By Radley Balko
Columnist
Today at 8:00 a.m. EDT
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5 min
There’s a common thread between attacks against Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as being soft on child predators, the manufactured controversy on the right over whether teachers can mention homosexuality to students, and the anti-trans laws sweeping Republican-controlled state legislatures: We’re witnessing the mainstreaming of QAnon.
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QAnon is the bananas conspiracy theory that a worldwide human-trafficking network — from elites such as Tom Hanks and Bill Gates to people who shop at Wayfair — who, depending on which version of QAnon you believe, either sexually assault children or murder them and extract their glands. It’s all laughable, except it has become large enough that it has begun to infect everyday politics, with some of its adherents even winning elections.
Start with the attacks against Jackson. Nothing about Jackson’s record on sentencing people for possession of child pornography is unusual. Her view — that the laws laying out those sentences are too harsh — is shared by 70 percent of federal judges. The 2012 report she signed while serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission — also stating that these sentences were too harsh — was unanimously supported by the commissioners, and including a member who the same Republicans approved for a federal judgeship.
Jackson was also attacked for criticizing sex offender registries and the indefinite detention — or indefinite civil commitment — of sex offenders after they’ve served their sentences. Some state registries and the restrictions that go with them have forced offenders to live under overpasses or in abandoned woods. It has made many unemployable, and has barred them from living even in homeless shelters, even as those same laws also require them to report a fixed address. Regardless of the seriousness of their crimes, these laws make rehabilitation all but impossible.
Studies have consistently shown that these restrictions have little effect on recidivism and do little to protect children. Yet Jackson was still cast as an advocate for pedophiles. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) declared her a threat to children. On social media, legal scholars and pundits who defended Jackson from these attacks were swarmed with replies calling them “groomers,” or demands that they themselves be investigated.
That slur — groomer — is also now wielded against critics of new laws in Florida and elsewhere that allow parents to sue teachers for, among other things, mentioning the mere existence of gay people to their students. The word is hurled both at trans people and those who defend them — not just by random Twitter users, but by mainstream conservatives. At a recent Donald Trump rally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband of stalking girls’ bathrooms.
Even the nuttiest conspiracy theories often contain a kernel of truth. Jeffrey Epstein was a serial predator who hobnobbed with elites and, for far too long, was protected by both the courts and a cadre of powerful people. And the right’s current obsession is particularly interesting given its own scandals — from Mark Foley to Dennis Hastert to Roy Moore, as well as those accused of covering up abuse such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Columnist
Today at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Listen to article
5 min
There’s a common thread between attacks against Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as being soft on child predators, the manufactured controversy on the right over whether teachers can mention homosexuality to students, and the anti-trans laws sweeping Republican-controlled state legislatures: We’re witnessing the mainstreaming of QAnon.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
QAnon is the bananas conspiracy theory that a worldwide human-trafficking network — from elites such as Tom Hanks and Bill Gates to people who shop at Wayfair — who, depending on which version of QAnon you believe, either sexually assault children or murder them and extract their glands. It’s all laughable, except it has become large enough that it has begun to infect everyday politics, with some of its adherents even winning elections.
Start with the attacks against Jackson. Nothing about Jackson’s record on sentencing people for possession of child pornography is unusual. Her view — that the laws laying out those sentences are too harsh — is shared by 70 percent of federal judges. The 2012 report she signed while serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission — also stating that these sentences were too harsh — was unanimously supported by the commissioners, and including a member who the same Republicans approved for a federal judgeship.
Jackson was also attacked for criticizing sex offender registries and the indefinite detention — or indefinite civil commitment — of sex offenders after they’ve served their sentences. Some state registries and the restrictions that go with them have forced offenders to live under overpasses or in abandoned woods. It has made many unemployable, and has barred them from living even in homeless shelters, even as those same laws also require them to report a fixed address. Regardless of the seriousness of their crimes, these laws make rehabilitation all but impossible.
Studies have consistently shown that these restrictions have little effect on recidivism and do little to protect children. Yet Jackson was still cast as an advocate for pedophiles. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) declared her a threat to children. On social media, legal scholars and pundits who defended Jackson from these attacks were swarmed with replies calling them “groomers,” or demands that they themselves be investigated.
That slur — groomer — is also now wielded against critics of new laws in Florida and elsewhere that allow parents to sue teachers for, among other things, mentioning the mere existence of gay people to their students. The word is hurled both at trans people and those who defend them — not just by random Twitter users, but by mainstream conservatives. At a recent Donald Trump rally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband of stalking girls’ bathrooms.
Even the nuttiest conspiracy theories often contain a kernel of truth. Jeffrey Epstein was a serial predator who hobnobbed with elites and, for far too long, was protected by both the courts and a cadre of powerful people. And the right’s current obsession is particularly interesting given its own scandals — from Mark Foley to Dennis Hastert to Roy Moore, as well as those accused of covering up abuse such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).