As we reported earlier this week, Washington Post opinion columnist sent out the alert that right-wing sites were universally referring to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill as the “Anti-Groomer Bill.” He was triggered by a piece by Rod Dreher in The American Conservative and by the belief that the word groomer refers exclusively to gay adults who are trying to shape the sexuality of young children, so “groomer” is homophobic. Well, he wasn’t triggered by the piece so much as the headline, which was “Disney Goes Groomer.” Waldman also wasn’t retweeting Dreher but Roy Edroso, who retweeted Dreher’s piece with the comment, “Dreher goes QAnon.”
That’s not all we’ve heard about QAnon lately. Senator Josh Hawley grilling SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson about her lenient sentences for child pornography was a “QAnon-signaling smear.” And CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter that it was “difficult to ignore the QAnon effort at work” in demonizing Disney.
David Atkins (he/him) is a contributor to Washington Monthly and a “progressive reformist.” He posted a long thread about the backlash against Disney and like Darcy attributed it to QAnon’s influence over the conservative movement.
You are watching in real time as mainstream conservatism warms itself up to embracing QAnon's "liberals are pedophiles" doctrine wholesale.
The reasons are simple: 1) QAnon has been the main pipeline to making GOP crossover voters; and 2) it justifies any fascist "response." /1
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
Contrary to some popular(ist) beliefs, Trumpist crossover votes have come far more from QAnon indoctrination than from normie median voters getting turned off by "woke" leftists. So why not lean into it, if you lack moral compunction? /2
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
Did you even know you were being indoctrinated by QAnon? They’re slick that way.
It's also directly tailored to existing White Dominionist Nationalist narratives, intersecting with broad anti-Semitic, patriarchal & anti-urbanist narratives.
Makes it easy for the folks who don't want to pay taxes for school lunches to pretend they're doing it for the kids./3
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
But also crucially, it's the projection.
There is no culture of child abuse and grooming more insidious than conservative religion. From Roy Moore to Dennis Hastert to Matt Gaetz to the priest scandal, these men have always predated on children as their prerogative of power. /4
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
Like the Quiverfull Duggars & FLDS, the whole idea is to make women and girls the property of powerful older men and their sons, forcing them to have babies as early as possible in direct transfer of ownership from their fathers. Boys are frequent victims of sexual hazing. /5
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
Conservative small towns and Friday Night Lights cultures are rife with sexual abuse of children and they know it. It's just the "right" kind, in service of the patriarchal power structures. And it's kept quiet under the rug, repented for on Sunday and recommitted on Monday. /6
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
It's no accident that teen pregnancy is far lower in liberal counties and states than conservative ones. Kids in liberal communities have better outcomes and suffer less abuse. The institutionalized grooming is almost entirely on the Religious Right. And they know it. /7
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
But they play up this angle because it preys on their fears, because they know their kids despise their bigoted value systems, because they project the evils in their own families & communities, and because it justifies their intended policies of bloodlust against liberals. /8
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
And make no mistake: they will absolutely carry out pogroms based on projected QAnon libels as far as they are allowed when in power. And at the hands of Trump, a man credibly accused of raping a 14-year-old and going into teen locker rooms to see them naked. It's no accident. /9
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
As they might say, it's all Part of the Plan. /end
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) March 31, 2022
But wait, there’s more.
CODA: a lot of people have asked about the religious communities angle. So let me be more explicit about the cycle of abuse, silence, false redemption and projection in conservative religious communities: /1
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
Men are given full authority over their wives and children, and religious leaders over their flocks. They are presumed to have highest moral authority under God, and their actions are rarely scrutinized.
Many of these men use their authority to abuse kids. /2
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
Sometimes, as with child marriage, this is all socially sanctioned in direct patriarchal transfer of girls or abusive hazing rituals of teen boys.
But often it's not. It's hidden abuse, quiet and under table. Except usually these are *open secrets.*
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
The immediate families protect the uncle, the pastor, grandfather, whoever. They blame the child for "tempting" the Good Man. They blame Satan.
The child is forced into a cone of silence to protect the Family or Community or Church. This often leads to suicide or other harm. /4
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
The abuser, meanwhile, is offered an endless cycle of atonement & redemption through prayer–reinforcing the social order and allowing them to abuse again, only to be redeemed and "forgiven" again endlessly. This enabling is perceived as holy permanent struggle against Satan./5
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
The absence of this cycle of shame and atonement in liberal cultures, along with open acceptance of non-normative sexualities and embrace of consent as defining moral line, terrifies conservatives and comes off to them as anarchy. /6
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
They assume that liberals must be shamelessly abusing kids all the time without sanction, since all of *them* know a dark secret in their communities and liberals apparently have no rules!
Except we *do* have rules–rules based on consent and accountability. /7
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
We don't abuse kids insitutionally the way religious conservatives do because we don't trust patriachal men with that sort of power, we don't blame the victims (or Satan) when abusers abuse, and we hold them accountable publicly to society–not secretly to a convenient God. /8
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
So conservatives freak out in moral panics over the fake conspiracy Satanism they imagine happening in liberal communities without their toxic cycle of patriarchal "redemption," while putting cones of silence and victim-shaming around the abuses right under their own noses. /end
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
In the most evil cases, the reactionaries simply want teen girls to marry rich old men as in The Olden Days, & to kill gay people or force them into the closet while falsely accusing them of pedophilia.
None of this is an accident. It is an old story, just as QAnon is old libel.
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 1, 2022
Atkins says if you want proof, “just Google it.” Does he know conservatives or does he know conservatives? P.S. He’s also an elected DNC member from California.
Ok groomer https://t.co/usHDWaADad
— James Lindsay, based (@ConceptualJames) April 1, 2022
Liberals aren't pedophiles obviously but this attempt to argue Christians and conservatives are is just as dumb as the QAnon claptrap he's ostensibly criticizing. https://t.co/JhppzVamte
— John Sexton (@verumserum) April 1, 2022
If you're furious about not being allowed to talk about sex with 5-8 year old kids that aren't yours, you are a groomer. https://t.co/2CHzO7Oiaj
— Brian (@dustopian) April 1, 2022
Alternative explanation: the left thinks it has a right to change the culture radically, to suddenly insist that there are 57 genders and that a 50-year-old should be talking sex with kindergartners, or dividing them by race, and the American people are saying, NO. Not this time. https://t.co/7YKZmFqDz4
— Mike Gonzalez (@Gundisalvus) April 1, 2022
Here's an idea…stop acting like pedophiles. https://t.co/96goBu1vrA
— SellCrazySomeplaceElse… (@RonSchw72463508) April 2, 2022
A blue check progressive with pronouns in the bio having a Blue-Anongasm. https://t.co/YeIOdpIMtl
— ┈ Reason Burger ┈ (@ReasonBurger) April 1, 2022
Maybe stop going after children like a bunch of freaking creepy groomers?
Remind me which side it is that feels that parents rights should be dwindled or gotten rid of? Which side is it that feels children somehow understand things far greater than adults and thinks it is okay- https://t.co/5xvUe1BxoZ— Mythrendier Idonbrue (@MagniIronblood) April 1, 2022
If you need a 15 tweet thread to explain why you and your political party aren't pedophiles…….. https://t.co/EQqhdvCSW5
— bjorn p (@bjornallday) April 1, 2022
Atkins knows more about QAnon than 99.9 percent of conservatives. Guess he Googled it. Damn, do Democrats really want to die on this hill.
Related:
CNN Reliable Source Oliver Darcy links conservative media backlash against Disney wokeness to — what else? — QAnon https://t.co/KqkymZmvju
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 31, 2022