To The Eagle:

Republicans are talking a lot about pedophilia. Over the past year, GOP candidates, elected officials, and media influencers have been increasingly obsessed with conversations about children’s sexuality.

Republican conservative extremists have been slandering gender support and care for kids as acts of predation, or “grooming,” as they like to call it. Such repulsive innuendoes subject loving families and dedicated teachers to surveillance, investigation, and violence while leaving kids isolated, afraid, and vulnerable.

There’s a lot going on behind the Republicans’ “child grooming” obsession, but the simplest explanation is, they think it will help them win elections. They’re hoping it will energize a coalition of regressive bigots’ and fundamentalist Christians’ efforts to roll back the civil rights, and public acceptance, of transgender and homosexual people. They’re intent upon punishing the LGBTQ community for simply existing.

This latest flavor of McCarthyism appeals to GOP social conservatives who maliciously equate homosexuals with child molesters, and who are now escalating their ‘anti-groomer’ campaign in preparation for an assault against same-sex marriage. Republicans are trying, and lying, to link their opponents to pedophilia. Nazi fascists used the same libel against the Jews during their rise to power.

Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida’s increasingly fascistic white supremacist Governor, Ron DeSantis, ranted that “anyone who opposes the (Don’t Say Gay) bill banning schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity is probably a groomer.”

Republican strategy, supported by such salacious smears, is not about protecting kids or families. It’s about the GOPs’ willingness to go to absolutely any lengths to win at any cost, while children pay the price.

This goes way beyond “owning the libs.” It’s about the ruthless liquidation of any opposition, by any means, which happens to be one of the pillars of Fascism.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island