Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona
Nothing coming from the Q "channel" actually makes sense. And that is pretty much the point. Qanon isn't so much a movement, but a way of capturing the attention of people who are either entire uneducated or incapable of rudimentary critical thinking.
A short while ago, hundreds of Q fans showed up in Dallas, at Dealy Plaza, because they were told that JFK would return and appoint Donald Trump as king, or would run for president with him. Oh, no wait. What they really meant was that JFK Jr. would be back. Sound nuts? It is.
Crazy is the Q brand. Yesterday, Mike Lindell—the guy trying to smother the 2020 election with a pillow—blamed a “deep state” conspiracy for interfering with his prediction that Trump would be reinstated by Thanksgiving. Nuttier than a fruitcake factory is an understatement, but Pillow Guy is on-brand for the Q crowd.
The thing is that nothing coming from the Q “channel” actually makes sense. And that is pretty much the point. Qanon isn’t so much a movement, but a way of capturing the attention of people who are either uneducated—or willing to cherry pick what education they chose to apply—or incapable of rudimentary critical thinking. In this way, they hope to cause a mental resonance with whatever nascent prejudices already exist in these minds.
Part of the branding of the Qverse includes their own little catch phrase, “Where we go one, we go all.” They have shortened this to a code—taking on the habits of white supremacists for speaking in codes—WWG1WGA. Sounds unifying until you recall the popular myth that little rodents called lemmings commit mass suicide by following each other over a cliff. Evidently not one lemming says, “Hey, do you think this is a good idea?”
Who knew that a pig farmer/tech head in the Philippines would have stumbled on a worldwide demographic segment best defined by, “willing to swallow the most outrageous bullshit.” But that is what has happened.
Now we have this population segment being mined for votes. That’s right. Right wing political figures want to curry favor with people who thought there was a pedophile ring being run out of the basement of a pizza parlor in Washington DC—which had no basement.
Political radicals in a variety of states are clearly crafting messages to the Qverse “voter block.” This is part of the Republican Party’s calculus for returning to national control. But this is a scary prospect because the moves being made: the reality-defying rhetoric, the voter suppression laws, the anti-abortion laws, the attempts to control what comprises American history and education in it—all these things indicate something much darker. They are the Lego blocks of Fascism. The Trumpublican Party, as it should be called now, is trying to set the stage for a permanent return to power where it is the only functional party.
That may sound nuts and paranoid and even Q-like. But the signs—more like super bright neon billboards—are there.
There is no reality in which the former guy will return to office. JFK and Jr are both dead. January 6th was not a normal tourist visit. But don’t tell Qanon fans that. They’ll know you’re a lizard person.
Facing straight up insanity is a problem. In the case of the Qverse it has to be dealt with obliquely. When dealing with these people, the first thing to do is take the emotion out of it. Getting a Q believer to even gently question whether they have been scammed is a huge leg up. Making fun of them directly or simply calling them stupid—bad ideas. They will dig in their heals like a flat-earther ready to kill himself to prove himself right—and that actually happened.
The social media phrase, “Don’t feed the trolls” really applies to Q-fans. Don’t engage, just be calm and even bored when saying, “Wow. People actually believe that? Well, okay. How about those Cowboys?”
If enough people do this, then maybe we can take some of the bubbling insanity out of the American political process.
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