We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything
Donald: Yes there is, but I won't tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.

I would prefer here a precise accounting of Jeffrey Epstein's history of pedophilia. Unfortunately, much remains unknown. What we can say is that over a period of decades he groomed and molested dozens of underage children, mostly girls. He also functioned as a high-end pimp, procuring minors for other members of the elite financial, cultural, and philanthropic circles he traveled in. 

This caught up to him in 2006, when he was arrested in Florida. Alex Acosta—a federal prosecutor who would later serve as Secretary of Labor under Trump I—facilitated a sweetheart plea deal for Epstein, in which he pled guilty to a single state charge and was not prosecuted for anything further. He was arrested again in 2019, and shortly thereafter died in prison.

The letter quoted above was, allegedly, a gift from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Given the circumstances, one can only conclude that the veiled references in the letter are to the obvious thing: sex with underage girls. Rape. Pedophilia.

The President of the United States is a pedophile.

It is common, or at least it used to be, to portray Trump as a unique irruption into the American political scene: uniquely crass, uniquely rapey, uniquely popular.  In that frame of mind, one might dismiss Trump's association with Epstein as yet another uniquely Trumpian deformity.

What if it isn't?  What if the connection between reactionary MAGA politics and the sexual abuse of children is deeper than we want to admit?

The name for this idea is pedocon theory.

Pedocon theory suggests that this is not an aberration. Pedocon theory suggests that this was the inevitable result of the conservative project, because the conservative project is inherently pedophilic. The phrase "pedocon theory" was first popularized by Twitter user reg_monkey, and is summarized neatly here:

After all, Donald Trump is hardly the only Republican pedophile. Dennis Hastert, Republican Speaker of the House, was a pedophile. Roy Moore, Republican Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, was a pedophile. R.J. May, Republican State Representative, was a pedophile. John Jessup, Republican County Commissioner, was a pedophile. Mark Foley, Republican Member of Congress, sent sexually explicit messages to teenagers. Matt Gaetz, Republican Member of Congress, had sex with a 17 year old—count that one if you like. Edward Coristine, one of Elon Musk's handpicked DOGE staffers, founded an image-sharing website tailor-made for sharing child porn. The list goes on and on.

This list is suggestive. Stop telling yourself it's a few bad apples. Stop telling yourself "there are pedophiles in every large enough organization." There are not this many pedophiles in every political party. Both sides are not the same. When Slate went looking for an equivalent list of Democratic pedophiles, they were able to come up with: a random donor, the head of a local Young Democrats, and Anthony Weiner's sexts. Not a speaker of the House, a Chief Justice, and a President.

After you stare at the facts too long you either erase them from your memory or ask yourself what is going on here.

The question has an answer. But the answer is not conspiratorial. Pedocon theory does not involve secret networks of underground tunnels where adrenochrome is harvested for reptilian overlords. Pedocon theory is not hiding beneath twelve layers of misdirection. Pedocon theory is rooted in the basic politics of the reactionary right.

Let's start with their demographic obsessions, to use a polite euphemism. "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" is a neo-Nazi slogan. But the sentiment it expresses has moved to the core of the Republican Party. White genocide, the Great Replacement, the terror of declining birthrates—these are all framed as national-racial catastrophes. J.D. Vance rants about nations and homelands and stops just shy of calling his politics blood and soil. The most visible expression of this demographic panic is, of course, Trump II's program of mass deportation.

But these racial anxieties are inextricable from sexual politics. You can see pedocon theory shimmering in the background of pro-natalist conferences, where pundits bemoan America's falling birthrate... and quietly pass around statistics suggesting most of the recent fall is driven by a decline of teen pregnancies. The Federalist runs op-eds suggesting women should be discouraged from education, because too much education lowers their birth rates. Encouraging their indoctrination into fertility-obsessed religions is preferable.

We do not need to cover our eyes and pretend not to see what this logic leads to. It is not an accident that Republicans have over and over again blocked laws against child marriage. It is not an accident that Republicans made it their mission for decades to ban abortion.

A core plank of Republican politics is that women exist to bear children for men.

This goes deeper than abstract politics. The personal is political. These big-picture demographic obsessions are mirrored in the emotional obsessions of conservatives. Mel Gibson said of the new Trump administration "It's like daddy arrived and he's taking his belt off."

So let's talk about the vision of patriarchal power that animates the Republican Party today.

Matt Walsh provides a neat summary of the fantasy, tweeting an image of a man carrying a woman and child out of Hurricane Harvey's floodwaters: "Woman cradles and protects child. Man carries and protects both. This is how it ought to be, despite what your gender studies professor says." Of course, in the reactionary fantasy, these benefits are not provided for free. They are animated by a quasi-feudal vision in which other members of the family owe the father absolute obedience in return for the protection he provides.

