LA Times columnist links Republican defense of children to ‘new Satanic panic’

Members and supporters of the LGBTQ community attend the "Say Gay Anyway" rally in Miami Beach, Florida on March 13, 2022. - Florida's state senate on March 8 passed a controversial bill banning lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools, a step that critics complain will hurt the LGBTQ community. Opposition Democrats and LGBTQ rights activists have lobbied against what they call the "Don't Say Gay" law, which will affect kids in kindergarten through third grade, when they are eight or nine years old. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images) ( (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images))

L.A. Times opinion columnist Jean Guerrero accused the Republican Party of engaging in a "new style of hatemongering politics" which involves smearing its political opponents as "pro-pedophile" on Thursday.

Pointing to efforts to expose Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson's lenient sentencing of sexual predators and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' parental rights bill that protects public school students in kindergarten through third grade from instruction on "sexual orientation and gender identity," Guerrero’s piece said Republicans were "pedophilia scaremongering." 

She claimed it was part of 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."

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Elementary students wearing masks in the classroom (iStock)

She insisted it’s part of the politicians’ plan to "dupe otherwise decent people into voting for them." 

The hyperbole continued when the columnist not only linked this "anti-groomer" fight to "Pizzagate and QAnon," but also claimed it’s a "revival of the Satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s, when Americans saw this type of demonic evil everywhere in ordinary people."

Guerrero then cited "Culture Warlords" author Talia Lavin, who claimed that this current "panic" represents a "concerted effort to turn back the clock on gay rights."

Guerrero even went so far as to say that conservatives are "prone to pedophilia panics" which are also rooted in antisemitism.

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Citing Lavin, Guerrero wrote that the "GOP’s child-predation obsession" can be traced back to "blood libel, an antisemitic smear dating back to Middle Ages Europe that falsely accused Jewish people of ritualistically murdering Christian children for their blood."

Another author blamed America and its founding: "The lies have found fertile ground in this country because they prey on existing homophobic and racist biases. Moreover, fantasy is 'encoded in our national DNA,' wrote [Kurt] Andersen," author of "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." 

Andersen pointed to the "theologically extreme" pilgrims and the explorers hoping to "get rich quick" by finding gold, saying, "We started with these two groups of true believers in fantasies."

FILE - Advocates for transgender people march from the South Dakota governor's mansion to the Capitol in Pierre, S.D., on March 11, 2021. A South Dakota legislative committee on Friday, Jan. 14, 2022 approved a bill championed by Gov. Kristi Noem to ban transgender women and girls from participating in school sports leagues that match their gender identity. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves, File) (AP Photo/Stephen Groves, File)

Today, Guerrero wrote, "Republicans will continue their double exploitation: using children as pawns for depraved propaganda and using that propaganda to further warp Americans who are disconnected from reality and need help."

She cited a theory from George Lakoff, "a renowned UC Berkeley cognitive science linguist," that "While Democrats apply a nurturing parenting framework to their politics that centers on empathy, Republicans apply what he calls a ‘strict father’ framework that prizes patriarchal authority… being raised under this hegemonic framework makes people more susceptible in adulthood to misleading information."

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Guerrero implied that conservatives are engaging in this "panic" because they are mentally ill. "People with mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, are in fact more vulnerable to false conspiracy," she wrote. 

Ultimately, the only way to "solve the misinformation crisis in this country," the columnist explained, is to address the "mental health crisis in this country."