>>56606585>>56608978There's article from 2015 called "the coddling of the American mind" by the Atlantic, which gives you some idea. Basically, since the 80s and 90s, young people have been increasingly infantilised in the media. We've also had a series of scare stories about children being kidnapped, going missing, being raped, and killed by predators. Outrage sells news, and harming children generates the most outrage besides terrorist attacks.
So you have outrage bait in tandem with infantilisation. It makes for a soft political target to push through any legislation and like you said, social postuing. You are the defender of innocence, and anyone who opposes you is a child rapist or one of their accomplices.
It's basically become the ultimate boogeyman, and a political ace in the hole. It's the same in the UK; we had a lot of big stories in the 90s and 00s of young girls being kidnapped, raped, and killed. So the whole country has been on nonce alert since then. To the point where even the slightest hint of noncery is looked down upon. Unless you're a brownoid and are protected by liberals.
