Excellent insight from Scott Greer: Critical Pedo Theory. It’s the right-wing answer to Critical Race Theory (CRT). The basic theory is simple: “This notion imagines that the world is ruled by a pedophile cabal and ‘systemic pedophilia’ is inherent to the current order. These elite pedos are evil by nature…”
Nobody’s going to tell you that the ruling cabal has no interest in pedophilia. Rather, they are entertained by every form of perversion. Pedophilia is just a small factor in the wider transgression of every moral boundary. Greer goes on to summarize the recent history of this CPT and it’s worth a read. He ends with guessing that the Epstein thing will blow over, but CPT will continue to seize the public imagination. I’m not so sure of about that first part, but I’m more sure Trump will continue putting his foot in it.
The p3do thing has legs, stronger legs than the race angle, because there’s seems to be something objectively unsettling about harming a child regardless of context. You have even more wiggle room with the accusation if you have laws and social rules that define “child” more broadly than has been in the past.