It’s more than slightly ironic that the most recent and horrific child abuse case to come to light involves a former “senior digital strategist” for the Senate Republican Conference, and it’s really awful. (I mean, really, don’t click if you don’t want to know some ugly stuff.) This guy apparently visited the White House over Christmas.
Dan Savage used to have a feature called “Youth Pastor Watch,” where he published the details of pastors raping kids, when it was common for right wingers to oppose same-sex marriage in order to “protect the children”. Here are a few examples. With the Qpublicans using false accusations of child abuse against Democrats, it’s probably time that we re-started things like Youth Pastor Watch so we can talk about some real child molestation rather than the fake Q stuff. Like homophobia, it’s probably true that those who make the loudest noises about pedophilia might have more than just a passing interest in the subject.
Lapassionara
The first and most likely accurate explanation for their accusations is projection.
debbie
I think that’s a good idea, but how about expanding it to include GQP proposals that would prove detrimental to children? Disregard of anything human is their true forté.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I wonder how many Republican senators he worked for knew about this, or at least had an idea. People talk.
Wapiti
Projection…
When I was a teenager, we moved to Seattle and so we went to a new church. We were Lutheran, and not really into fire and brimstone. But the new pastor would every so often preach in his sermons about the streetwalkers on Aurora (Highway 99 in north Seattle – which is still sketchy and low rent). Even as a male high schooler I thought it
oddpeculiar that the sermons condemned the streetwalkers, and not their clients.Suzanne
Every accusation is a confession.
or: he who blamed it, claimed it.
True in farts and true in life.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump was in thick with Epstien. Trump ran an escort service in NYC that was supposed be filled with 14 year olds.
sab
@Suzanne: How elegantly you stated that truth.
Ken
One small correction:
I also wonder if the timing is related to the change of administration, and a loss of protection? Probably not, I see the arrest was by the DC police and they aren’t under DOJ control.
Princess
I think it’s more than projection: I think people attach themselves to this conspiracy because they have a history either as victims or as perpetrators (or both) of the same kind of abuse QAnon purports to target, and they have not been able to deal with it/admit it/come to terms with it in their ordinary lives, no doubt in part because they are attached to communities (eg. churches but not only) that prefer to sweep it under the rug. QAnon is how they are going to “fight back” against suppressed or barely suppressed personal trauma. I’m a broken record on this subject, but I mean it.
Ruckus
@Lapassionara:
Projection?
Conservatives?
How can that possibly be?
Is it possible that conservatism is just nostalgic for days of yore when men were men, women were quiet and children were available?
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
The truth is almost always simpler than we like to make it.
Jay C
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
From those chilling excerpts in Jared Holt’s twitter thread, it sound like “14-year-olds” were well outside the age range of Ruben Verastegui’s, ummm, “interests”.
Suzanne
@sab: You know, when it rhymes, it’s usually true.
Roger Moore
@Princess:
I’m not sure if it’s really that everyone in Q has been involved in child abuse, but I’m pretty sure the leaders who are selling the conspiracy are. I think the big thing is that most of the people interested in Q are just looking for something awful to attack the Democrats over, and child sexual abuse is the one they’ve been presented with.
Snarki, child of Loki
“projection is for GOPers”
Very true. Load ’em into the trebuchet.
Subsole
@Princess: That is an interesting angle I never considered, and actually would explain some of the whackbar fanatics, at least.
I always just chalked it up to people too small to admit error or face their shortcomings. It certainly makes sense some of them would process trauma that way.
Especially since they would map their experience of pervasive tacit acceptance/collaboration in their counties onto the wider world.
Of course the government would cover for a rapist senator. Everyone in the church, the local police, and the community covers for a rapist pastor. Why wouldn’t the USG work just like Hogwaller, Pennsyltucky??
Suzanne
@Princess: Possible. Child sexual abuse is incredibly common. But I’m not sure that the Q people experience it at higher rates than the non-Q public. I think it’s just the worst thing they can dream up and therefore they ascribe it to their enemies.
Like the Satanic Panic bullshit… none of them experienced any of that.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: I believe that all these QAnon conspiracies were chosen in the same way that the Monkees and their music were selected – very carefully and deliberately to appeal to exactly the kind of people they wanted on their side.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: I agree with that.
