Beware of Trump/QAnon supporters among us; to them, all "libs" are potential "pedophiles" who deserve to be shot

I was walking toward Capitol Hill in Seattle when a man and a woman holding hands walked past me from behind. Neither one was wearing a face-mask like about 90 percent of everyone else was, since businesses, stores and walk-in restaurants and coffee shops still requires them. The man looked like your typical “tough guy” with hairless head and tattoos; it was obvious that they were making a “political statement” here in this alleged bastion of runaway “liberalism.” Normally, I would just consider them a couple of jerks—save for what I saw on the man’s shirt. I didn’t want to take a picture of him too close up, because I was afraid he might take a swing at me, but it was about the same as this:

I called out to the man “Oh, is that why you are not wearing a mask?” and then “Trump Nazi!” He turned around and said something which I didn’t quite make out, and I repeated the same, which caused him to disengage from his partner, but he was persuaded to ignore me. and kept walking. I was satisfied that I had made my point, and this was one person he wasn't fooling. Now why would I be so rude as to call this guy an anti-masker and a Trump Nazi when he was only “concerned” about the kids? Because as we have learned from QAnon and far-right thinking, “pedophiles” is just another word for “libs.” There are of course variations on the “theme”:

And this one, which seems to be more to the "point" these people are trying to make:

The people who concoct these slogans are also responsible for this:

And this:

The places where you find these for sale do not, it seems, have an anti-Trump or anti-fascist clothing line, but they do use  teen and minority “models,” apparently either to prove they are not white-supremacists/nationalist, or to poison the minds of the next generation to think this all has a “morally superior” motivation.

Far-right types and Trump supporters frequently claim they oppose mask-wearing because it allows “pedophiles” to conceal their identity. The question is why they go so over-the-top with this execution-style approach. Why don’t they mention all the other “crimes” they could accuse people of wearing masks for (there is the child-trafficking meme, but that is just a distinction without a difference). I mean, the most notorious perpetrators of pedophilia in this country are Catholic priests, and no matter how guilty they are, I don’t think that giving head shots or lynching priests will sit well with most people. The people who parade around in these outfits don’t even have the “moral” credibility of someone like “Jimmy” in the film Mystic River, who executes vigilante-style an innocent man he needs to believe is guilty of killing his daughter.

Pedophilia is an awful crime, but we have to separate the politics of what is really going on here from actual “concern” about children, since you don’t see these same people advocating similar vigilante executions of mass shooters. This all really started in the fall of 2016, when pro-Trump, white supremacist twitter material claimed that the NYPD had “discovered”  a “pedophilia” and “Satanism” ring operating out of a Washington D.C. pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong, supposedly revealed in emails by Anthony Weiner and John Podesta. Fake news and far-right extremist websites ran with the “story.” Other pizzerias and eateries were also accused of being “sex rings” where children were trafficked. Close to a 100 million people on TikTok apparently found the story of “interest,” and foreign governments hostile to the U.S. also found the story “useful.”

The owner of the Comet pizzeria repeatedly insisted that the claims made against his establishment had zero truth, but that didn’t stop the conspiracy theories. Anyone on social media who posted positive comments about the establishment were automatically accused of being “Satanists” and pedophiles. In December 2016 a man named Edgar Welch decided he was going to “investigate” the claims himself, although it seems that the bullets he fired from an AR-15 were doing most of the “investigating.” Welch claimed that he was just there to “rescue” the children who were not there.

This conspiracy theory was easily debunked, with all the evidence in support of it just random pieces from entirely different puzzles being shoehorned into nonsensical “fits” that only the truly insane could “decipher.” But despite the debunking, “Pizzagate” has simply morphed into the QAnon “theory.” As QAnon podcaster Travis View told Salon in 2019,

QAnon is based upon the idea that there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything. They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of Donald Trump.

And as Molly McKew stated on CNN, the people who believe this are “fixated on the pursuit of enemies and villains described in such extreme terms that any action—either by adherents by identified champions like President Trump—becomes justifiable. By drawing on the culture and value system, Q adherents have justified violent attacks.”

So is our anti-masker also a QAnon and Trump supporter who is trying to make a political “statement” about “liberals” right in the heart of “liberal” Seattle, one  that is based on a crazy, debunked conspiracy theory using pedophilia merely as a prop? I’d give it a 95 percent probability I am right about him.