Opinion | QAnon goes mainstream

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.

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).

Of course sexual abuse of children is real, and it inflicts devastating, lifelong damage. But it is our very disgust at these crimes that allows opportunists to seize them for unrelated political ends. The result isn’t just unfair attacks against politicians or judicial nominees. It often means ruined lives. Parents have been accused of abuse and even prosecuted for innocuous photos of their young children. Children have been convicted and labeled as sex offenders for texting one another sexual explicit images of themselves. In Virginia, one prosecutor even asked a court’s permission to photograph a minor boy’s erect penis to prove the boy had sent an explicit photo to an underage girl.

But however misguided those prosecutors may have been, it seems they honestly thought they were protecting children. What’s happening now is more sinister. It is doubtful many of the politicians pushing the “don’t say gay” and anti-trans bills truly believe, for example, that teachers who mention their same-sex spouses are grooming children for sexual exploitation, or that trans women transitioned so they can lurk about in women’s bathrooms. Hawley and Cruz are smart enough to know that Jackson’s decisions were well within the mainstream, or that studies have shown registries and civil commitment do little to protect children.

But they also know is that few crimes (understandably) inspire more anger and disgust than sexual abuse of children. They know a good percentage of their supporters have bought into at least some portion of the QAnon canon. And they’ve concluded that linking their opponents to those crimes is an effective way to accumulate power and achieve unrelated political objectives — opposing a Biden Supreme Court nominee, for example.

Just as with the lies about the 2020 election, these politicians know QAnon is a dangerous delusion. But rather than confront it and risk alienating their own supporters, they have chosen to weaponize it. Instead of disabusing the true believers of their destructive mythology, they have chosen to enable them, and to smear anyone who gets in their way.