I wish more people studied marketing, visual culture, propaganda, et al. The classes and study I have done in this area were just an incredibly clarifying lens for me through which to understand so much of the world. How appeals are made, how mental pictures are built and framed…. all to someone’s ends.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I agree. Josh Marshall wrote about it at TPM. He says “conspiracy theory” isn’t even the right word:
I think that’s right. The question is how serious a threat is it? Does anyone have a clue how many of these crazy fucks are out there walking among us? I see Q stickers on cars every now and then. I know a Q rally in Tampa attracted a few hundred people. But I have no sense how widespread it is.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Wow. That is exactly right. I had not seen that before but I agree with every word.
I think QAnon is a very serious threat. It is designed to attract people who are not, shall we say, the most discerning, and members can be counted on to become the masses that are needed for any fascistic movement to succeed.
Individually they may be idiots, but as part of a movement… very dangerous.
David Plouffe is very concerned about them going into 2022 and 2024 and beyond.
My opinion: Our opponents are zombies that simply won’t die, no matter how many times we stab them.
smith
@Betty Cracker:
Was just about to point to Josh’s post, and I agree it’s a compelling explanation. I particularly liked his comment that asking a Qdiot or Trump why they believe what they do is akin to asking a novelist why they write lies. The point is not whether the belief corresponds to any external reality. The only point is if the belief is instrumental to a valued goal (for Trump that goal is anything that benefits Trump, for the Qdiot it’s anything that hurts the people they hate).
I also think that fundamentalist Christianity prepares people for this kind of thinking. It explains why a belief doesn’t lose any credence when it demonstrably contradicts what the rest of us would say is reality, and also how it’s no problem to hold several directly contradictory beliefs at the same time.
df
This reminds me of the Boy Scouts and their systemic abuse problems. But given how that organization attracts ultra-religious, rightwing men, it’s not surprising. At this point, I look askance at any organization that traffics in values like that. We should assume rightwing men are abusing their power until proven otherwise.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
People who feel disenfranchised for some made up BS – they can’t walk around without their penis extensions – will always be out raged. In today’s society they can be outraged that this isn’t a time that mostly existed in dime store novels, decades ago that wasn’t allowed. Conservatives are pissed that they are losing their power because they know their power is bullshit. I take CA as a baseline. When I was a kid it was actually rather conservative politically. But as it has grown and diversified racially, it has become far more liberal. Not everywhere is of course but far more. Many parts of the country are going through the same now and because of that it is more apparent. As well the conservatives are obviously losing, which is and will continue to scare the true believers into always standing, looking, going backasswards. Conservatives are losing, as the country changes. Rupert Murdoch and his ilk will fight this as hard as they can, because they can’t see the future, only backasswards. Or as some say “If your head is up your ass, everything always looks the same, and smells worse.” The key is that change is inevitable, walking around blindly backwards really isn’t the way to go through life.
gene108
I find it interesting that there’s no frothing at the mouth, for lack of a better expression, outrage being generated over how so many Republicans are pedophile or sexual abuser adjacent, and that’s not counting convicted pedophile former Speaker Hastert.
There’s Jim Jordan, and all the people in Trump’s orbit, who were close to George Nader, and now this guy.
There’s a rot that needs to be exposed.
Betty Cracker
@smith: Great points!
@WaterGirl: Just looked up QAnon polling out of curiosity: an NPR/Ipsos poll from Dec 2020 found that 17% of respondents believe the QAnon crap, which is an alarmingly high number. The same poll found that 17% don’t believe human activity contributes significantly to climate change, and 19% believe President Obama was not born in the U.S. My guess is a Venn diagram of those folks would be damn near a circle.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I would not bet against you on that.
On Lawfare LIVE yesterday, they talked about how a portion of the US population has always believed some crazy stuff and there was some disagreement between the two presenters on how much it matters is some portion of people believe crazy stuff.
I’m on team “I don’t think it matters that much” – under normal circumstances.
EXCEPT for now, when you have fascists and authoritarians who are deliberately creating that situation because they want to harness that into a movement to destroy democracy.
That makes it a big Joe Biden deal, and I don’t know what we do about it.
smith
@Betty Cracker:
Those numbers all still under 27%, so progress!
