Scott Greer writes on his Highly Respected Substack:
Understanding one of the core tenets of the modern American Right
Scott Greer
Jul 15, 2025
The Trump administration told the country last week that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and didn’t have a blackmail list, outraging MAGA in the process. Several Trump supporters firmly believe the government covered up Epstein’s misdeeds and they demand the truth. The issue has caused more discontent within MAGA than any other subject.
This issue is important to much of the Right due to the belief in “Critical Pedo Theory.” This notion imagines that the world is ruled by a pedophile cabal and “systemic pedophilia” is inherent to the current order. …
Critical Pedo Theory emerged in the mid-2010s. It gained credence as a response to the Left. For years, liberals would condemn right-wingers as racists. Racism is one of the great taboos in American society. The other is pedophilia, so right-wingers began calling leftists kid diddlers to defang racism accusations. The Right’s embrace of conspiratorial populism transformed this rhetoric into CPT. Conservatives were no longer just calling the Left pedos to defend against racism smears–they now concocted an entire worldview centered on pedo cabals. Pizzagate and QAnon soon followed.
The Left’s own worldview is animated by a different conspiratorial force. Wokeness, critical race theory, and other left-wing ideas imagine that America is built on inherent and systemic discrimination against non-whites, women, and gays. This problem calls for radical solutions and a purge of the nation’s alleged sins. Leftists will blame systemic racism for the high-arrest rates for blacks, Daniel Penny’s exoneration, food deserts, and many other issues. A prominent Democrat can’t deny it. Joe Biden’s base would’ve flipped out if the former president claimed the DOJ found no evidence of systemic discrimination and that America was never racist. Such blasphemy would undermine the Left’s worldview.
… CPT gives moral power to the Right that it otherwise wouldn’t have. The Left often claims a monopoly over moral policing. It determines what’s racist, sexist, anti-democratic, and who is a “good decent person.” Pedo accusations allows the Right to effect a judo move and take some of that power.
A critical tenet of CPT is the belief that the Left will eventually try to legalize sex with minors. This became a common belief among conservatives following the legalization of gay marriage. It was feared the Left may take up pederasty normalization as its next cause.
The good news is that pedophilia has not been normalized. The country is more revolted by the practice than ever before. … Age gap relationship hysteria demonstrates the strength of the taboo around pedophilia. Women now call men who date younger women pedophiles, despite both parties being adults, because they know it’s the worst label one can receive. They hope it will shame men into dating women their own age. No one wants to publicly defend pedophiles. In the 2010s, it could be argued it was worse to be known as a racist than a pedo. Today, it’s clearly much worse to be known as a pedo–and that’s a good thing.
… Unlike CRT, which is the creation of academia, CPT is the product of the people.
Popular conspiracy theories tend to assume that shadowy elite individuals are pulling the strings, although they can’t be bothered to figure out their names.
Academic conspiracy theories like Systemic Racism tend to assume that either dead elites or the living masses are causing racial disparities, although they can’t be bothered to figure out how.
There's an important difference between CPT and CRT. The Critical Pedo Theory is wing-nut territory among rightists. Surely only a minority of Trump's electorate - a vocal minority, to be sure - goes for this pedophilia nonsense. In contrast, the Left's lunatic fringe now calls the tune and common-sense leftists such as Ruy Teixeira struggle mightily against the tide. The two ideologies may be comparably nutty, but one commands the heights of mainstream culture while the other gets the general opprobrium it deserves.
Ken
Critical Pedo Theory! MAGATS suRe R StUpiD!#*@!
Did you hear the one about that cockamamie lab-leak theory for the Wuflu? Or that wild-eyed tale about Joe Biden being at Stage 4/5 dementia and practically non-agentic beyond what was for breakfast? Or (get this), that whopper about the Clinton campaign conspiring with elements of British intelligence to fabricate a dossier on Trump and disseminate it to national media. Or the one about 50 former national security officials with active clearances solemnly lying through their teeth that Hunter's laptop was a Russian plant. As if!
Next you'll tell me the NY Times won a Pulitzer for cooking up Russiagate with the assistance of senior members of the Executive branch. Who also bugged Trump Tower hoping to dig up dirt and influence the election of who would be their next Boss. Like Nixon wasn't nailed to the wall for Watergate?
Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck?!!!!!
Seriously Steve, a multimillionaire pederast tossing around way more money than his investment footprint would indicate, a private island complete with synagogue, unperson Robert Maxwell's daughter as his madam, a harem of teenaged girls, a jet with flight manifests, Manhattan townhome with surveillance everywhere, a wrist slap after he's caught dead to rights in Miami, and ... NOTHING. Just him and good ol' Ghis arranging dates for Prince Andrew with teenaged females. Well la di da. And then, the most anticipated suicide in human history happens under the watchful eye of Warden Mo'esha. Whattaya whattaya?
It could certainly be nothing. Or it could be something. What's the harm in letting Matt Taibbi loose on it and see what we can find out? Speaking of Matt, remember when he determined through old fashioned, plodding document review that the "Biden" administration conspired with social media companies to suppress certain viewpoints, and he got defamed and summoned to a hearing and raked across the coals for it? Just kidding I made that one up.