“I’ve stopped talking to every single person that isn’t on board with this,” said one of those participating in a chat among a group of believers in the QAnon view of the world.
That alarms me about as much as the fact that an unknowable but apparently substantial number of Americans subscribe to QAnon’s beliefs. The beliefs are scary – when I say “beliefs” I don’t refer to a political ideology but to actual falsehoods that are treated as actual facts. So the idea of those who believe in those falsehoods refusing to talk to anyone who “isn’t on board” with those falsehoods adds to the alarm.
Just about everything I know about QAnon, which isn’t all that much, makes me want to have nothing to do with it, and to feel both sorry for and frightened of its adherents.
The group’s most famous belief, I gather, and borrow this summary from the Wikipedia article on QAnon, “is that that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and is (or was) plotting against former U.S. president Donald Trump, who had been fighting the cabal. According to U.S. prosecutors, QAnon is commonly referred to as a cult.”
Wikipedia adds that:
“QAnon commonly asserts that Trump has been planning a day of reckoning known as the ‘Storm’, when thousands of members of the [anti-QAnon] cabal will be arrested.”
“QAnon supporters have accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking government officials of being members of the cabal,” and somehow implicated in the pedophilia.
The list of those are accused of favoring the Satan-worshipping pedophilia ring includes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and billionaire George Soros. Wikipedia also states that “the QAnon conspiracy theories have been amplified by Russian state-backed troll accounts on social media, as well as Russian state-backed traditional media.” The article includes footnotes indicating the sources for those assertions.
Stuart A. Thompson, a writer and editor for the New York Times opinion pages, gained access to a chat room of QAnon followers, including actual audio chat, as they approached the last days of the Trump presidency.
Thompson’s piece is accessible here. It includes no identities of those participating in the chat. Their actual voices expressing their views can be heard on various audio links embedded in the piece. If you go through that exercise, I suspect you will have no doubt about the sincerity of those speaking.
But, to me, my concern for those holding such beliefs, and perhaps planning to act on them, is substantially aggravated by the one person, quoted above, who has “stopped talking to every single person that isn’t on board with this.”
I’m not particularly naïve. I know that lots of people believe things that I think are false, wrong, even crazy. But it’s very important to me and, I think, to the healthy survival of our society, to believe that people will in ways small and occasionally large, change their minds about some of their beliefs when they are confronted, by journalism, by neighbors, by trusted friends, by clergy, by whomever, with evidence and analysis that some of their beliefs are contradicted by factual reality.
Even putting it that way overstates the likelihood of a moment of enlightenment or even of open-minded rethinking of a long-held belief. But hope of such a moment is all but lost when someone says, as the QAnon follower quoted above says:
“I’ve stopped talking to every single person that isn’t on board with this.”
I value friendships with people who don’t share my views on everything. I don’t change my mind all that often about beliefs I’ve held for a long time, although it does happen. But I hope I never get so dug in on any of my convictions that I decide to stop talking to anyone who doesn’t agree with me about something.
Changing minds is hard. But at least listening occasionally to someone with opposing views is vital.
***
After I had drafted the piece above, I saw news that RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel (she’s Mitt Romney’s niece) had described QAnon as “dangerous” and “beyond fringe.” Donald Trump has never said a negative word about QAnon.
Pressed to say whether the party organization would welcome a comeback attempt by Trump in 2024, she said that while Trump and his loyal supporters remained a “a huge, huge presence” in the party, Republican primary voters will decide whom the party will nominate in 2024. She also expressed her belief that if Trump were to make good on his recent threat to start his own new party, “it would be basically a rubber stamp on Democrats getting elected.”
The ‘Know-Nothings’s have always been with us.
The problem is that they’ve become the tail that wags the Republican dog.
They can’t make the Republicans win, but they can guarantee that it will lose.
I’d like to agree with Paul Brandon – and I do, actually, with his first two sentences. Not with his third, however.
As they recently demonstrated all over the country, Republicans, including all of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation, have proved that they’re quite comfortable with supporting the leader and instigator of a fascist putsch. They have voted in lock-step to acquit Trump of obvious crimes in his first impeachment, and my considered opinion – I’d be happy to see them prove me wrong – is that they’ll vote similarly, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to do so again. The consistent obstruction, the equally-consistent refusal to compromise demonstrated by Mr. Gazelka, Mr. Daudt, and party leader Carnahan have similarly shown anyone paying attention that, much like their national counterparts, Minnesota Republicans don’t want to govern, they want to rule. It’s an entirely different view of how society should function – a view that doesn’t even pay lip service to the concept of democracy.
It’s a view that’s very much of a piece with what seems to be the governing philosophy, to the degree that they have one, of Q-anon followers, and is in line with ideologues from multiple cultures, probably from the time the first city was built in the fertile crescent millennia ago.
