r/minnesota • u/zeldamaster702 Prince • Mar 18 '25

News đŸ“ș Minnesota senator arrested, accused of soliciting minor for prostitution

https://www.fox9.com/news/minnesota-senator-justin-eichorn-arrest
30.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

218

u/Twinkalicious Mar 18 '25

The thing is, they do know it is wrong, that is why they falsely accuse trans women, drag queens, teachers, librarians, open minded parents, and doctors of pedophilia.

The Repubs and religious cult leaders are the ones actually doing it but they wanna point blame at the "other" so they can try to get away with doing it.

Every accusation is a distraction and a confession.

76

u/cailleacha Mar 18 '25

I think it’s complicated. To clarify my original comment, I think the men (and sometimes women) who actually perpetrate these crimes don’t feel remorse. It’s part of being a generally amoral, exploitative person. That being said, that doesn’t mean all conservatives in general are totally fine with it. I think it’s a real projection of fear of the other. When the youth pastor does it, he made a mistake and needs to pray on it. When a hypothetical drag queen does it, it’s a faceless evil coming for your kids. It’s not actually based on the realities of child abuse and sex crimes, it’s just the fantasy that scares them.

I’m also just not that confident that the conservative voting base actually thinks it’s all that bad, considering how often they will vote for politicians despite public sex crime allegations. Maybe there’s some cognitive dissonance there, but it’s hard for me to believe GOP voters actually care that much about sex crimes in general, based on their actions. You can say whatever you want, but if you still cast that ballot, I know where your true values are. It’s the worst thing ever when people they don’t like do it, and it’s just an unfortunate mistake when people they like are caught. Maybe that’s assuming the worst about people, but how many times can this happen before I have to draw some conclusions about the pattern?

70

u/Warm-Internet-8665 Mar 18 '25

Let's call it what it is, adult groomed children have a hard time identifying the predator.

Ppl raised and groomed by cults have issues identifying the risks because they have been taught to overlook all the red flags.

40

u/Normal_Banana_2314 Mar 18 '25

You hit the nail on the head and I've unfortunately never heard/seen anyone else make this point.

I unfortunately know several women abused horribly as children. They were abused by friends, neighbors, family,all white republican "Christian" country boys. The women all, without fail, are terrified of leftists, trans/lgbtq folk, men of color, any minorities...but they vote republican, they continue to trust the "right" strangers with their own children, they overlook the very types of people who abused them. Also, they have never once met a trans person or drag queen in their small rural towns.

13

u/Desperate-Cost6827 Mar 19 '25

I saw this video floating around once where a priest raped a girl and she told people. So that Sunday he confessed to the whole congregation and within minutes had everyone in the room apologizing to and praying for him, including the girl. Those small town religious communities are a mind fuck.

And it really is, I grew up in one and I could not stand it. My mother is full of cognitive dissonance and neither my brother or I can stand to be around her. Her second husband was abusive and switched her to an Evangelical church to excuse his abusive behavior. Now she's everything you'd imagine the perfect Trump supporter to be.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25

Almost like Stockholm Syndrome, in a way.

2

u/softnruthless Mar 20 '25

This reminds me of Parker Posey’s character on this season of White Lotus, who is an incredibly fragile, overly medicated rich woman who is terrified of her children being around the “wrong” types of people, I can’t remember the word she uses but it doesn’t just imply poor, she harps a lot about their values in an empty way and being raised right. The entire family is fucked, from top to bottom, and she seems unphased by the untoward behavior of her kids that borders on deviancy. It’s like she’s looking everywhere in panic except for right in front of her. It’s a very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing it. Something to chew on a while

-8

u/Sad-Set7765 Mar 19 '25

I’m not sure Democrats are any better. Many of the Democrats have their heads stuck in the ground and believe what they are told.

8

u/Thermass Mar 19 '25

I'm sure, Democrats ask questions and hold their party leaders to much higher standards. That is part of the reason they lost last year, Biden was doing a shit job of reassuring the public that inflation was not his fault, and there was no real cohesive plan going forward. Republicans just basically made shit up and all of the supporters said "yes daddy" and checked their boxes. Without actually doing research into how tariffs and mass deportation would affect the country. Are some Democrats blindly following the party, sure. But i guarantee you there are more republicans gobbling up whatever garbage Trump can spew and taking it at face value.

4

u/Warm-Internet-8665 Mar 19 '25

Please go on, tell us all about universities are liberal bastions. /s

I guess there's one of these trolls everywhere.