Dopey-o
How do we know that Trump’s family separation policies weren’t intended to facilitate satanic abuse? Stress the Kids out, take them into a back room and draw a few vials of blood? Maybe a little wrestling to keep the ICE goons happy.
Next thing you know, Trump and Miller are having a drink during the quiet evening hours, maybe it’s a diet coke laced with fresh hormones. It would make Trump feel like a new man, and he’d stay up all night talking and tweeting with his phone.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Suzanne
@smith:
Yes. It’s not that they really believe the mythology as if it’s first principles. They “believe” it because they want to believe it, and they want to believe it because it justifies harm and cruelty to people they resent or hate.
I prefer naming it “resentment” rather than “hate” because I think it more accurately describes the emotion. For example, if you most sexist men if they hate women, they’ll say that of course they don’t. And in a significant respect, they’re correct: they actively desire women, so how could “hate” be accurate? And most racist people know some members of minority groups that they actively feel positively toward. “Hate” implies an active, emotional animus that often isn’t present. But as we know, those racist and sexist people usually resent — deeply and dangerously — when minorities or women step outside of the social order and attempt to remake it toward their own advantage.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: From anecdotal evidence I’ve read, the pandemic helped amplify Q type conspiracies. People had empty time on their hands, and the pandemic’s sudden appearance and novelty may have made them more susceptable to apocalyptic and anti- Semitic ideas. I talk politics with one of my customers whose social isolation seemed detrimental to her political outlook. She was a Wall Street Journal type Republican to begin with, but by November her main news source was Epoch Times. She used to socialize with a group of more level headed and broadminded people, but not anymore. Her son’s and daughter’s families live four and six hours away, so they have been out of the picture as well. I wouldn’t call Jane a bad or mean person, but she certainly is a misguided one. I’ll be seeing her some this spring, and I’m interested in what she makes of last month’s events. I’d like to think she will achieve more balanced thinking, but she may just stay stuck.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I’m sure this wasn’t intentional, but I’m not thrilled with the original post’s passing implication of equivalence between homosexuality and pedophilia. Maybe it’s just me.
WaterGirl
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: What makes you say that? Because of the Dan Savage reference?
For what it’s worth, I understood the Dan Savage reference to be an example of how we need to be calling out and calling attention to this kind of terrible stuff.
Did I miss something?
Subsole
@Suzanne: Any reading you can recommend?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
That’s what I’m not cool with. “A passing interest in the subject”, like the two are comparable.
Like I said, maybe it’s just me.
RSA
@smith:
On the other hand, 40% of Americans are young-Earth creationists, a number that’s come down just a little over the past half-century. Apparently we like to believe nonsensical things.
Ruckus
Another point to remember. 50 yrs ago you would likely never know about most of the people we are discussing, even if you lived in the area they did. 70 yrs ago you wouldn’t know of them at all if you did’t live on the same block or small town.
Communications.
TV with 24 hr “news.” The internet. Cell phones. How did one learn about really anything 60 yrs ago? Reading, with it’s inherent time delays – printing/delivery. Today? Millions know about pretty much anything in seconds. Or at least can know. This blog is a prime example. We have people from around the world reading and contributing, all hours of the day and night. But we have TV, movies shown in most of the world. The web, in how many languages, time zones, continents. And it’s not just one way communications, not just information, it’s access and that access can give power to smaller groups, individuals, stupidity, ignorance, political groups. Political races are funded from all over, millions for races that would normally not even reach the far corners of their own state. It changes the power of news presentation, it changes the power of political entities, it changes the structure of power itself. And it gives power to entities/people far in excess of what they should have – majority leader of the senate for example. But it also exposes the power that they have seized or shouldn’t have and shows places/people that need that power to be constrained. But in the time frame of humanity, this is a split second period of time. And our responses and concepts of use and abuse of power haven’t adjusted to this opening of eyes and minds. Hell, a lot of the time we don’t even realize the difference between what was and what is. And why.
Communications.
Subsole
@Ruckus: Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers could have been anything.
Normally that’s trite, but they really did have the means, as few humans throughout history have ever had, to be anything.
They chose to be nothing but a giant waste of everyone else’s time.
