and nooses to the lawns of Alexander Acosta, Jeffrey Epstein, and, yes, Donald Trump?

These are not shadowy conspiracy speculations. These are right-in-your-face torture and sexual assault on children, with plenty of clear, incontrovertable evidence including the perpetrators' own slimy, smarmy admissions and innuendos and lascivious 'jokes'.

Why, then, are the GOPpies who are so deeply horrified and outraged about shadowy and ultimately nonexistent conspiracies in the equally nonexistent basement of a pizza parlor not turning that righteous rage on the perpetrators of the demonstrably horrific child abuse going on right under all our noses?

It would be easy moral high ground to claim. They have the power, they have the influence. One deep, serious rumble that All Is Not Well with the GOPpie base's perception of their political priesthood, and the housecleaning would begin in good earnest.

But it doesn't happen.

Why?

Easy answer: They're hypocritical opportunists whose concern for the well-being and purity of (white) childhood only applies in the context of accusing opponents of heinous crimes for political purposes.

That may be the most likely and is possibly the most widely applicable explanation.

But I think there is another, darker explanation as well:

Psychological Projection

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

Not all GOPpies are sleazy pedophiles and sadistic child abusers, of course.

But I suspect a good few of the sick bastards who've been nurtured through forty years of the Masters of the Universe culture to believe they're above the common herd and entitled to any transgressive gratification their whim dictates have settled on this ultimate transgression as a validation of their Ubermensch status. Enough of them to form their own creepy web of enablement and projection as a defense mechanism.

And now they're backed into a corner.

What does a rabid rodent do when backed into a corner?

Why, exactly what we're seeing now. All we need is some latter-day Riefenstahl to document "The Triumph of the Whim".

disgustedly,
Bright

[dawg day]

1. I've noticed in RW religious circles, the sexual abuse of children is weirdly accepted/ignored-

No one would say that out loud, of course, but it goes along with the corporal punishment tradition-- children are not people on their own, but exist for adults. This is how they manage to blame children for their own abuse-- "I wouldn't do this if you didn't make me by your disobedience"-

When the "centrist/civil" types say we need to "listen and understand", I think-- no. Liberals think children should be protected and nurtured, and we should not bother to listen to people who don't agree with that very simple principle.