The current Republican mainstream is supported by most Republicans, but not by the Independents that the Republicans need to be successful on a statewide and national level.
Even with gerrymandering, electoral success is limited when you can reliably command only 35-40% of the vote.
Paul,
You’re right up to a point. The problem is when you look at the distribution of voters. Once you have concentration of voters of one political view (no matter how extreme) in a given geographical area, their influence can far exceed their actual proportion of the population.
Actually, it’s the opposite.
Once you have the majority of the voters in a district, that’s where the electors go, whether it’s 55-45 or 90-10.
That’s why Republicans try to concentrate Democratic voters in salamandered districts where their numbers are wasted. Three 55-45 districts can outvote one 90-10 district, even if that one district has more total votes.
Paul,
That was exactly the point I was trying to make. So we agree on this.
Can’t have rationale conversations with irrational people.
I wonder where our American schools have been, that we seem to have raised at least one or two generations of our children who have no idea about how to think critically. Not accepting everything as true until and unless you can corroborate it with solid sources, and engaging regularly in civil debate, is an essential quality for citizenship.
These QAnon types who refuse to listen to any contrary opinion or facts are really sad cases. Pitiful cases of people on the fringe who are desperately (secretly) afraid that they have it all wrong, and are desperately trying NOT to be enlightened.
Overly broad.
Schools have limitations in their ability to compete with family and friends. They may succeed in teaching some degree of critical thought to the majority of their students, but that minority is still dangerous.
Logic and argumentation class should be required.
A logical argument is no better than the assumptions on which it’s based.
Political disagreements are usually based on conflicting basic assumptions like the primacy of majority rule) rather than a logical argument derived from them.
Parents and friends have much to more with what people think than teachers. I had parents who gave always provided reasons for their expectations. I don’t recall ever hearing the words “because I told you so.”
That “reason” reflects a lazy authoritarian power play by someone who doesn’t want to be questioned and may be physically or verbal punishing if they don’t get what they want. If you are brought up to follow orders and not question authority based on logic and evidence, you are set up to be led by a Pied Piper like Trump.
Vice TV (Channel 271 in Directv) is airing this week a 3 part documentary on Qanon. I have watched 1 episode and it seems quite well done. Worth the watch, and it can be streamed here (for free) as well:
https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/what-is-q/5fff7b077348553645286832
“RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel (she’s Mitt Romney’s niece) ”
Eric:
Please follow the memo that no one is to include her maiden name or family relationships in any form of media.
One of the better examples of Trumpian blind loyalty:
Trump: Never mind that your grandfather worked his way up to be President of an auto company, Governor of Michigan and a Presidential candidate and your uncle did nearly the same thing. You must be ashamed of your family name and hide it from everyone.
Ronna: No problem boss. I got you covered.
We remain a long way from R acknowledgment that it is time to move on from Trump.
And a day brightener:
Monmouth Poll: Biden +23% Job Approval
Trump peaked at about 5% Approval and 15 days into his Presidency he went underwater, never to get to zero again.
We’ve already seen congressional republicans walk back some of their criticism of the jan 6 rioting. They seem uninclined to hold Trump accountable for his role in that event.
At this point the trends imply RNC Chair McDaniel’s view is shared & that GOP leadership wants a party that includes the QAnon/Proud Boys/White Nationalist types rather than risk a challenge from a 3rd party that splits the vote.
And no one is more predictable than Lindsay Graham:
January 6:
“But today… all I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough. I’ve tried to be helpful.”
January 17:
“The Senate should vote to dismiss the article of impeachment once it is received in the Senate. We will be delaying indefinitely, if not forever, the healing of this great nation if we do otherwise.”
Given that he was just re-elected by double digits, this swill will never end until Trump releases the pictures he must have…
In the not so distant past, the village idiot could wander around town mumbling nonsense and occasionally shouting it from a soapbox, with no one particularly paying attention or believing a word of it. But now the internet gives village idiots everywhere a place to gather and make common cause. And voila – QAnon.
Nicely said.
She’s been possessed by the ghost of Ed Wood. This cannot end well.
Not only will she be returned to Congress repeatedly, her supporters we delight in owning the libs.
On the bright side, nobody’s talking about how silly Michele Bachmann makes Minnesotans look.
‘God must love dumb people; he made so many of them’.
And thus they deserve representation.
One can’t help but note that not a one of our small cadre of conservative fellows have spoken up to voice their concern, let alone opposition to the ideas laid out here. Qanon is mass paranoia and delusion writ large in the social media age, it’s adherents are probably legitimately mentally ill after a fashion, not that it excuses their actions. The continued exploitation of these sick individuals by those not so enthralled, for the Machiavellian purpose of retaining power, is beyond despicable.
