What Makes People Fall for QAnon?
You’ve heard the word, and you’ve seen it banned from social media. But what is QAnon?
It’s the all-purpose, totally unhinged, very 2020 conspiracy theory to rule them all.
Broadly, QAnon posits that an online user named Q is posting information about a cabal that rules the world and is engaged in everything from drinking the blood of children to election rigging to sex trafficking, and that Trump has a plan to round up the evildoers (which includes everyone from Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks) and execute them. The theory is so flexible and so broad that Buzzfeed news has decided to refer to it as a “collective delusion” rather than a conspiracy theory.
While much of the world of QAnon is online, in forums and on social media, it has spilled disastrously into the world of flesh and blood. It seems to have inspired acts and threats of violence, and even murder.
But what draws people to QAnon? And can they be pulled away from it? AJ+ interviewed Will Sommer, who covers QAnon and the far-right for The Daily Beast.
The theory that can’t be proved wrong
QAnon is sort of an umbrella conspiracy theory, Sommer says. “You can really find whatever you want in it. There's anti-vaccine stuff, there's stuff that kind of could fit in on an episode of Hannity. There's pizzagate stuff.”
It also has a gamification aspect to it that other theories lack. “You get clues and people say, ‘Oh, I've got to research these clues.’ They almost self-radicalize because they fall down these holes … the beauty of the clues is that when one of these predictions doesn't come true, it's not because QAnon is fake, it's because we were misreading the clues,” Sommer says.
For example, he continues, take the prediction that Hillary Clinton is going to be arrested at the end of October 2017. “That doesn't happen. But then they say, well, maybe she was arrested and that's her clone. Or maybe she's wearing an ankle boot or she has a baggy pant to cover up her ankle monitor or something like that.”
The appeal of QAnon in an upside-down world
Besides the appeal of a gamified conspiracy theory, Sommer thinks, “people are often driven to it by personal issues they have in their own lives. I saw a guy at a rally say, well, you know, I have cancer and I don't have health insurance, but that's OK ‘cause Trump's going to get the cabal and they're going to reveal the cure for cancer.” Sommer also believes people are driven to it “by various kinds of social ills within our country that are very real. As a coping mechanism, they start to believe in QAnon.”
On a micro level, people are becoming alienated from their family and friends, says Sommer. “On a broader level, it's very concerning to have a significant segment of the population cut off from reality … and now there's going be a QAnon person in Congress. [A Delaware Senate nominee is also associated with QAnon.] How does Nancy Pelosi compromise or make deals with a person who thinks Nancy Pelosi eats babies? I think it just divorces people from reality.”
Pandemic chaos
“The pandemic is a time of uncertainty and chaos,” says Sommer, “and it seems like the world is really spinning out of control. So, I think people are looking for answers a lot more – people who maybe aren't normally politically engaged. They are going on Facebook or they're going on YouTube, and the QAnon people are quite happy to offer some explanations – you know, like, this is Anthony Fauci’s fault … or if we just arrest Hillary Clinton, all the problems in the world would be solved.”
QAnon-in-chief
Followers of the conspiracy theory have been obsessed with being acknowledged by Trump, Sommer says. “When [Trump] was asked about it … he said, well, we are going after the pedophiles and stuff. And then Trump praised QAnon. That validated QAnon, and it’s a new recruiting tool for them. Then, a Republican representative attacked QAnon and the Trump campaign attacked him. So it's clear that basically the line in the GOP is either you're into QAnon, or you just ignore it and pretend like it's not happening.”
Back from the brink
One of the hardest questions, Sommer says, is how do we as a country bring these QAnon people back, and how do people bring back QAnon people in their lives that they've lost.
“In part, it’s going to depend on how much you value this relationship. If it's someone on Facebook that you went to high school with, you probably don't care. But there are people losing parents, their husbands or wives. So you try to figure out what the personal thing is that's drawing someone to QAnon first. Sometimes it's the day that the world just feels really out of control, whether it's the pandemic or that someone lost their job.”
The future of Q
“The next big inflection point for QAnon is going to be the election. I think if Biden wins, we're looking at a lot of QAnon people who are suddenly going to be like, what's next? Because they were promised ‘the storm’ where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Tom Hanks and all these people were going to be arrested. And when that doesn't happen, some people will probably say, ‘Oh, QAnon was fake.’ But I think some will say, you know, we have to step up ourselves.”