Local Opinion: The return of 'stranger danger'

Before her confirmation as associate justice of the Supreme Court, a half-dozen Republican senators — all aspiring presidential candidates — accused Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of being “soft” on pedophiles and child pornographers.

Several of these senators and their Republican colleagues had previously voted to confirm her as a federal district and appellate judge. Although Jackson imposed sentences that closely matched those of Republican-appointed judges, hostile senators mugged for the TV cameras and repeated their mantra. One House Republican blasted three GOP senators who voted to confirm the justice as “pro-pedophile.”

The focus on sex crimes rekindled the moral panic of the 1980s and 1990s when fears of threats to children from homicidal sex cults rocked the public.

Unlike the earlier, largely nonpolitical episode, the recent allegations initially appeared on conspiracy websites such as QAnon then migrated into mainstream Republican circles. Many among the party’s Trumpist wing accused a liberal cabal — led by actor Tom Hanks, financier George Soros, and Hillary Clinton — of kidnapping, murdering and consuming the organs of children. Previously faceless “satanic abusers” were now revealed as “global elites” and their Democratic allies.

In 1984, prompted by widespread anguish over the well- publicized disappearance of a child in New York, Congress established the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The agency soon reported that nearly 750,000 kids went missing annually. Startled parents imagined children snatched from playgrounds or supermarket aisles by roving bands of kidnappers.

In fact, about 500,000 of the missing were teenage runaways, most of whom returned on their own. Nearly all the rest were taken by noncustodial parents or relatives during custody disputes. “Stranger kidnappings,” often a fatal crime, averaged around 100 per year. But the top line number aroused every parents’ fear of seeing their child’s face on a milk carton. This fueled a nationwide “stranger danger” campaign promoted by schools, the media and police.

Americans who previously ignored evidence of child abuse now saw danger signs everywhere. Between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, best-selling books, like “The Courage to Heal” (1988) and “Trauma and Recovery” (1992), tabloid stories and celebrity confessionals provided fodder for the emerging 24/7 cable TV cycle. These accounts included extensive checklists of symptoms of abuse that covered just about everything. Victims, they argued, often repressed memories of assault and developed “multiple personalities.” (A real but rare psychiatric disorder.) Groups of hypnotists, repressed memory specialists, reflexologists, and aroma therapists concluded that one-third of all children had been sexually abused, some even ritually sacrificed by organized satanic cults based in day-care centers.

Reports of assaults by trusted caregivers stoked panic. Prosecutors in half a dozen states brought criminal cases against day-care operators. These media spectacles amounted to little more than show trials based on vague accusations by children. Caregivers, authorities claimed, often assisted by “evil clowns” performed grotesque sexual rituals and slaughtered babies and animals in secret rooms. Believers in alien abduction felt validated when some children reported being taken aboard spaceships. Details aside, most sexual predators are not strangers but typically a relative, family friend or, sometimes, members of the clergy. Not Miss Laura or Mr. Tom spiriting children away to a rape-room during nap time at Merry Moppets day care.

This feeding frenzy abated in the mid-1990s after appeals courts exonerated most of those convicted. Prosecutors, the higher courts concluded, failed to discover a single dead child, boiled bunny or secret torture chamber. Doctors had found no signs of sexual violation of these children. Not one parent witnessed the alleged sordid crimes while dropping off or picking up their children. While these findings reassured the general public, true believers were stunned by the power and cunning of the accused abusers, especially when assisted by meddlesome judges.

The caricature of Ketanji Brown Jackson as an enabler of pedophiles and pornographers marks a politicized rebirth of “stranger danger.” A Republican Party devoid of policy ideas has embraced fear mongering as a motivational tool.

Like pictures of missing children on milk cartons, QAnon and its Republican allies strung together divisive cultural issues resembling flashing red lights upon a Christmas tree. A public battered by COVID-19 and a sense of losing control was susceptible, they surmised, to notions that Democrats had literally gotten away with murder! Lost an election? It must have been stolen. Acknowledging America’s complex racial history? Liberals imposing critical race theory to shame white students. Teaching about sexuality in early grades? Just enablers “grooming” children to become gay. A transgender woman wins a swim meet? Beloved amateur and professional sports are under siege. Promoting vaccines and masks during a pandemic? A government assault on freedom.

Sadly, these appeals to fear provide a likely roadmap to upcoming elections.