I could imagine sex parties happening in some circles of the Dems. I could never imagine Cauthon being remotely invited to any of those. So he's talking about the GOP here...
Funny events in anti-woke world
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Considering Cawthorn is a hard R, yes. Tho it is surprisingly inclusive of them to invite someone in a wheel chair to their bung bunga parties.
Listening to him speak, I don't think he was invited at all and just overheard it. He's just jealous
True, why get into politics if you can't enjoy some perks like underage bussy?
Exhausting endless bullshit
Earlier this week Republican Senator Josh Hawley, wrote a widely viewed thread about President Biden’s nominees to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson. The central theme was that Jackson was too sympathetic to sex offenders. Factcheckers debunked the claim, noting that Jackson’s views were relatively mainstream, and that Hawley had relied on mischaracterizations while quoting her words out of context.
If Hawley’s criticisms could be so easily rebuffed, why bother with this line of attack? The answer reveals something about the decay of American political discourse in the Trump era.
The point of Hawley’s attack is not to make the charges stick in any substantive way, but to create an association between Jackson and this broader trope. And in some immediate sense this worked. Simply by airing the claims, Hawley gave conservative media an excuse to run them.
Hawley does not claim that Jackson herself is engaged in any illegal acts. But he casts her as a bit player in a familiar narrative, upholding a system of mass pedophilia. Since he sits on the Senate Judiciary committee that will hold hearings on Jackson’s nomination, he will have ample opportunity to push his claims to an even wider audience.
This is a bigger problem then you think
My criticism of Hawley might sound exaggerated a little paranoid. But it is easy to underestimate how widespread this problem is for a few reasons. First, the subject matter itself is troubling. Who wants to talk about pedophilia? Second, there is a tendency to treat the people advancing these claims as clowns, not to be taken seriously. Third, we might reassure ourselves that it really is just a nut-job minority.
It’s a minority, but a sizable one, popularized by the QAnon cult. A poll taken in the run-up to the 2020 election showed that half of Trump supporters believe that top Democrats are involved in child sex-trafficking, and that Trump was using his Presidency to stop them.
Take a moment to acknowledge the sheer scale of the lunacy here.
One quarter of registered voters believe in an insane conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence, and which portrays their opponents in the worst possible terms. (The numbers vary: other polls suggest the number might be closer to 15% or that the majority of Republicans subscribe at least partly to QAnon views).
It is also a constituency that most politicians and media are reluctant to openly embrace. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, politicians hate not catering to potential supporters. In a presidential debate Trump himself said “I know nothing about QAnon” before stating “they are very strongly against pedophilia and I agree with that.” Hawley’s statements shows how the semi-respectable face of conservatism is reaching out to QAnon by incorporating it’s themes and beliefs. It is signaling with denial plausibility. And it’s not just Hawley.
Public education as a venue for QAnon appeals
The venue where we see the most vivid importation of the QAnon worldview is education. This is not surprising, because this is also the policy domain that features parents, and where conservative actors can best leverage threats to kids. They have, for example, been remarkably successful in suggesting that kids are being forced to renounce their white identity via Critical Race Theory forums in public schools. Doesn’t matter if its true, as long as it works.
The same actors who constructed the anti-CRT panic are actively constructing a new moral panic that that children are under some sort of attack. They have incorporated language like “grooming” or “predators” — language intended to trigger images of child sexual abuse.
Chris Rufo, the principal of the anti-CRT moral panic is explicit about the use and purpose of such language.
Two things are notable here. First, the use of such terminology as a deliberate political strategy. Second, that this language is largely not about sexual abuse of children. Rufo is much more likely to describe “grooming” in the context of kids being exposed to ideas he dislikes rather than actual sexual abuse. In other words, sharing certain political beliefs — usually centered around recognizing the status of historically marginalized groups — are treated as interchangeable with child abuse, its perpetrators akin to child abusers.
Such language is especially likely to be deployed if openly LGBTQ adults interact with children.
It is important to understand that “sexuality” in this context is about identity rather than sexual acts. Acknowledgment of the existence of people with different sexual orientation is treated as akin to not just grooming but “sexual grooming.” Again, notice the shift in meaning. Terms associated with child sexual abuse are deployed to cover discussion of identity.
On Fox, Laura Ingraham asked: “When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals? As a mom, I think it's appalling, it's frightening, it's disgusting, it's despicable. Florida just passed a bill to keep this type of sexual brainwashing out of schools.”
The bill in question, what has become known as the Don’t Say Gay law, drew attention with a spokesperson for Governor DeSantis said that anyone opposing the bill was “probably a groomer.”
Other conservatives rushed to her defense, reiterating the same message. Anyone who opposes a law that restricts discussion about sexual identity are themselves suspect of child abuse. Again, "grooming" appears in this context means "acknowledging that LBGTQ people exist, or allowing young people to have contact with an openly LBGTQ person."
Pizzagate as the origin story
Two defenders of the Don’t Say Gay law stand out.
Posobiec and Cernovich have been doing this for years, testing the strategy of labeling their political enemies as “pedos.” The pair spread the pizzagate conspiracy that leaders in the Democratic Party ran a child sex trafficking ring out of a DC neighborhood pizza. Insane stuff, but a gunman turned up at the pizzeria looking evidence.