Maintaining power is only a part of the appeal for the right wing. There are two other important parts. One part is owning the libs, one of the crucial aspects of Trumpism.
The other is scarier. It’s that they agree with much of what they are saying and doing. While they may issue ritualistic condemnations of “political violence (all spoken while they are openly packing heat at rallies),” that violence is being done in service of their ends. They really want to establish the United States as a white, Christian nation and they won’t lift a finger to condemn anyone on their side. In a sense, it’s maintaining power beyond this session of Congress, or beyond this presidential term. These lunatics are playing the long game.
Kind of like the Taliban, actually.
I don’t think the conservative regulars here believe in the Qanon nonsense. And with our resident, um, conspiracy theorist, I’m not even quite sure what the ideology is.
If they don’t speak against it, why should that be assumed?
The intersection of politics and magic, of course!
What is fascinating to me, setting aside the risk to our democracy for a moment, is how QAnon has gained adherents.
This article digs into how well-meaning people can inadvertently get sucked into the conspiracy theory orbit.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/10/why-multilevel-marketing-and-qanon-go-hand-hand/616885/
One example is how a new parent might research childhood vaccinations, and get sucked into the anti-vax wormhole, which overlaps other conspiracies. There’s a very compelling case to be made that monied interests manipulate media to further their own interests. Once you open the door to the notion that we can’t believe everything we’re told, it’s a much smaller step to get to ideas that look bizarre and irrational to outsiders.
Oh it’s a straight line correlation. Of my relations that have gone down this rabbit hole, 100% of them have past associations with MLM schemes. What’s surreal is that many of them have gone through phases where they “see the light” for a time, and violently rebuke their previous obsession as phony and diabolical, only to dive right back in to the next “too good to be true” offer they see. I liken it to an addiction, the addictive idea being that the simple, normal life they lead isn’t their “true self”, that self being one that is “destined” for and a part of a grand, dramatic, storybook level imaginary life. The reality avoidance predates the conspiracy. Some people just can’t find meaning for their lives without it being suggested to them from elsewhere, it seems.
‘Research’ ought to be in scare quotes.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist myself, the creation and rise of QAnon itself sounds like a conspiracy that uses or manipulates the credulity of people into becoming part of it. QAnon’s beginning sort of coincides with the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica recruiting Facebook users to steal personal information of other Facebook users, 87 million as it came out. Cambridge Analytica was created and owned by a firm called SCL Group which (bills?) billed itself as a “global elections management agency.” (According to wikipedia, which to me might itself be a source of disinformation in this instance). It’s unclear if these firms have been dissolved or reincorporated as “Emerdata”, another firm doing the same thing. Anyway, these firms claim to be able to use personal information mined from Facebook and other areas to profile, target and influence peoples’ political beliefs. They deny this I’m sure. They have denied using “psychographic analysis” in Trump’s election. But some writers have documented that Cambridge Analytica’s test scenarios include one using disinformation to foment a coup. A number of political scientists or other experts pooh-pooh that idea.
I don’t know why such a thing would be so unthinkable. Haven’t these political scientists ever heard or studied the James Jones, Lyndon Larouche or Scientology cults? Or maybe the study of “cult-development” falls between the disciplinary cracks of psychology, political science and sociology. But even outside the cults, our CIA famously instigated coup d’etat’s in Iran, Greece and other countries using disinformation targeted to certain groups of people. It seems logical to me that right wing “private” firms formed by “conservative” , which is to say fascist, ex-government intelligence operatives might use their own skills and intelligence and go into business for themselves as it were. Consider who the SCL Group/Cambridge Analytical principals include: Erik Prince of Blackwater Group, hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and other members of his family, and Steve Bannon.
In any event, Congress needs to investigate this group and get to the bottom of how thousands(?), hundreds of thousands (?), millions (?) of people were conned into buying into this cult.
No doubt the far right is the champion of conspiracy theories, it is not the exclusive of the GOP. Anti vax seems to be a over the map politically.
And let’s not forgot the 9/11 truthers
How many 9/11 truthers stormed the Capitol? How many anti-vaxxers have conspired to kidnap and murder the Governor of a staste?
I see this AM that the WI pharmacist who sabotaged covid doses by leaving them unrefrigerated is also a flat-earther…
This from a (supposedly) licensed and trained pharmacist…
Proof that this sort of rightwing conspiracist nonsense can absolutely destroy one’s professional judgment and unfit one for one’s employment.
Wishing this would be said:
Senate Majority Leader Schumer:
“I know Minority Leader McConnell has been very busy these past few days, so I would like to reassure him that I spoke with my Rabbi this weekend and he was most definitive about no Jews with space lasers starting wildfires. Period. I hope this helps.”