Sex workers and their supporters protest a police raid on Oct. 25, 2016, in Minneapolis saying shutting down sites like Backpage.com exposes them to more risk. Credit: Fibonacci Blue

Americans adore a moral panic.

During the Red Scare, we believed that Soviet agents were everywhere, having secretly infiltrated all levels of society. In the 1950s, the U.S. government banned switchblades over unfounded fears that we were in the throes of “West Side Story”-style knife violence. The Satanic Panic convinced Americans of the 1980s that absurd claims of ritual abuse and sacrifice were somehow credible. Around the same time, there was “stranger danger” — which was debunked like other moral panics, but never went away entirely.

At any given time, America is moving in and out of some moral panic or another. Harm to children is a persistent theme. In recent years, however, our national obsession with these moral panics has consumed our politics. We’ve come to believe that sex trafficking rings are all around us. The driving force may come as a surprise: a […]

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