The gunman went to jail, but Posobiec and Cernovich kept going, accusing politicians, celebrities or members of the media of being pedophiles. Some people lost their jobs as risk-averse corporations ran for cover. If you criticized the trolls, you become subject to the same smear. For example, when comedian Vic Berger mocked Cernovich, Cernovich responded by accusing him of leading an “active pedophile ring”, which resulted in death threats for Berger.
Elements of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory morphed into QAnon, finding support on a much larger scale. The seeds Posobiec and Cernovich planted had taken hold. Rather than face any punishment, they became influencers in conservative media. In other words, their strategy worked. By consistently smearing others they became celebrated.
Of course, it is not just the US right using such tactics. QAnon followers in Brazil have targeted left-learning politicians and media figures critical of Bolsonaro as promoting pedophilia. In the hands of state media, the accusations can be very powerful indeed. The Kremlin not just accuses political opponents of being actual pedophiles but as with the American right, deploys the language of child sexual abuse even when it is not applicable. For example, Alexei Nalvany and supporters were labeled political pedophiles for encouraging young people to protest Putin’s regime.
Is there a way out of this?
People will continue to do things that are rewarded, and stop doing them when they are punished. Right now, the rewards are obvious, and the punishments are not.
Someone like Hawley will never spell it out but the purpose of raising these vile smears is articulated well by Jesse Kelly.
And through such means a poison in our political culture spreads. It’s McCarthyism on steroids.
The ambiguity of the signaling allows those catering to a QAnon audience some plausible deniability, in much the way that the ambiguity around the “okay” hand sign — is it someone saying ok, or is a white supremacist signal? — makes it effective.
It is helpful for media to not just push back against actions like Hawley’s on factual grounds, but to convey the broader context of the QAnon signaling, as Ian Millheiser does here. It is helpful for progressives to understand the power of these beliefs.
But ultimately, as with other problems on the far-right, the solution must come from conservative institutions. The degree of polarization we face means that mainstream call-outs of Hawley will only bolster his credentials among the audience he is appealing to.
Republican politicians need to push back, and conservative media need to stop their nod-and-wink relationship with the QAnon audience. They have a reason to do so: anyone who empowers or goes along with conspiracy theorists who make wild accusations are themselves vulnerable to such accusations the moment they step out of line.
Unfortunately, I have more confidence that conservative media will instead continue to mainstream “grooming” as their new moral panic du jour.
A sigma wouldn't feel the need to brag about hopeless devotion to work, so, you know...just sayin'.
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If what this asshole said is true about not taking off work when his father died, he is either: had a bad father, he's a sociopath, an ungrateful bastard, or all the above. For some reason, I am going with option 4.
The new Hitler Card, nothing more. I find it funny they're hating on Disney, yet did not have much problems with them before.
This is NOT new. It's pretty medieval.
I remember having to tell me grandfather that gay people are fine as teachers... because he was brought up to think of them as paedophiles
Can I just check and make sure that the Scientologists' attempts to take over government really did fail?
Ooh, can I call into work gay? That sounds fabulous! *jazz hands*
Meanwhile, Wisconsin conservatives are straight up "seize the government" fascists
Can't win fair and square? Cheat! It's the American way.
Long story short, Giuliani's failson announced his creepy intentions to strong-arm his 4-month-old daughter's love live and sexuality until she's 25 and dog-whistled his anti-trans bona fides by saying he "checked under the hood" to declare her a woman. When she's 4 months old.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/andre...-far-right-group-in-ny-governor-race?ref=home
Purity culture is a disease.
Long story short, Giuliani's failson said some really creepy shit about his 4 month old daughter while also taking a dig at trans people.
Purity culture is a disease.
Long story short, Giuliani's failson said some really creepy shit about his 4 month old daughter while also taking a dig at trans people.
*clicks on link*
O...k...
Yeah, really creepy is something of an understatement. Gah.
I would have elaborated, but two things held me back. 1) I already showered today and 2) for some reason the forum wouldn't let me post a direct quote from the article. The latter possibly because the site is as grossed out by this as you and I are.
Marjorie Taylor "Well They's All Preverts, Ain't They?" Greene confuses Pete Buttigieg for a trans man, demands he stay out of girls' bathrooms.
www.businessinsider.com
(I guess Republicans get a pass if they're "making sure" that the girls are really girls.)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Pete Buttigieg and his husband should 'stay out of girls' bathrooms'
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told a Trump rally in Commerce, Georgia, that Transport Sec. Buttigieg and his husband "should stay out of girls' bathrooms."
www.businessinsider.com
(I guess Republicans get a pass if they're "making sure" that the girls are really girls.)
Every accusation a confession, holy shit
www.vice.com
Fetuses Reportedly Found at Anti-Abortion Activist’s Home
The activist has been indicted for allegedly blockading an abortion clinic.
www.vice.com
Nothing says FREEDOM more than making sure your kid is exactly to your liking.
The man was making overprotective father jokes. That's like Full House levels of tame.
Which episode of full house did Danny Tanner say only he gets to look at Michelle's vagina? I missed that one. Dude made it in literally the creepiest fucking way he could have made it. You lot are worried about telling kids gay people exist and this is the shit you're fine with?