Other's Journeys

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/7/26/2335037/-Why-are-Republicans-so-obsessed-with-pedophilia?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=

Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.

Over the past week, House and Senate Republicans have joined the Trump administration in obstructing the release of the Epstein files—obscuring a scheme that victimized underage girls for the benefit of extremely wealthy men.

This is just the latest chapter in the right’s long-running affiliation with pedophilia. The GOP itself has been involved in several pedophile-related scandals while also trying to leverage legitimate public concerns about child abuse for its political gain.

A history of scandal

President Donald Trump is the central figure in the current Epstein scandal. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were known to be friends in the past, and the Wall Street Journal recently revealed that Trump sent Epstein a sexually explicit birthday letter, featuring a drawing of a naked woman and the message, “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi alerted Trump that his name was included in the Epstein files, which his administration has refused to release.

But even outside of the Epstein scandal, Trump has a past chockfull of sexualizing young women, including children. In a 2006 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Trump said he had no age limit on how young a woman he dated could be before stopping himself.

“No, I have no age—I mean, I have [an] age limit. I don’t want to be like Congressman Foley with, you know, 12-year-olds,” Trump said.

Trump was also accused of walking into the dressing room at the Miss Teen USA beauty pageant—which Trump owned at the time—where contestants as young as 15 years old were undressing. According to witnesses, Trump said, “Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before.”

The Foley scandal that Trump ironically referenced contributed to Republicans losing control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. The GOP was left scrambling after it was revealed that then-Rep. Mark Foley of Florida sent inappropriate sexual texts to congressional pages. In one instance, Foley reportedly sent explicit emails to a former page who was 16 years old at the time.

Republican leadership was aware of Foley’s actions but did not remove him from his position or otherwise sanction him.

The Republican leader who presided over the Foley scandal turned out to be an offender himself. Speaker Dennis Hastert, who held his position from 1999 to 2007, admitted in court that he repeatedly sexually abused boys who he coached when he was a high school wrestling coach.

The topic of wrestling was also involved in the sexual abuse scandal involving Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Trump’s most prominent congressional supporters. Jordan has been accused of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse perpetrated against members of the Ohio State wrestling team, where Jordan was a coach. Some of the victims were underage, including one who said he was 14 or 15 when he was abused.

And Republicans had a similar problem on their hands when Alabama Judge Roy Moore ran for Senate in 2017. Moore was accused by multiple women of attempting to engage them in romantic relationships when they were as young as 14 years old and Moore was in his 30s.  Moore lost the race to Democrat Doug Jones.

Abuse allegations as a campaign tactic

Republicans have also used the issue of child sexual abuse as a political weapon, usually by promoting baseless conspiracy theories to attack the left and any institutions seen as unfriendly to the conservative movement.

The Pizzagate conspiracy falsely alleged that prominent leftists were trafficking children and inspired a would-be shooter in Washington, D.C. The related QAnon conspiracy—promoted by figures close to Trump—pushed similarly unhinged notions and has been the motivation for several crimes including murder.

QAnon adherents even made the baseless claim that furniture retailer Wayfair was somehow involved in the trafficking of children.

Related | Pentagon head offers crucial invite to antisemitic Pizzagate pusher

Ahead of his failed presidential run, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spearheaded a campaign accusing Disney of “grooming” children in an attempt to affiliate acceptance of LGBTQ+ people with abuse. The campaign was highly promoted by Fox News, the right’s leading propaganda outlet.

Similarly, conspiracies surrounding Epstein and his death were invoked by the right as a way to attack Democrats and elites who conservatives have linked to liberalism. The reelection of Trump was supposed to reveal the inner workings of these networks once and for all.

Backfire

Now the right has been forced to scramble. Instead of proving their conspiracies about Epstein, it is Republicans who are suffering in public opinion polling.

Trump, a diehard conspiracy theorist, is now the central figure deflecting questions about the Epstein files. 

Republicans who have politically capitalized on public fears about child abuse are now being dragged down by yet another pedophile scandal.

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/7/26/2335037/-Why-are-Republicans-so-obsessed-with-pedophilia?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/7/26/2335243/-Pedro-Pascal-is-the-latest-superhero-conservatives-love-to-hate?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=

Pedro Pascal might be making his box office debut as a Marvel superhero in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” but he didn’t need to slip into spandex to become the leftist hero the right hates to see coming.

As a matter of fact, the 50-year-old “babygirl”—an internet term used to describe a man unafraid to express his vulnerable side—has been a champion of issues that President Donald Trump and his supporters tend to foam at the mouth over.  

Take his fashion statements alone. In April, Pascal graced the red carpet with “PROTECT THE DOLLS” emblazoned across his chest. The slogan backs the transgender women currently under attack by Trump and his minions. 

And as a bearded man who has no fear when it comes to choosing style over being viewed as traditionally masculine, he is also unafraid to call out anyone who bashes the LGBTQ+ community. 

When “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling celebrated a new U.K. law this past April that strips more rights from transgender individuals, Pascal took to the comment section of a post regarding her celebration to publicly voice his disdain. 

“Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior,” he wrote via Instagram in response to an influencer’s post. 

And more recently in the U.S., when Trump’s team successfully shut down the federally funded LGBTQ+ suicide hotline, Pascal himself promoted The Trevor Project’s crisis hotline while calling out the attacks on the community. 

On top of many posts supporting the LGBTQ+ community and the constant championing of his transgender sister named Lux, Pascal used his platform to speak out when Trump’s ICE agents first began to infiltrate Los Angeles and target immigrants in the sanctuary city.

Los Angeles was “built by the best of us,” he wrote alongside a video of proud Latino men and women. 

Pascal is the son of Chilean refugees who immigrated to the U.S. with their children. And he won’t let anyone forget that—especially now. 

In Cannes, he reminded reporters during the May film festival that he, too, is an immigrant and that he wanted to remain “on the right side of history.”

“I want people to be safe and to be protected,” he said at the time. “I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark.”

“If it weren’t for that, I don’t know what would have happened to us.,” Pascal said. “I stand by those protections always.”

But as the wildly popular Pascal stands up for these issues, a weird backlash is brewing—and conservatives seems to be grasping to find fault with the A-list actor. 

On Thursday, right-leaning online mouthpieces called out Pascal for what they likened to “Me too” behavior. 

“How does Pedro Pascal get away with heavily petting his female costars, in Hollywood of all places, after the entire industry was upended over MeToo several years ago?” John Ekdahl wrote in a now viral tweet.

And while any criticism of unwarranted touching is always valid, Ekdahl—who appears to be referring to Pascal’s latest publicity tour with “Fantastic Four” costar Vanessa Kirby—seems to be missing the multiple videos where Kirby is enthusiastically “petting” him back. 

Then again, the concept of consent can be hard to explain to … some people. 

Related | Americans reject MAGA meanness as ‘Superman’ soars

But while the right stays mad about Pascal’s ability to make any person feel comfortable around him, “The Last of Us” star has made it clear that no amount of fame or backlash will silence him. 

"I think it's very easy to get scared no matter what you sort of talk about," he told Sky News. "There's so many different ways that things can get kind of fractured and have a life of itself really."

But regardless of how media outlets or haters try to misconstrue his words, he isn't going away. 

"There's one thing that you can say and no matter what your intention behind it, it is absolutely lost in all of these different headlines, I suppose, but I'll never shut up," he promised.

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