How the right-wing turns an unpopular position into a cultural stronghold: First, start with a position that most people would disagree with and that they can't possibly defend in the public square, like "No one should be allowed to be openly gay."

Second, find a position that most people would agree with and that can't be easily argued against in the public square, like "Children should be protected from sexual predation."

Third, create a context in which they can conflate those two positions, however implausible it might be on its face... such as a series of laws that equate being openly gay (or acknowledging the existence of gay people) in schools as being akin to sexual predation in itself.

While the main focus may be on a particular arena (schools, in this case), the project of creeping right-wing extremism is multifaceted and omnidirectional; while one account is calling for action against teachers who come out, another posts vids of hunting for "groomers".

And the basic rhetorical sleight-of-hand move of conflating the wildly unpopular, indefensible extremist position they actually hold with one the public will be eager to help them enact and defend is repeated over and over again fractally, as part of the shrinking of distance.

Example: Few people would disagree with the statement, "Teachers should not drag their sex life into the classroom with their students." That's a reasonable position! Right-wingers say that when they mean: gay teachers should stay in the closet and be fired if they're found out.

If you ask adults if teachers (full stop, no qualifier added) should have to hide their wedding rings and family photos, not use married names, and not refer to their spouse, children, or other familial relationships in the classroom... most adults would find that unreasonable.

But if you introduce that idea in a previously established context where you're positioning the existence of gay teachers as a predatory threat to children... and you phrase it as "bringing their sex life into the classroom"... you can get more people who agree.

Or at least, more people who are not willing to disagree. Especially if you couple this with an ongoing project of labeling anyone who points out what you're doing, disagrees, or objects to any of it as being a predator and "groomer".

This is what the right is doing with their "don't say gay" laws and "anti-groomer" social media trends. And needless to say, it does nothing to protect children. In fact, it creates cover for actual sexual predators and removes all the useful tools for combating grooming.

Because the right's "anti-groomer" schtick isn't about grooming, or about the kids. It's about driving people they don't like out of the public sphere, and eventually, out of existence.

Just want to add to this thread that one thing that makes this tactic so effective is the golden mean fallacy, or the urgency by which the Mild Moderate Middle seeks to find "reasonable common ground" as the first step in resolving a dispute.

A statement like "Of course I don't think it should be illegal to be gay but you have to agree that there must be reasonable limits, to protect children." is the entire rhetorical strategy encapsulated in a short set of connected statements, and sadly, it still works that way.

And once you get people to agree that there must be limits on basic human rights... now, as the old vaudeville joke goes, you're just haggling over the details. You have agreed with the fascist that inalienable rights are actually negotiable.

And what's more, you have agreed that the side of the negotiation that is arguing *against* rights is arguing *for* children, which makes it difficult to back out, or even negotiate aggressively against that position.

The right-wingers have found this thread and they are big mad that I've exposed both how their "protect the children" pose is just a cover for bigotry they know they can't defend, and how they are the ones exposing children to predators. C'est la vie.

Muting.

@AlexandraErin The "foot in the door in the face" sales technique requires creating a superposition of states

@AlexandraErin The craziest part is that this has already happened in the thinking of many of the people pushing these things. They really do believe that gay people existing around kids leads to sequel deviancy. They've just tricked themselves (or their media has) with this same mechanism

@AlexandraErin It took all of about a week from Florida passing a "don't say gay" bill about "protecting very young, K-3 students" to Louisiana introducing one for K-8 (with a K-12 carve out), and Ohio a bill applying fully from K-12. Once the idea is out there, things can move fast.