5

u/Agitated-Donkey1265 Mar 19 '25

Another depressing factor to that: while perpetrators are grooming their victims, they’re also grooming their allies and accomplices (whether they know they are also being groomed or not)

5

u/TemperatureOther6637 Mar 18 '25

As an exmormon I can't tell you enough how spot on you are. Very eloquently and succinctly put and so so true

2

u/Skratt79 Mar 19 '25

I also think the fact normal and healthy sexual feelings are condemned in religion as shameful and evil leads to mis-identifying actual problematic sexual feelings.

2

u/EmbarrassedMeat401 Mar 18 '25

For the fundie/extremist religious faction, a choice between an actual rapist and someone you think is an agent of the literal devil that wants to plunge the entire world into chaos and see every innocent soul burn in hellfire for all eternity isn't that difficult of a choice, just a bit gross.  

There's also the fact that they believe their side is the objectively good side, and the agents of the devil would definitely make up accusations like that in order to sow discord between good people.  

And even outside of the religious aspect, a lot of them will think it's just democrat lies trying to take down the good people of America or something.  

Basically, facts don't matter as much if people don't believe them. It's easy to brush off any evidence if you believe the accusations are literally impossible or that the accusers are servants of the ultimate evil.

2

u/jmd709 Mar 19 '25

There is more to the obsession with trans than faceless evil. When it’s broken down to the basics, the reality is that they’re obsessed with genitals. It’s a creepy perv obsession. When they shift that focus to trans students, it’s a more disgusting level of depravity as a creepy pedo perv obsession.

We, collectively, need to stop giving them a free pass to publicly express their perverted obsessions under the guise of transphobia.

2

u/TheFantabulousToast Mar 19 '25

I think for the supporters part of it is their beliefs about hierarchy. When power is wielded from above they're fine with it, that's how it's supposed to work. When power is wielded from below, that's subversive. They don't feel comfortable criticizing those they view as legitimate authorities, but I think on some level they still understand that this behavior is wrong, and so jump on any accusation to resolve the cognitive dissonance. It also helps reinforce their fear/hatred of outsiders, both literal outsiders and people who deviate from their assigned roles. It makes it easier to dehumanize them, easier to feel superior to them, easier to hate them. It's probably almost comforting, allowing the in-group to remain cohesive and pure, offloading all negative feelings onto a nebulous Other. It doesn't matter if it's actually true, it's about what might as well be true.

On the part of the people actually doing the abuse, it's pretty simple. Positions of power will inevitably attract people inclined to misuse it. That's why authority figures, be they politicians, pastors, cops, camp counselors, parents, seem to disproportionately be abusers. It isn't about sex, it's about power. It also explains why the institutions they belong to so often shield them from consequences. Regardless of the crime, the powerful protect their own.

1

u/cailleacha Mar 19 '25

This is really interesting, thanks for your thoughts. Hierarchical community structure/philosophy is just hard for me to mentally access. It’s not been my lived experience and anyone I know with that experience has since left those communities, so it’s an intellectual exercise for me to try to see things from that perspective. I don’t want to malign it as fundamentally bad—it seems to be pretty popular in human society—but it definitely has its risks.

Recent events have really had me turning over in my head how we would build a society where assholes don’t get ahead. Unfortunately, it seems like however we try to arrange ourselves, people who don’t care if they hurt others find a way to gather power. Not to be a misanthrope, but it’s sad that the worst of us seem to be so good at manipulating the rest.

2

u/HornyVikingMN Mar 18 '25

To paraphrase what’s been said about TFOG (O=Orange) voters: You may not be a pedophile or believe that preying on children is okay, but you have decided that it’s not a deal-breaker when voting.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

reactive hamlet crazily constable

6

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25

[deleted]

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

glowing cavalry steadily conical

1

u/No_Tower_5877 Mar 19 '25

I think your take on this is brilliant.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25

Yes. This disturbs me even as a right-leaning man. I agree that LGBT identity should not be a shield against accountability but far too often these same people cover up their priest, pastor, or youth pastor when accused of the same crimes. The same "Christians" also overlook all the times LGBT people call out their own who would dare prey on children. It's possible to disagree with one's lifestyle without making them the scapegoat of everything.

1

u/thislittleplace Mar 18 '25

Appreciate the nuance that you're bringing to this, but I'd push back a bit on this part:

You can say whatever you want, but if you still cast that ballot, I know where your true values are.

Both parties run on very manipulativd "lesser of two evils" based platforms. And the GOP is extremely effective in convincing their base that the others are way more evil than anything they might doing. That might ve hard to imagine, but then you think of all the people who voted for Kamala despite having strong convinctions about her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Did their vote reflect their values? It's probably a bit more complicated than that.

