WHY QANON?

“I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”-Donald Trump on QAnon

It's official.  QAnon is popular enough to almost become mainstream.  That's according to a recent poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core which found that fifteen percent of Americans (and twenty five percent of Republicans) now claim to believe in QAnon.  Which means that there are tens of millions of Americans who believe in  the baseless claims of an unknown online poster who says that there is a global ring of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles  (that includes pretty much every Democratic leader) that will be exposed any day now by Donald Trump.  There was a hope that this crazy theory would end with Trump leaving the White House, but, as with most cults, the true believers have just doubled down.  Sadly, once people join a cult, shaking their faith is very difficult; just look at the Jehovah's Witnesses, who have been steadily pushing back the date of the end of the world for decades now.

The story of QAnon beliefs gets even more scary when you look at the number of Republicans who don't call themselves believers but who refuse to dismiss it (the QAnon curious?).  Adding them pushes the number of QAnon friendly Republicans to over fifty percent of the party.  And it gets worse, QAnon friendly candidates are already lining up to run for office all around the country, while infamous QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene already is in the House of Representatives and is a major fund raiser for the Republican party.  Yes, it appears that QAnon, just like the idea that Trump won the twenty twenty election, is now a common, accepted belief in the Republican party. And the QAnon faithful appear to be willing to even break the law for their beliefs, as the high number of QAnon signs and shirts at the January sixth riot showed.

The inevitable question is why would so many people believe something so insane?  Even the most out there cults usually have a charismatic leader at the top, but  with QAnon nobody even knows who the person who first started this craziness is. But it has benefited from timing.  While there have always been people willing to believe in outlandish things, from bigfoot to psychics, the rise of QAnon seems to me to be linked to the global pandemic.  Oh sure, it existed before covid, but it really seems to have taken off in the past year as the pandemic has raged.  This seems to make sense; putting it simply, people staying at home  have more time to fall into the QAnon rabbit hole, to spend hours absorbing one Youtube video or social media posting after another, which has sadly helped it to flourish.  It seems like common sense that people getting out and doing things would have less time to start following a cult that is almost entirely online.  Add to that the fact that the whole world has felt on edge since the pandemic started, plus the usual conservative conspiratorial mindset combined with our deeply polarized country and you have all the makings of  a successful modern cult.

So what can the Americans who choose to live in the real world do?  On a personal level, people can try to talk to friends and family members wrapped up in the movement in an understanding, non judgemental way that will hopefully pull them back to reality. But on a national level?  Not a heck of a lot; elected Republican officials seem to accepting QAnon believers in their party while not openly saying that they agree with them (which is the same weak kneed trick they pulled with the birthers).   And of course Trump himself has issued statements like the one above that continues his pathetic streak of failing to condemn anyone who praises him, be it David Duke, The Proud Boys or QAnon.  The best case scenario for the future is that I'm right about the pandemic having an effect, and that as more Americans go back to their normal lives, many of QAnon's believers will stop following it.  Otherwise, we may continue to have a major political party made up of people who think the worst possible thing about the other side (Satanic cannibals!), which is no way to run a democracy.