But as Lili Loofbourow documents, these fantasies are just that—fantasies. In the fantasy, the father protects the family from a dangerous world—and especially from the sexual aggression of dangerous Others. But the truth is that most sexual abuse—most rape—most pedophilia—is not committed by strangers. It's committed by people you know. Trusted authority figures. Fathers and uncles, priests and pastors.

And here's the thing. If this is the fantasy that consumes you, it is easier to enact with kids. To paraphrase Hegel, for this kind of predator, the thing about teenagers is that they are just adult enough to be worth desiring, but not adult enough to stand up to you. Fundamentally, children are easier to manipulate. Children are easier to control. Children are easier to groom. Reactionaries believe that women exist to be ruled over by men and bear them children. Of course adult women—and especially educated adult women—will have their own ideas about this state of affairs. But a child you can shape, you can make totally dependent on you, emotionally, socially, financially. What else is "headship" but an argument for pedophilia?

The fundamental interpersonal dynamic is illuminated clearly by another, far better documented problem than pedocon theory: the Catholic Church's crisis of sexual abuse.

Over a period of decades, in countries around the world, thousands of Catholic priests groomed and raped tens of thousands of children. These priests were not leaping out of bushes or prowling around in panel vans. They didn't need to. A consistent pattern emerges from victims' testimonies: the priests groomed them. Manipulated them. Told them they were special and different and doing something important. It was precisely the priests' role as trusted authority figure that allowed them to prey on children so effectively.

And of course the Catholic Church is hardly the only major religious institution with a sexual abuse crisis. The Southern Baptist Convention covered up decades of sexual abuse by its own pastors—rape, abuse, pedophilia. The Latter Day Saints have their own scandal. I could go on and on. In all these regimes of pedophilia, we find a similar story: a father figure, imbued with real power and social sanction, used that position of unaccountable power to groom and molest children.

The case of Gerald Cummings, former chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, is just one tiny example that illustrates the pattern. When Cummings was 26 and an assistant pastor, he began a relationship with a 16-year-old pastor's daughter. Her lawyer writes:

On occasion, he would visit [her] when her parents were out of town and take her to hotels. He persuaded her that her parents did not truly love her as only he did, and that having sex with him at such a young age was appropriate.

He married her after she turned 19; she would file for divorce and a restraining order years later, alleging ongoing physical abuse, rape, as well as continuing pedophilic fantasies. He expected her to submit to him in all things.

She was a child. Society told her to trust him. It endowed him with spiritual authority. It filled her head with stories about the proper relationship between men and women. And he leveraged that authority to convince a child to have sex with him. It is this dynamic—of unaccountable power preying on children—children who are, fundamentally, trying to trust the adults around them—that is at the root of this sexual predation.

Pedocon theory is a theory like gravity is a theory. Women's subservience is what they believe in: they'll just tell you. Children's obedience is what they believe in: they'll just tell you. Fathers' right to rule their families is what they believe in: they'll just tell you. Pedophilia is the natural outcome of all these ideologies: children are the property of men. MAGA has made a religion of patriarchy. In many cases, this toxic vine is wound deeply through their actual religious practices of fundamentalist Christianity. If that is the theory, pedophilia is the practice. The evidence is there, if you're willing to look.

"If you're willing to look."  I've used such phrases throughout this essay. That is because pedocon theory is a self-censoring fact: something so profoundly uncomfortable to think about that you instead choose not to. You sweep the evidence away, add up one bad apple after another and pretend you do not see. 

And then of course there's QAnon. The notorious right-wing conspiracy / mass hallucination / fanfic ARG that has made an enormous amount of hay over Epstein, alleging that he was the tip of the iceberg of a vast ring of elite pedophiles, concentrated in the Democratic Party. The stink of QAnon has made Democrats and respectable conversation generally fearful of treading anywhere near Epstein or anything even associated with him—even as QAnon delusions have become mainstream in the Republican Party.

But it's time to stop looking away from the facts staring us in the face. The time for polite pretense is long over. Pedocon theory is not about a unique kind of mental illness that just happens to be concentrated in the Republican Party. It is not about "uncontrollable animal urges." It is about how racial anxieties and obsessions, fantasies of patriarchal domination and control, lead inexorably towards the idea that women and children exist for men's use—including sexual use. Pedophilia is simply this libidinal obsession with power and domination put into practice.

Featured image is the mugshot of Donald Trump