QAnon, Blood Libel, and the Satanic Panic

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Baseless accusations are branding people as satanist pedophiles at the speed of the internet — just ask a GOP prosecutor who recently lost re-election.

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While the current obsession with Satan was boosted in part by the QAnon community, partisan media and conservative politicians have been instrumental in spreading newfound fears over the so-called ritualistic abuse of children that the devil supposedly inspires, sometimes weaving the allegations together with other culture war issues such as LGBTQ rights. Those fears are powering fresh accusations of ritual abuse online, which are amplified on social media and by partisan media, and can mobilize mobs to seek vigilante justice.

Witch hunts have traditionally been associated with courts — even the kangaroo kind — but today, the accused can be branded satanist pedophiles at the speed of the internet. Online accusers can bypass police, therapists and the traditional media and out their alleged abusers straight to audiences of millions.

“The ʼ80s and ʼ90s were terrifying and they ruined people’s lives, but they were constrained in certain ways by network technologies,” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and co-author of the book, “You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape.”

The daily invocations of Satan by the biggest players in conservative politics and media are too numerous to catalog in full.

Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., credited the devil with whispering to women who choose to have abortions and controlling churches who aid undocumented immigrants. In June, she tweeted a video of a man dressed as the devil, stating that the mythical creature would be the next witness called by the House Jan. 6 committee. “They all know him, they all love him, and some even worship him,” she wrote.

Charlie Kirk, the president of one of the largest conservative groups in the country, Turning Point USA, recently opined that Republicans should “use the law to shut down Satanism.” Last year, Fox News host Tucker Carlson expressed his opinion on trans people, telling his viewers, “When you say you can change your own gender by wishing it, you’re saying you’re God, and that is satanic.” The Republican nominee for Missouri’s St. Louis County executive, the top job in the local government, is currently suing her former employer over its mask mandates, citing their use in “satanic ritual abuse.”

And after President Joe Biden’s recent speech on the threat that “MAGA Republicans” pose to democracy, the very subjects of his warnings framed the president’s address as “satanic,” because of the red lights illuminating the backdrop of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.

The modern-day equivalent of those hypervigilant PSAs and daytime talk shows is found online: in posts and videos urging “awareness” for dangers like random white vans and other child-trafficking urban legends. These amateur PSAs are seen immediately by millions, with the option to share them across communities.

That rhetoric is not without consequence. People and places perceived as satanic have been the target of harassment, threats and worse in recent months.

Last year, a child in North Wales was kidnapped while abductors held his foster mother at knifepoint. Wilfred Wong, an evangelical Christian and long-time activist behind the group Coalition Against Satanist Ritual Abuse, whose goal is “to increase public awareness and action regarding satanist ritual abuse,” was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his role in the abduction. Wong and a group of five others said they were trying to rescue the child from his father, whom they believed to be a satanist and pedophile.

In the U.S., a Republican candidate for governor in Georgia, Kandiss Taylor, campaigned on demolishing the Georgia Guidestones, a tourist attraction known by some as American Stonehenge. When the mysterious monument — made up of massive granite slabs etched with innocuous rules for living — was blown up in July, Taylor seemed to celebrate, calling them “satanic.”

Phillips, the University of Oregon assistant professor, said the internet’s power is particularly worrisome in light of what appears to be a renewed satanic panic.

“The internet has basically jumped over the need for other intervention,” she said. “You can have an accusation that goes viral, be seen by millions of people by the end of that day. That was never possible before.”

“You can almost foresee what is coming next,” Phillips said. “It’s what we’ve seen before, but all of the bulwarks are gone.”

Sadly, trying to convince people who would rather believe Trump's lies than everyone else's truth that your fears are valid would be like trying to convince members of the Westboro Baptist church that there is no God.[/color]

The support base for this growth in conspiracies are predominantly white republicans who (if anything) are increasingly joining the fold of QAnon and associated MAGA cults in droves despite pages and pages of evidence debunking the horse s**t produced by MAGA proponents in the republican party and those promoting QAnon conspiracies

Trump was president when the Pandemic started.

To call COVID “Biden-19” defies all logic.

If I was lonely, I wouldn’t revert to a belief where supposed pedophiliac ceremonies occurred in the basement of a pizza place (especially when this particular pizza place had no basemen).

I truly doubt any Chinese scientist who might deign to create COVID would even think about Biden.

George Soros paid the Wuhan Virology Institute to synthesize Covid in order to make Trump lose . . .

. . . along with Anthony Fauci telling them which DNA/RNA patterns to use.

As long as they got paid, they didn't care which politician they were hurting.

If the Koch Brothers (Soros's conservative equivalent) paid the Wuhan Institute, they'd still synthesize Covid, only it'd be Biden they'd be undermining.

It just might be less effective, since Wuhan wouldn't have access to Fauci's "science" and liberal media's fearmongering.

. . . it was made in a lab to help Biden win.

And comparing garden-variety QAnon to Pizzagate like comparing mainline Protestants to Chick Tract Fundamentalists.

I myself joined QAnon to regain my social life. All my former friends got brainwashed by Biden, and there was nowhere to go in the first place. I had so much fun with the new people. So I changed my voting habits from Democrat to Republican.

Evidence, please?
Evidence, please?
Evidence, please?
Evidence, please?
Evidence, please?

Your own eyes are the evidence. Open them. Look at the world around you. If you can't see that the whole Covid thing was planned for political reasons from the start, then I have a bridge to sell to you. Terms 2/10 N/30.

Trump was president when the Pandemic started.

To call COVID “Biden-19” defies all logic.

If I was lonely, I wouldn’t revert to a belief where supposed pedophiliac ceremonies occurred in the basement of a pizza place (especially when this particular pizza place had no basemen).

George Soros paid the Wuhan Virology Institute to synthesize Covid in order to make Trump lose, along with Anthony Fauci telling them which DNA/RNA patterns to use.