They do this to hide and normalize a whole range of abhorrent behavior.

They tend to be more authoritarian. That means they're more likely to prioritize in-group above all else.

There's a book about authoritarian personalities I was reading a while ago. It talks about an experiment where they did like a model UN, but secretly sorted all the authoritarian types into one game and everyone else into the other.

The authoritarians ruined the world. Like, nuclear war. When they got a do-over, they still fucked it up.

The other group basically cooperated and solved world hunger.

Authoritarians probably shouldn't be allowed in positions of power. The GOP attracts a lot of them.

You're not here to ask a good-faith question, you're here to state an opinion or theory.

I think as individuals, most all of them are opposed to child abuse. Protecting children from "woke groomers" is one of their unifying battle cries.

Sadly, their tribalism is stronger than their concern for the kids. Once one of their own is accused of child abuse, they rally to their defense. In their mind, they are the good guys, and someone who's on the "good guy team" could never do something like that. The only reasonable explanation is that they were wrongly accused or there was a terrible misunderstanding, or sigh they deserved/ asked for it.

Of course, this rabid tribalism attracts MORE predators. As long as they can convince everyone that they are "one of them" they know that they can get away with a few more lies than if they were hanging out with independent thinkers.

Most of them are probably not pedophiles - they get off on the manipulation and power trip. Unfortunately, it's that it's easier to victimize children. They'll victimize adults just as readily, given the opportunity.

Pedophilia is pretty rare. These folks are socio/psychopaths and narcissists - they believe that there is nothing wrong with them.

Pedophilia is rare. Stranger danger is just weird dudes and busybodies. I mean, protect your kids, and protect them from the loonies who want to control your family.

People who want to hurt children are not limited to one political group or religious or social whatever. They're fucked up.

...It's not even close to the majority of people in the GOP. It's not even a particularly large minority

Jesus fucking christ.

Even if it was 100 people every single day that were being, caught, arrested, or convicted for CSAM or sexual misconduct of some kind with a minor, and every single one of them was in the GOP, that's still 365,000 out of about 140,000,000, which is .2%, on an annual basis. Two tenths of one percent is about fifty percent away from being a majority.

Nah, I just think it's herd mentality and not wanting to stick out. Critical thinking and nuance doesn't work well for them if they want to present a united front. They've always been like this, at least since I started paying attention some 15-20 yearsago. .

I think these are just the ones who get caught and that there are hundreds more

"I think" is the operative statement there. What you think is pointless. Facts are what matter. And without evidence that it IS the majority doing it, automatically lumping them all into that group makes us no better than them in terms of their rhetoric and divisiveness.

Every damn side needs to stop painting the other with broad strokes and then complaining when they do it back. It's not helpful. Questions that are worded like this are not helpful.

I wouldn't say it has much to do with pedophilia and just about everything to do with greed. They're entirely the party of the ownership class, they always have been. They would revive slavery in a heartbeat going much further than the 13th amendment allows if they knew they could get away with it.

It might be an "interesting" endeavor to find out the correlation between those that have immense wealth and/or power and pedophilia. It might be that they are also pedophiles because of how their power and/or wealth have affected them.

The same cognitive dissonance that allows them to both act on, and excuse instances of molestation in their community/family, is the very same driver of their wanton disregard of the people harmed by republican policies. They see any instances of pedophilia in their ranks as "just a bad apple," while they identify an entire race of people as rapists if a single news report shows a member of that race/minority group committing such an act. It's entirely predicated on their belief that they are superior, and it is because of something inherent within them, that does not exist in others. They judge themselves not by their actions (and consequences of said actions) but by their intentions, while they have no such qualms demonizing any number of minority groups for the actions of a single member.

so, short answer, yes.

Long answer, yessssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Nah, I think it's the influence of religion that makes that shit more common in the GOP. They mostly seem to stick together out of fear and unbridled hatred.

They stick together? Sure they don’t allow each other to be prosecuted, but they bicker like cats attempting to herd each other

Look man at this point saying either party has a monopoly on pedophilia is sort of ridiculous. It's very obviously a rich/powerful thing, not a left/right thing.

I don't see how anyone doesn't understand that at some point. Diddy's arrest was less than 24 hours ago.