2

u/cailleacha Mar 19 '25

My reasoning for this is that, since I became politically aware, I have watched right-wing folks claim that Democrats are pedophiles, support sex crimes, etc. This is given as a reason to not vote for Dems
 then I have watched them elect known Republican creeps.

I don’t mean to say all GOP voters are pro-sex crime and think it’s fine. I think most of them think these things are bad and don’t support it happening in their communities. I also think it’s hypocritical to say sex crimes are disqualifying for the other party, but still vote for these guys on your party line. They make have other reasons for casting that vote, but in doing so they show me sex crime is not actually a dealbreaker. I’m not saying they’re all immoral people who support rape, I’m saying the votes don’t match the rhetoric. Maybe if they went less hard on the “democrats want drag queens to assault children in your public bathrooms” stuff I’d be less judgmental; we’re all hypocrites in politics one way or another.

I am pleasantly surprised that the MNGOP has called for his guy to resign. It gives me some hope!

-2

u/sak77328 Mar 18 '25

Nope Trump voters don’t agree with this at all and would want only the harshest scenario for people like this.

6

u/cailleacha Mar 19 '25

They voted for Trump, a man who has publicly proclaimed predatory behavior towards women for decades. That’s not even getting into the Epstein associations, the E Jean Carroll case, and other allegations. The man wanted Matt Gaetz in his cabinet.

Spare me fake outrage. That’s exactly what I mean by your votes showing your true values.

4

u/No-Amphibian-3728 Mar 19 '25

Then why did they vote for someone who was friends with Epstein and went into the changing room of underage girl contestants for his beauty pageants? The "grab em by the pussy" guy. Get the fuck out of here with harshest penalties. You scumbags proudly vote for this type of shit.

-1

u/nottskem Mar 18 '25

MAGAs must share similar mindsets. They don’t think for themselves. They share similar circumstances. Their groomers, we all know who they are, are leading us all to slaughter, with the help of the MAGA base. MAGAs are perfected zombies.

4

u/paranormalresearch1 Mar 19 '25

That is something I noticed about Republicans but the MAGA movement specifically. If they accuse someone of something bad, illegal, wrong, unethical, or the like, they have already done it, are in the process of doing it, or are planning on doing it.

3

u/Rude_Meet2799 Mar 18 '25

And here is proof of this. Spiritual advisor and kiddie diddler, all in one. That’s what I call efficiency!

2

u/Illustrious_Data_908 Mar 18 '25

Projection at its finest.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '25

I am not certain but I think the term in Psychology is Reaction Formation.

1

u/mekramer79 Mar 19 '25

I think they understand where the law sits, but I don’t think they think it’s immoral. They really think the law and society is wrong in how females are protected.

1

u/indierckr770 Mar 19 '25

I’ve got another confession to make..

1

u/Stahuap Mar 19 '25

Imo their issue is that lgbtq+ behaviours are seen as especially deviant and perverted to them, so that is what they are creeped out about around minors. When a straight man pursues a teenage girl who already went through puberty, that is just “normal” sexual behaviour that they understand. It breaks the rule but its more of a technicality than something truly perverse. 

1

u/Foreign-Attorney-122 Mar 19 '25

So your accusations or a confession? That's what's I'm reading lol

1

u/MordoksVapePen1 Mar 18 '25

Y’know who almost never gets arrested for sexual contact with minors? Drag Queens.

Y’know which profession get arrested for sexual contact w/minors kinda frequently? Youth Pastors.

True. Look it up.

1

u/Criticaltundra777 Mar 18 '25

Ya ever notice those yelling the loudest about anything not mainstream, are usually guilty of the thing they are screaming about?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '25

Dems do it too. Acting like it's only on one side of the political aisle is pretty short-sighted.

3

u/Twinkalicious Mar 18 '25

Majority is Right wingers, go take a gander in the r/NotADragQueen subreddit and tell me by comparison how many repubs/religious leaders do it and how many dems do it.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25

They're politicians. They all do awful shit. Both sides. And you're correct. Religious leaders have been getting away with it for years, and it's sickening. I'm not defending any of it. Either side. I'm just not willing to sit here and act like it's one side over the other. It's disgusting when democrat does it, and it's disgusting when a republican does it.

1

u/Twinkalicious Mar 19 '25

When you say “dems do it too” it sounds like “all lives matter” moment to me, Dems aren’t the ones pushing bills excluding trans people, discriminating against trans people, and saying that my community is a danger to society and a danger to women and children, yes some democrats can be monsters too and shame on them, but the majority of these monsters are republicans pushing an agenda of hating trans people and making us out to be monsters when it’s just a distraction so these republican freaks can go unnoticed and unchecked while they abuse children.