Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Welcome to QAnon’s Tomorrowland Where Conspiracies Bleed Into Each Other and the GOP
September 29, 2020
(Photo by Marc Nozell)
By Bill Berkowitz
Advice columns reflect the gestalt of our times; serving as a cultural touchstone. Advice columnists, usually addressing questions about dysfunctional relationships, children running amuck, bothersome relatives, over-inquisitive neighbors and the erosion of social mores, are now confronted with questions about QAnon. On a recent Sunday, two New York Times advice columnists provided counsel on what to do about “the family next door” pushing QAnon conspiracy theories, and a “pretty intelligent, chill, fun boss” texting pro-QAnon twaddle. QAnon, which was certainly underestimated, and underreported, even six months ago, is now the talk of the town; penetrating and grabbing foothold hold in mainstream politics.
A question to The New York Times Social Q’s columnist Philip Galanes was signed by “Friend.” During the quarantine, Friend’s next-door neighbor has embraced such QAnon perennials as “PizzaGate,” and the belief “that Hollywood celebrities sacrifice children to drink their blood.” To no avail, “Friend” has tried to disabuse her of those beliefs. Galanes, whose column I read regularly in The New York Times Sunday Style section, suggested that since “Friend” has already tried contesting her neighbor’s beliefs with facts, that now she “try listening.” He wrote: “Ask her to walk you through the proof of her allegations. Perhaps you can help her see (gently) that she believes these dangerous lies because she wants to – not because she has any evidence of them.” Finally, Galanes concludes with an observation that is becoming clear to people all across the country dealing with QAnon faithful: “Trying to salvage a relationship is worth it. Battering your head against a brick wall is not.”
In her column in the NYT Business Section, Roxane Gay, the author most recently of Hunger, responded to a question from Lauren in California regarding unsolicited texts from her boss. Gay wrote: “A surprising number of people have fallen into QAnon and other assorted sinkholes where intelligence and common sense go to die.” Gay, as many others dealing with the uncompromising, and seemingly immutable views of QAnon followers, suggested that Lauren – who thankfully is working from home -- counter her bosses “disinformation with factual information,” but if he’s not receptive, she advises that she “keep her distance,” because “people who have given their minds over to QAnon don’t want the truth.”
People whose minds have been taken over by QAnon, are impervious to facts and tend to repeat two QAnon-advanced memes: “the truth will come out,” and “I’ve done my research.”
The issues raised in these advice columns are all-too familiar in the Trump era. During the 2016 Presidential race, families were torn apart; those supporting, facing off against relatives opposed to Trump. Family dinners became battlegrounds: Some family members were disinvited to traditional family gatherings. Rules were created to diffuse the situation, mandating no political conversations, so that a holiday dinner might be conducted in peace.
The QAnon phenomenon has escalated those tensions. While conversations continue about who to support in the upcoming election, QAnon believers are injecting comments into conversations, comments about Satanic forces, blood-sucking pedophilic liberals, and child pornography rings run by Democrats.
There are a myriad of political and psychological reasons that QAnon has become so ubiquitous in recent months. As people hunkered down in their homes since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, they have spent more time on the Internet, more time diving into sinkholes of mass disinformation, and more time getting sucked into dystopian websites. There are the hucksters, political hacks, and bagmen for conspiracy theories that prey on an already stressed-out populace. Since QAnon embraces Trump as the great white savoir, any criticisms of him are quickly rejected as deep state propaganda coming from anti-Trumpers.
“In 2020, when hurricanes, wildfires, police shootings, a pandemic, civil unrest, … and a plummeting economy have provided all of us with plenty of legitimate sources of anxiety, the arsonists of fear and loathing have mobilized to pour accelerants onto our emotions and diabolically exploit them,” Diane Carmen, a Denver communications consultant, recently wrote in The Colorado Sun, in a story titled “If you liked the Y2K scam, you’re gonna love QAnon trolls and their lies.”
In recent weeks, QAnon truthers have been popping up like weeds: A QAnon-believing Republican Party candidate for Congress won her primary and is practically assured of winning her election in November; Donald Trump told reporters that he wasn’t familiar with QAnon, but he appeared happy that they seem to like him; at least two Republican candidates for the Washington Legislature have knowingly spread QAnon content online, while in Oregon, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Jo Rae Perkins, is an avowed QAnon supporter; and, the Associated Press’ Michael Kunzelman reported that “Walmart, Amazon and other corporate giants donated money to the reelection campaign of a Tennessee state lawmaker [Rep. Susan Lynn, who chairs the Tennessee House finance committee] who had used social media to amplify and promote the QAnon conspiracy theory.”
According to The Guardian, “the #SaveTheChildren hashtag campaign has introduced QAnon to millions of potential new recruits.”
As The Guardian’s Moira Donegan wrote, “The QAnon conspiracy theory is vast, complicated and ever changing, and its adherents are constantly folding new events and personalities into its master narrative. But the gist of it is that national Democrats, aided by Hollywood and a group of ‘global elites,’ are running a massive ring devoted to the abduction, trafficking, torture, sexual abuse and cannibalization of children, all with the purpose of fulfilling the rituals of their Satanic faith. Donald Trump, according to this fantasy, is the only person willing and able to mount an attack against them.“
So how does one go about dealing with enraptured QAnon believers? Should you go or should you stay in conversation? Is there a hope of convincing your cousin, your brother-in-law, your mother of the facts? What about neighbors that you were once close to and now the relationship has been torn asunder? Dear Abby?
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