Dennis Hastert died over the weekend, and I think he marks the passing of some of the Old Guard of Republican pedophiles. I want to compare and contrast Hastert’s older, more traditional form of conservative pedophilia with the more modern, Epstein-style pedocon tactics.
Hastert came into his pedophilia in the way that many other old school Republican pedophiles did: by abusing his position of authority. Unlike the modern Republican pedophiles, Hastert did not use money directly by employing children in jobs where they could rape them, nor did he use the promise of other trappings of wealth. Rather, Hastert capitalized on his position as a coach of a winning wrestling team to rape students whose parents put their trust in him.
Hastert’s State Championship Wrestling Team, 1976 - Wikipedia
As a schoolteacher and coach, Hastert lacked the wealth of Jeffrey Epstein or Donald Trump, but he certainly did not lack their arrogance. Though the tactics of Republican pedophilia may have changed as schools become more careful about protecting kids from predators, modern and old school Republican pedophiles both display a real belief that they’ll get away with raping children.
Hastert’s arrogance was on full display when, after he had raped at least four students, he chose to enter politics. Hastert’s legislative career displayed another characteristic that characterizes modern and old school Republican pedophiles: hypocrisy. Here’s Hastert’s record in the Illinois House:
One of his first moves in the House was to help block passage of the Equal Rights Amendment; the state House Speaker George Ryan appointed Hastert to a committee that worked to prevent the ERA from coming to the House floor.[15] In the state House, Hastert opposed bills barring discrimination against gays; supported (unsuccessfully) proposals to raise the driving age to 18; and voted for a mandatory seat belt law, although he later voted to repeal it.[15]
Kids in rural areas who can’t drive until they are 18 are going to have to get rides home from trusted authority figures like their wrestling coach, just saying.
Anyway, after his time in the Illinois House, Hastert moved on to the US House of Representatives, where the AP described his positions like this:
He is an evangelical Christian who opposes abortion and advocates lower taxes, a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and the death penalty. He spearheaded the GOP's fight against using sampling techniques to take the next census. Such groups as the National Right to Life Committee, the Christian Coalition, the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA Political Victory Fund all gave his voting record perfect scores of 100. The American Conservative Union gave him an 88. Meanwhile, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, the American Civil Liberties Union and labor organizations such as the AFL–CIO and the Teamsters each gave Hastert zero points. The League of Conservation Voters rated him a 13.
As we know, conservative evangelical Christian churches are an extremely important training ground for both the current and old school Republican style of pedophilia, and Hastert certainly polished his conservative Christian bona fides, even though he would later admit to raping boys as young as 14.
There is another way that Hastert’s pedocon tactics diverged from the more modern pedocon style. Hastert didn’t try to kill or discredit his accusers — he paid them off. Hastert’s conviction and time in federal prison were the result of him “structuring” withdrawals from his foundation to pay over $900K in hush money to one of his victims. This separates Hastert’s classical Republican pedophilia from the more modern pedocon, who seems to be inclined to verbally attack and perhaps kill to conceal their rapes. The obvious example of this is the murky death of Jeffrey Epstein, but just yesterday news broke that the person to blew the whistle on Howard Lutnik’s relationship with Epstein committed suicide under questionable conditions.
Hastert, like his former colleague and (alleged) enabler of wrestling pedophiles, Republican Jim Jordan, also turned a blind eye to other pedophiles in the pedocon network. Hastert, an undistinguished back-bencher, became Speaker as the "safe choice” after first choice Bob Livingston’s extra-marital affair was exposed. This was during the Lewinski scandal, so Republicans had to work to cover up their sexual peccadillos while going after Bill Clinton’s. Once Hastert became speaker, he was very reluctant to do anything about other possible pedophiles, like Republican Mark Foley, who sent inappropriate texts to 16 year-old former (male) House pages. As we have seen on many occasions, the Republican pedophilia network is maintained by a conspiracy of silence, especially from those who, like Hastert, are concerned about their own crimes being exposed.
Since the DC press is far, far too timid about real sexual harassment and abuse, the shocking story of the former Speaker of the House, the person third in line to the Presidency, being a self-admitted child rapist got very basic coverage and didn’t receive further press investigation. Democrats could have done something with it, but we’re seeing that even with the Epstein files, many Democrats are pretty quiet about what should be a political slam-dunk. Raping kids is ugly business, to state the obvious, but the fact that the overwhelming majority of politicians who rape children are Republicans would seem to be something at least worth mentioning, or as Jamelle Bouie put it:
“Weird” doesn’t cut it when it comes to child rape, but it is extremely notable that Tim Walz tapped into a deep political vein when he called MAGA “weird”, and he had to be silenced for that, lest Democrats have an attack based on clear, obvious reality. There’s a whole Republican conspiracy theory about a pedophilia network headquartered in the (non-existent) basement of a pizza restaurant in DC. Right-wing media gives that one a wink and a nod, while mainstream media wants to work its fingers to the bone trying to “understand” the “motives” of Q-Anon. Until the push to release the Epstein files began, and maybe even after, the imaginary pedophilia got 10 or 100 times more attention than the real pedophilia perpetrated by Republicans. I wish some media outlet would write an obit of Hastert that ties him to the traditional pedophilia of his party, but I won’t hold my breath.
