The Christian nationalist far-right has seized on yet another thing they think is "Satanic," and it makes very little sense whatsoever.
In a recent video, white nationalist and self-described "theocratic fascist" Matt Walsh of the The Daily Wire sounded alarms about anime, the beloved Japanese animation genre, as being Satanic and a pathway to "demonic possession."
On what basis is he claiming this, you ask? None whatsoever, by his own admission. See the clip below.
Asked by a viewer what he thinks of anime, Walsh called the genre Satanic before openly admitting he doesn't know what he's talking about.
"I think it’s all satanic."
“I have no argument for it. I have no argument for why it’s satanic."
"It just seems that way to me. All anime to me seems weird—just like bizarre, creepy.”
So there you have it: Anime is Satanic because Matt Walsh thinks it's weird. Walsh went on to say that adults watching animation in any capacity is immoral.
“In general, I don’t think that adults should be—whether it’s anime or any other kind of cartoon, with rare exception—adults really shouldn’t be watching cartoons in general, I would say."
Walsh's deeply weird comments of course stirred up no shortage of blowback on Twitter, but as always, Walsh was unfazed, and turned the whole thing into an elaborate trolling operation.
In the first of two tweets, Walsh doubled down on his take with a fake statistic. He tweeted:
"I’m catching some heat because I said that anime is satanic. I just want to clarify that yes it will literally lead to demonic possession in upwards of 87 percent of cases, studies show."
There are no "case studies" of Satanic possession via cartoons because that isn't real, of course.
In the next tweet, he widened his take to include all animation, not just anime.
"I want to apologize for singling out anime. I actually think all cartoons are satanic."
And just in case the troll wasn't perfectly clear, he went on to warn that the animated children's shows Cocomelon and Paw Patrol are also Satanic in a subsequent video.
Given Paw Patrol's heralding of cops as heroes and the right's adoration of policing, this take doesn't even make sense. But heaven forbid anyone on the right actually think anybody's rhetoric through before swallowing it wholesale.
Anyway, on Twitter, Walsh's bizarre take on anime left a bad taste in lots of mouths.
As irritating as this is, at least he's just trolling about cartoons and not leading a violent movement attacking children's hospitals that treat transgender children or urging 16-year-old girls to get married and become pregnant.
