Recall the 2016 “pedophilia ring” conspiracy? It was projection. And here’s evidence

Once upon a dreadful time, I became sickened by the obviously crazy accusations emerging from Trump World about how there was a massive pedophilia ring centered at a Washington, DC pizza parlor.

I felt I’d tracked this lunacy back to Putin and the Russians (and picked up by professional filthy trickster Roger Stone), who have used the accusation of pedophilia as a way of attacking and removing opponents they can’t get rid of otherwise.

Which brings me to the pathology known as projection. From my psychiatric dictionary:

…the process of throwing out upon another the ideas or impulses that belong to oneself…The expression implies that what is cast upon another is considered undesirable to the one who projects.

When pedophilia is the undesirable impulse being cast out and cast upon another, we who find the “casting” absurd might rationally suspect the one doing the casting has such undesirable pedophiliac impulses.

Even earlier than 2016 Trump hobnobbed with an ugly cast of characters, Jeffrey Epstein being the most prominent. (I’m now thinking misogyny is almost always linked to pedophilia, as is the current fiendish campaign against LGBTQ.) It seemed that a whole heap of prominent Republicans were spending too much time around pals who had too many young girls under their arms, even while paranoid accusations of “pedophilia rings” and “conspiracies” were thrown, i.e., projected upon liberals.

But in the last year or so, thanks to a woman who posts on Twitter under the name “Beks,” I’ve viewed a series of a different sort of actual pedophiles, men (and the occasional woman) who don’t go to rich guy parties.

Nearly every day, Beks posts arrest photos of and identifying info about men who have been criminally charged and/or convicted of sex crimes involving children. They all look thoroughly unpleasant. Oh, and white. And they don’t look like liberals.

I re-tweet every one of them.

They provide the end result of the crazy projection racket. Although apparently not in anything like a conspiracy (conspiracies are absurdly impossible to hold together) or a “ring” (they’re spread out around this very large country, especially in the south and west), they are definitely pedophiles.

What is also most interesting to me is their erstwhile power bases; where these men work and prey falls into two dominant categories:

• • Uniformed law enforcement — cops and sheriffs
  • Churches — pastors, ministers and youth counselors

Cops and Christianity. Men brandishing guns and bibles.