Last week, documentarian, activist, and Disney heiress Abigail Disney went on a tear against critics of Disney’s headfirst foray into wokeness. She appeared to have been inspired by this tweet from Christopher Rufo:
We are waging moral war against Disney. We are directly targeting their public reputation. We are turning half of their customers against them.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 30, 2022
As we pointed out in our earlier post, you may or may not agree with Rufo’s characterization of this debate as “moral war against Disney.” But that doesn’t negate the fact that Rufo and other critics of Disney’s decision to get deeply involved in Florida politics have legitimate reasons to be criticizing it.
And, as Rufo points out in a thread today, there was a time when his and the critics’ position was the mainstream one. When it was OK to draw attention to Disney’s problematic record on sexual predation of children. Before wokeness completely took over.
In 2014, CNN did a six-month investigation on Disney's child predators and recommended more sting operations to catch "so many more sexual predators."
In 2022, CNN now says that mentioning *this exact problem* is a conspiracy theory from the "QAnon factor." pic.twitter.com/hROeMoFuzQ
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
Recall that just last week, CNN’s Oliver Darcy used the “Reliable Sources” newsletter to link the conservative media backlash against Disney’s wokeness to QAnon. Because you’ve got be a total conspiracy nut to think it’s inappropriate to talk to kindergarteners about sexuality and gender identity!
Recommended
Yesterday, the Left was having a meltdown about my tweets highlighting these stories. But my position is the same as Anderson Cooper's in 2014: Disney, which claims to be a moral voice for children, has a child predator problem that should concern parents across the country.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
Here’s what Rufo’s referring to, by the way:
Disney has presented itself as the moral voice for children, but the company has a dark side: a shocking number of its employees have been arrested for child sex crimes.
Starting tomorrow at 8:30am PT, I'll be highlighting some of "the child-predators of Walt Disney Co."
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 4, 2022
Check out his subsequent tweets yesterday for more on Disney employees busted for preying on children.
Back to CNN’s “QAnon” smear tactics:
It wasn't "QAnon" to point this out in 2014 and it's not "QAnon" to point this out now. The story is relevant again because Disney is claiming to be a moral authority on child sexuality, which makes their record on child sexuality within the company fair game.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
Lastly, for the people saying "what about the Catholic Church": I agree, the Church's crimes were sick, criminal, and rightly punished. And even worse, if we're comparing, public school teachers sexually abuse children at a scale more than 100 times greater than Catholic priests.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
(Note: We don’t have the stats on that particular claim and thus can’t verify it. We wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that the teaching profession is rife with sexual predators. But Rufo’s larger point about the liberal media’s reactions to conservatives’ criticisms of Disney still stands.)
In CNN's investigative report, the anchor suggested that Congress should change the law to allow companies like Disney to polygraph employees to screen out potential child predators. That's a policy worth discussing. And we should also figure out how to address this in schools.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
The real lesson for conservatives is to never limit our arguments to "what liberals deem appropriate." That's the path to perpetual demoralization, surrender, and defeat. The way to win the culture war is to demonstrate strength, blast through fake taboos, and play for keeps.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 5, 2022
Passivity just doesn’t cut it.
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional text.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member