Jean Guerrero: Stirring up a new 'Satanic panic,' the GOP wants voters to see pedophiles all around us
The Republican Party is testing a new style of hatemongering politics: one that brands all opponents as pedophiles or "pro-pedophile."
Preying on the universal protective instincts for children, it's a cynical ploy from a party that supports sabotaging our planet's climate for future generations, promotes policies that traumatize brown and Black children, and has backed people accused of molesting and even trafficking teenagers.
Conjuring up the vilest of villains — child rapists and molesters — allows politicians organizing around democracy's destruction to dupe otherwise decent people into voting for them.
The strategy has roots in Pizzagate and QAnon, but it of the 1980s and 1990s, when Americans saw this type of demonic evil everywhere in ordinary people.
