Critical Pedo Theory

Scott Greer on the rightwing version of Critical Race Theory.

Scott Greer writes on his Highly Respected Substack:

Critical Pedo Theory

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.