I am not religious, but that’s got to be a sin of some kind.
Subsole
@Betty Cracker: Someone pointed out a while back that if you wanted to build a list of the folks who will believe ANYthing, a list you could later sell to every scam network and marketing dept out there, Q anon would look pretty damn close.
trnc
@Princess:
Given the number of people we’re talking about overall, I’m sure you’re right about a lot of them, but I think some are using the tried and true strategy of “If I accuse other people of this thing, no one will ever suspect me.” Not just projection, but deflection.
Subsole
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
The issue isn’t having an interest in the subject. It’s having an interest in the subject while actively working to harm other folks with an interest in the subject (perhaps a better word would be stake? Interest does imply a level of choice I don’t think actually exists around gender/sexuality).
TL;DR the beef isn’t with homosexuality, it’s with hypocrisy.
Like, Lindsey isn’t bad or evil for being gay. Or closeted, for that matter. He’s bad because he’d sleep with a dude, then rat him out to the McCarthy brigade. Then go right on with his senate career.
Subsole
@RSA: A lot of people really haven’t been exposed to sensical things, to be fair.
trnc
@WaterGirl:
I assume you mean our opponents’ beliefs are the zombies that we have to stab over and over. I’d had for you to be “Maxined” (as in the false equivalence leveled at Maxine Waters for urging people to pressure their reps).
Ruckus
@Geminid:
The pandemic and the social isolation that it brings/should be, changes the perceptions of a lot of people. Many/most people are very used to routine. And forced change of routine seems to affect people in a couple of ways. Acceptance if there is understanding, and total unacceptance because of the desire to want what one wants, when one wants it – privilege IOW. And I don’t believe it has to be recognized privilege, as in I’m rich – I deserve or I’m white – I deserve. It just has to exist in the mind of the holder of that privilege.
WaterGirl
@trnc: oops, yes, beliefs. I have not suddenly become a new person who promotes violence. :-)
Sm*t Cl*de
It’s fair to suspect that one goal of a lot of these War-on-pedophila grifters is to flood the zone and drown out or trivialise genuine victims. Every baroque conspiracy theory about underground tunnels riddling Washington, every Satanic Abuse fantasy, makes life easier for the suburban video-sharers.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
I’d say it almost takes a religious fervor to be that much of an asshole.
To start there, to work at it, to spread it far and wide and to make money out of being that much of an asshole. It gives new or at least a bigger meaning of the word. Asshole – the orifice that shit comes out of. At least it’s very descriptive of who they are.
Procopius
@WaterGirl:
I’m a Joe Biden skeptic (I did vote for him) and I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some of his actions. I never believed Blinken would allow him to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia or end cooperation in the war on Yemen. I’m still waiting to find out if that will also end the U.S. Navy blockade of Yemen. Also, OT, I have to say I think his reneging on the $2,000 check and trying to take credit for the $600 checks Trump sent out is unutterably stupid. However, my point is I hope that if he continues to do good things, eventually he will succeed in healing the country to the extent it’s possible to do that. At least he might be able to restore a large part of the population to sanity.
sdhays
@Procopius: I know this thread is dead, but this “reneging” on the $2k checks is utter bullshit. Biden called for $2k during the campaign. The last Congress finally sent out $600 at the very end of last year, and Biden and the Democrats are going to make up the difference. End of story.
To suggest that Biden said he wanted to send out $2k checks regardless of whatever else Congress enacted is either deliberately lying to tarnish Biden and the Democrats or displaying an embarrassing inability to process the concepts of time and context.
Bill Arnold
@Dopey-o:
Vampires 2.0? The ethical quandaries of young blood infusion in the quest for eternal life (23 May 2020, Andrea Lavazza & Mirko Garasic)
(There are, indeed, rumors about some well known rich and powerful, and it has been reported that Peter Thiel has actually done it regularly, with blood from an 18 year old human.)
Matt
100% projection with these people.
See also the moderator of r/PedoGate (a Q hive) who got busted for, SHOCKED FACE, having a ton of kiddie porn: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/pedogate-subreddit-moderator-pedophile/
For that matter, Q was born on 8chan – an imageboard created after the founders were kicked off 4chan for posting too much CP….