The QAnon Delusion Has Not Loosened Its Grip
Millions of Americans continue to actively participate in multiple conspiracy theories. Why?
Leave QAnon aside for a moment. Tens of millions of Americans – including about the entire establishment – think that inequality has increased recently. It hasn’t. So why do they think it has?
Because inequality isn’t about facts and figures. Definitely not about facts.
If there is inequality, change is needed. The left want change, so inequality is needed. So there is inequality.
Tens of millions of Americans – including about the entire establishment – think that Russia colluded with Donald Trump to steal the 2016 election.
Tens of millions of Americans – including about the entire establishment – think that social distancing, masks and the closing of just about everything will bring an end to the pandemic.
And then there is, of course, “climate change”.
Hundreds of millions of people all over the world believe the Russian collusion. What is disturbing is that the mainstream media covered this insane conspiracy theory as though it were true. They then claimed that there was no evidence of vote rigging in the last election*. A big part of why the US is a mess is that this bizarre level of pro-left wing bias in the establishment is not being held to account. Which is why the QAnon nutcases have gained traction.
*Trump lost. But there was plenty of vote rigging. A proper fourth estate might at least have tried to see how much vote rigging took place.
“Tens of millions of Americans … think that inequality has increased recently. It hasn’t. So why do they think it has?”
Widen the picture. A large proportion of the developed world think the world is going to hell in a hand basket. The percentage of truly poor is the lowest it’s ever been, health and wealth are improving globally, in spite of a few problems the world is a far better place than it was when I was born, with far more opportunities for far more people, and yet people I regard as normally sane and rational about most things are convinced we’re doomed. WTF does that stupidity come from?
Maybe we need the concept of immiseration holidays to make people appreciate how good things really are. Two weeks as a medieval gong farmer or plowing fields using only a water buffalo and some pointed sticks.
They also believe that hundreds of innocent black men are being murdered by evil racist Police every year. I seem to remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle about it recently, but maybe I’m mistaken…
“WTF does that stupidity come from?”
When you’re told it from a young age by every teacher and lecturer going, backed up by the mass media at every turn, its actually surprising that there are any at all who have managed to escape the madness.
Tens of millions of Americans believe many women have penises.
Tens of millions of Americans – including about the entire establishment – think that Russia colluded with Donald Trump to steal the 2016 election.
Given that Steele and his primary source are both on the record with the FBI saying they made this up to distract from Hillarys email, this just makes them dementedly stupid.
I would imagine if they wanted to Trumps lawyers could find a rich seam of speeches by the prosecutors refusing to accept the 2016 election and blaming fraud (collusion) to offer up as examples of allowed political speech vs impeachment. Then there’s the BLM archive to mine for outrage speeches as well.
Would be a fun exercise to say well if you find Trump guilty you are also saying all these other people are guilty
@Ummmm
That has already been tried. Democrats say it’s different because reasons. Nothing to see here move along. See using Mad Maxine Waters quote about Republicans to troll Andrew Cuomo.
‘Tens of millions of Americans believe many women have penises.’
Thankyou Jussi.
QAnon looks like a false flag to me. Discredit your enemy.
There are people all around the world who believe that the 2016 election was rigged and the 2020 election was not rigged in any way. Can people really believe that Biden is the most popular president ever? Biden?
Tens of millions of Americans claim to believe that the 2016 election was rigged in order to prove to each other that they are part of the in group. Ditto ladycocks.
The way of the totalitarian is to devalue truth. To be a Party member — to be sold the pretence that you are part of the elite and that you matter — you are compelled to espouse big and patently obvious lies, so that the thousands of little lies and misdirections that the real elite use to maintain and increase their power and fortune are inconsequential. Who is going to question a missing billion dollars or some suspicious suicides when they’ve already sold their soul to the Party?
@diogenes
Biden being more popular than St Obama just proves that America is incurably racist, which fits The Narrative perfectly. Expect to see this deployed when it comes to defenestrate Biden in order to usher in President Harris — he’s not been in a month and the early manoeuvres are already in progress.
Q posts anonymously only in one place. People are urged to think and research for themselves. Some of the posts relate to the US Criminal Code, some are inconvenient open source factoids relating to the political financial classes as well as the incestuous relationship between political and media figures(often married couples using different surnames), others are cryptic and open to multiple conflicting interpretations, some predicted scandals two years ahead. Rather like a gossipy puzzle.
Anons discuss, debate and disagree on what Q posts mean. Anons run the full range from crazy to insightful and cautious and cannot be described as a unified movement except insofaras the question the given narrative. Anyone who refers to Qanons as an entity hasn’t been paying attention.
Quite a lot of Americans believe they’ve been abducted by aliens.
This tells us something about Americans imho.
Peter,
Quite a lot, yes. But nothing of practical use.
Conspiracies happen. So a conspiracy theory is not automatically wrong.
Chips-in-the-vaccines conspiracy theories are, however, insane. And yet very popular in one Moslem country I know of.
Arthur the Cat
Humans cannot handle plenty, We were designed for shortage and having plenty literally sends us, as a species, insane.
BiG – nah, it’s aliens, teasers. The odd post here and there is a lot less effort than finding an isolated spot, sticking fake antenna on your head and strutting up and down in front of some poor sod while making beep, beep noises.
You’re a bit behind the times, Tim
Tens of millions of Americans – including about the entire establishment – think that inequality has increased recently. It hasn’t. So why do they think it has?
Because it has. Governments loudly proclaiming their commitment to equality, levelling up, etc have reversed advances in world trade, suppressed demand, stifled international travel and tourism, and become more explicitly protectionist.
This has resulted in 230 million people who have recently advanced to relative poverty falling back into absolute poverty, and 100 million who were still stuck in absolute poverty now at risk of real starvation.
This has been done by government (the establishment) decisions, not by the coronavirus.
Those are UN estimates, btw.
Possibly by UNEP, those wonderful people who think marginal land can suddenly produce bumper crops of cereals.
I wonder, do UN agencies ever talk to each other? The WHO might benefit from a chat with UNEP, UNESCO etc. Silos of information = silos of bullshit.
“Conspiracies happen. So a conspiracy theory is not automatically wrong. ”
Yet do we have evidence that those said to be conspiring have any capability to conduct a decent conspiracy that wouldn’t be common knowledge before the sun set?
The people who conspired to invent a bogus espionage case against Trump successfully kept it from the American public for month after month. Yet the conspiracy initially involved, I’d guess, a dozen people or more.