All about the disturbing world of QAnon

An excellent long read at The Atlantic about QAnon makes the case for it being a new religion in the process of creation.   I thought that maybe exaggeration, but I actually haven't read that much analysis of it as a movement before, and perhaps didn't realise the intense religiosity of many of its followers, and the similarity to other religious movements which were not killed off by the failure of predictions. 

It also makes the point I keep noting about the unforeseen harm the internet would create:

The power of the internet was understood early on, but the full nature of that power—its ability to shatter any semblance of shared reality, undermining civil society and democratic governance in the process—was not. The internet also enabled unknown individuals to reach masses of people, at a scale Marshall McLuhan never dreamed of. The warping of shared reality leads a man with an AR-15 rifle to invade a pizza shop. It brings online forums into being where people colorfully imagine the assassination of a former secretary of state. It offers the promise of a Great Awakening, in which the elites will be routed and the truth will be revealed. It causes chat sites to come alive with commentary speculating that the coronavirus pandemic may be the moment QAnon has been waiting for. None of this could have been imagined as recently as the turn of the century.

The article makes it clear how one of the perverse ways the QAnon movement works is that it encourages people to "do their own research", which gives devotees the thrill of participating in building up the framework of a public conspiracy belief system.   And the feeling (that at least some followers have) that it "must" be true because God would not let them get deceived in this way is clear:

In Toledo, I asked Shock if she had any theories about Q’s identity. She answered immediately: “I think it’s Trump.” I asked if she thinks Trump even knows how to use 4chan. The message board is notoriously confusing for the uninitiated, nothing like Facebook and other social platforms designed to make it easy to publish quickly and often. “I think he knows way more than what we think,” she said. But she also wanted me to know that her obsession with Q wasn’t about Trump. This had been something she was reluctant to speak about at first. Now, she said, “I feel God led me to Q. I really feel like God pushed me in this direction. I feel like if it was deceitful, in my spirit, God would be telling me, ‘Enough’s enough.’ But I don’t feel that. I pray about it. I’ve said, ‘Father, should I be wasting my time on this?’ … And I don’t feel that feeling of I should stop.”

And once you buy into this way of thinking, everything can be made to fit into it:

Arthur Jones, the director of the documentary film Feels Good Man, which tells the story of how internet memes infiltrated politics in the 2016 presidential election, told me that QAnon reminds him of his childhood growing up in an evangelical-Christian family in the Ozarks. He said that many people he knew then, and many people he meets now in the most devout parts of the country, are deeply interested in the Book of Revelation, and in trying to unpack “all of its pretty-hard-to-decipher prophecies.” Jones went on: “I think the same kind of person would all of a sudden start pulling at the threads of Q and start feeling like everything is starting to fall into place and make sense. If you are an evangelical and you look at Donald Trump on face value, he lies, he steals, he cheats, he’s been married multiple times, he’s clearly a sinner. But you are trying to find a way that he is somehow part of God’s plan.”

 And another example:

 Shock and Harger rely on information they encounter on Facebook rather than news outlets run by journalists. They don’t read the local paper or watch any of the major television networks. “You can’t watch the news,” Shock said. “Your news channel ain’t gonna tell us shit.” Harger says he likes One America News Network. Not so long ago, he used to watch CNN, and couldn’t get enough of Wolf Blitzer. “We were glued to that; we always have been,” he said. “Until this man, Trump, really opened our eyes to what’s happening. And Q. Q is telling us beforehand the stuff that’s going to happen.” I asked Harger and Shock for examples of predictions that had come true. They could not provide specifics and instead encouraged me to do the research myself. When I asked them how they explained the events Q had predicted that never happened, such as Clinton’s arrest, they said that deception is part of Q’s plan. Shock added, “I think there were more things that were predicted that did happen.” Her tone was gentle rather than indignant.

 If only my conspiracy obsessed mastermind commenter could recognize how he has fallen into the same trap.   But they get too invested to ever come back out.  

What is freaking disturbing is when you have a President encouraging this dangerous movement that is, at heart, against the basic principles that you need people to adhere to have a sound government.   (It's also full of thirst for bloody revenge for purely imagined crimes - making it like a malignant version of Christianity that can no longer wait for God to do the accounting.)

If the Republicans, and the mainstream media, had any sense, they would be daily expressing dismay that Trump is not fit for office unless he disowns the QAnon movement.