Critical Pedo Theory
Understanding one of the core tenets of the modern American Right
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. These elite pedos are evil by nature, which is why they use space lasers to cause forest fires and wield their weather machine against red states. These right-wingers hoped Trump would battle the cabal as president. QAnoners thought he did so in his first term, clinging to fake news stories about the admin secretly arresting and executing prominent child molesters.
The Epstein announcement came as a shock. Here’s their leader telling them that a core element of their worldview isn’t true. Rather than follow Trump’s advice and move on, they’re up in arms, with some threatening to ditch MAGA altogether. It illustrates how fundamental CPT is to a large cohort of conservatives. Trump bombing Iran and implying he may be open to some form of amnesty didn’t elicit anywhere near this kind of backlash from his base. For a significant number of Trump voters, the pedo cabal matters more than anything else.
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.
While the Right at times challenges the Left’s depiction of racism, the Left shares the Right’s moral revulsion towards pedophilia. This makes CPT even more potent than CRT. When conservatives hear racism accusations from the woke, they will often roll their eyes and dismiss it. No leftist will roll their eyes at pedophile accusations. The vile crime horrifies them just as much as racism does. Their only options are to deny the accused is a pedophile or to disavow the accused. 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. Pedophiles are the one group where it’s socially acceptable to publicly fantasize murdering. “Kill your local pedophile” is a popular t-shirt. Videos of older men getting lured into fake meetups with teens and beaten up are devoured on YouTube and TikTok. 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.
CPT explains why Angel Studios, a conservative-ish film company, has done so many films on human trafficking. Its biggest success, Sound of Freedom, featured a former government agent going around rescuing kids from the implied clutches of the pedo cabal. CPT even inspired some of the Right’s immigration restriction, with fears that illegal migrant kids were being delivered to the cabal becoming a frequent criticism of Joe Biden’s open borders. CPT, of course, inspired QAnon. Q may be dead, but its spirit still animates the Right.
CPT isn’t just limited to the Right anymore. It now influences a great deal of internet content in general. Many brocasters entertain the notion that we are ruled by a pedo cabal. Some left-wing influencers also believe it. It’s an idea that regularly goes viral on TikTok and other platforms. Unlike CRT, which is the creation of academia, CPT is the product of the people.
It’s an appealing notion to populists. Anti-establishment types want to portray the elites as evil. What better way to do that than to claim they’re all diddling kids? It also reinforces populist grievances. These people can argue that the only way to succeed in this corrupt system is to molest kids. That’s why it’s right to dispute the meritocracy and look at the elites with suspicion. These powerful folks didn’t get in that position due to merit–they got there through pederasty. It makes grievances against the elites seem more principled.
CPT offers a compelling narrative of contemporary America. The internet, with its fascination for conspiracy theories and anti-establishment posturing, can’t resist it. Many Americans want to believe we are ruled by pedos. They want to think we’re ruled by the most evil people imaginable and these scumbags try to hide their dark secrets from the world. But the people are finally learning about this forbidden truth and waking up. Jeffrey Epstein allegedly proves it, as does the government covering up his crimes. They want the dead financier’s list, which they believe includes much of Congress. The idea that it might bring the whole system down makes it even more attractive. That’s what these populists want and believe we deserve. The fact that the release of just one document can have such a revolutionary impact further cements the appeal of CPT.
There’s basically no way to correct the new faiths created by the internet. CPT will remain a powerful part of the Right. It may even start to influence the Left as well.
Trump’s only hope for retaining these followers is banking on people’s short attention spans. MAGA will eventually move on to other subjects and forgive or forget about Trump not releasing the alleged Epstein list. But nothing can convince them that there is no pedophile cabal ruling the world. It’s fundamental to the conspiratorial populist’s belief system. Trying to persuade them is like trying to convince a devout Christian that there is no Hell.