If We Don’t Stop Trump, the QAnon Rabbit Hole will Swallow Us All
Donald Trump, unlikely to hold power legitimately, is ready to use violent QAnon followers to terrorize his opposition, even as he telegraphs that he will not accept electoral defeat and wishes to abolish limits to how long he can remain President.
The Conspiracy Theory Rabbit Hole exists predominantly on the cultural fringes, but occasionally, when the conditions are right, it expands and swallows the rest of society. The tragic human flaw of falling victim to paranoid delusions grows during times of instability when we grasp for direction and can lurch into extremism.
So it is that in our time of pandemic, climate change, environmental catastrophe and economic collapse, the greatest threat of all may be the phenomenon known as QAnon.
Three years ago, the mysterious Q appeared in our midst like the White Rabbit, dropping conspiracy “clues” on the Internet to keep followers hooked into an endless chase. Alarming numbers of people worldwide have since disappeared into the QAnon Rabbit Hole. Support systems are developing for friends and family trying to rescue their loved ones.
The architects of QAnon are being exposed, but even revelations that Q is likely Jim Watkins, a porn-producing pig farmer hiding in the Philippines, may not change the course of irrational and violent events already in motion.
QAnon is now a mutating vortex of conspiracies sucking in fringe communities from neo-NAZIs to New Age spiritualists. But its public adherents are also mainstream Republican voters and politicians coalescing into a cultish mass-movement around Donald Trump, who they see as a messianic figure.
Of course, Trump has refused to denounce QAnon, and has retweeted Q memes more than once. Meanwhile the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning QAnon, with House Rules Chairman Jim McGovern stating: “We all must call it what it is: a sick cult.”
At its worst, conspiracy theory is the chosen tool of mad cult leaders and dictators who use it to trigger one of the oldest, most unifying psychological needs of humanity: To have an enemy. To feel there is a force you can conquer in order to rise above your station. To believe the problems in your life are their fault. It isn’t you, it’s the others.
It not coincidence that QAnon traffics in the same conspiracy theories used by Adolph Hitler to rally German citizens to commit (or ignore) genocidal atrocities against Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, the disabled, and others considered intrinsically inferior or malevolent.
QAnon’s so-called Satanic Deep State of blood-drinking pedophiles, Democrats and Hollywood elite, is nothing but repurposed anti-Semitic conspiracy lore including the ancient accusation of blood libel, accusing Jews of drinking the blood of Christian children and adding it to their matzoh bread.
Yes, it seems ridiculous in the light of day. But in the depths of the Hole, the most insane lies are believed. Anyone can be demonized, stripped of their humanity, branded as a member of a nefarious group that must be destroyed. Citizens can be turned against their countrymen, brother against brother. Armies can be rallied, all in the righteous cause of taking down the evildoers because they are out to get you.
Or, in the case of QAnon, they are out to get your children.
Who would not take up arms to defend our children against a global cabal of pedophiles? Deep in the Hole, otherwise decent people can be made to walk into a pizza shop with an AR 15 ready to commit mass murder.
For years, Q adherents have been promised mass arrests of the supposed pedophiles by the Trump administration. Nothing that Q has prophesied has come to pass, but it matters not. Cult followers and religious extremists do not lose faith so readily.
QAnon continues to grow a movement of deeply paranoid, heavily armed, irrational fanatics preparing for an End Times war. When 17 year old right-wing extremist Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed unarmed demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin this year, he was supported by Trump and Fox News, and hailed by QAnon followers as a patriotic “young hero” and an example for their movement when “the storm” — the final battle — finally comes.
That storm may come on November 3, 2020.
Donald Trump, unlikely to hold power legitimately, is absolutely ready to use violent QAnon followers to terrorize his opposition, even as he clearly telegraphs that he will not accept electoral defeat and he wishes to abolish limits to how long he can remain President.
Trump’s life is a pathetic story of moral failure, greed, deception, and narcissistic cruelty. For his supporters who desperately want to believe he is a good man, the cognitive dissonance is devastating. QAnon’s revisionist narrative therefore has a tremendous appeal. Now they are heroic defenders of a secret savior, instead of useful idiots for a career conman backed by a murderous Russian dictator.
Vladimir Putin is a master political chess player whose end-game of destroying the dominance of the American republic may actually be within reach if we allow QAnon’s delusional violent movement to tear our country apart.
This threat transcends partisan politics.
If the United States devolves into chaos, the world will fall with us. Our ability to contain the damage of the pandemic will fail. Our response to climate change, to escalating natural disasters, to millions of jobless and homeless Americans, will be more lies and deflections by a delusional presidency based entirely on conspiracy theory and avoiding blame or responsibility.
The Hole is about to become an Abyss. It’s an existential global crisis. Unless we do everything possible to ensure Trump is voted out on November 3rd by overwhelming and undeniable numbers, the Hole will swallow us all.
