Exactly. These people don't have disabilities. Their intelligence isn't impaired. All these bitches are marking for fascism so hard that they deliberately turned off their sense. They invented a shitty alternate universe to hate muslims, Jews, blacks, and browns in. And they literally fought to defend it. They want to fight another civil war to shut up the people who don't indulge their fantasy.

I go back and forth on this one, honestly. On the one hand, I think that everyone, including myself, can fall for a con, no matter how smart we are or think we are. So a part of me doesn't want to hate on QAnon people because, well, maybe that could have been me, you know?

On the other hand, the particular fantasy they chose to invest in is so blood-soaked, so obviously anti-democratic, and so pointlessly lurid and cruel that it's reasonable to conclude that maybe most of the people who got taken in by it weren't really quality humans to begin with.

Maybe I'm waiting to see if this thing persists or simply dies out. People have pointed out that it draws on a lot of religious elements that could give it some sort of spooky afterlife, we we'll have to see.

Miss Henson: I have a very strong tendency to look down on people that are conned & to think they're idiots. But you're absolutely right; anybody can be conned, including myself. Not all victims of cons are idiots, and I always need to work hard to remind myself of that.

But QAnon is another thing entirely. Oh, these people were conned, no doubt about it. But why were they susceptible to this con? Because they're shitty people. They went into the con holding abhorrent views on a wide variety of things, and they fell for the con because they wanted to *believe*. Fuck those people.

It's true that the ARG they slid into is rife with xenophobia and fascism. That's absolutely true. But the slide itself is waxed with morality fables about protecting children from abuse and rooting out political corruption. QAnon seems to play to people's bigotry, compassion, outrage, and sense of justice all at the same time. So, I don't know how to judge the people it dupes.

That said, as a con/religion/ideology it's also incredibly, obviously bogus. So I can safely say that, their inherent "shittiness" as people notwithstanding, everyone who fell for it behaved fucking stupidly, and probably not for the last time.

I forgot "loneliness." It also appeals to people who feel lonely and directionless, and that suuucks.

Look more closely at the "save the children" nonsense. On the surface it may appear that it's appealing to people's better natures as away of sucking them into the rest of QAnon toxicity. But if that were the case, then the "save the children" dupes would be thoroughly relieved when they find out they'd been had.

"Well thank God; the children aren't in danger after all. That's egg on my face!"

But I have yet to meet or read about a QAnon follower who's relieved to find out they were wrong. Not a one. Sometimes they express deep sorrow, sometimes anger, sometimes fear... there's a whole host of reactions. But never relief. That tells me the "save the children" bullshit was never about saving the children; it was always just a cover story that they could tell themselves so they could get their hate on.

If I ever meet a QAnon follower who expresses relief, I'll give them a pass on falling for the con. (Hey, we all make mistakes, right?) But for all the rest of 'em? Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em sideways with an 11 foot barge pole.

I think that both of you guys have fundamentally solid takes on this, and, as far as Anaxagoras's take, the fact that I might be succeptible to a con only tempers my opinions, which means I can't judge every QAnon nut as harshly as possible, forever. But I do think a lot people fell for the con because their beliefs essentially matched up with some of its authoritarian tendencies.

But maybe not all. I do like TDS's idea that the appeal of QAnon might have become multi-pronged when it hit on anti-child trafficking themes. I mean, who could ever be opposed to that? It's like that ad that the ASPCA ran that featured that Sarah McLaughlin song! The rise of influencer-heavy "pastel Qanon" is really interesting for that reason alone.

You make a fair point about relief, Anax. My instinct is that by the time a follower is in a position to be proven wrong about the child abuse, they're already too drunk on a brew of anti-authoritarian skepticism, social belonging, sunk cost, and self-importance to do anything but barrel sullenly forward. But I'll have to think it over.

Like so many things since I read the book at theauthoritarians.org, this all seems to reduce itself pretty well into a case of authoritarian epistemology. Qanonitards like the conclusions of the "arguments" they're hearing, and that's good enough to put em in balls-deep. It's garbage logic, and they may deserve to be considered garbage humans for adopting it. The psychologist author doesn't have a lot of hope for reasoned arguments waking these folks up, and he has reasons for why not, but since I'm not super-into eugenics, a probably masturbatory "if you think the people unfit to govern themselves, don't take away their power but enlighten them through education" type of approach is appealing. And fuckin' doomed in our climate of monetized disinformation. Fuck it, nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

This is fine, and maybe even generous of heart, but it describes a common-or-garden Trump supporter, not a Qanon believer.

>> But I also believe that the guy who likes Sean Hannity, and me, who likes John Oliver, aren't that far apart in how we process information. Its just that he's been lied to a whole lot more.

I think this is wrong. Your conservative has been lied to exactly as often as you have, with different results, for the minor point. To the larger point, you guys process information/arguments fundamentally differently. You, JHM, have demonstrated, here on this site, a willingness to abide by certain epistemic principles of rationality which are actually quite foreign to a worshipper of authority. It turns out that not everybody demands that the premises support the conclusion; some people short-circuit the process and just check that the conclusion sounds good, and then vet the entire argument on that basis. AND THAT'S GRODY.

Rationality: good

Epistemic fairness: good

Compassion: good

Contempt for fascists: good

Conclusion: I think we’re good here

>>>This is fine, and maybe even generous of heart, but it describes a common-or-garden Trump supporter, not a Qanon believer.

I guess that's true, but I think we've all known decent, intelligent people with conspiratorial ideas. My first girlfriend believed that the CIA had framed Sid Vicious.

I didn't get to finish my thought. I had to go do something. What I was building to was the observation that this myth , which has always been nonsense, that Donald Trump is an infallible genius who never loses, and even if he seems to be screwing the pooch, that's because he's thinking six moves ahead... all that happy horseshit has been severely undercut by the event over the past few months. I'm seeing second hand reports that indicate that the Proud Boys are mad at Trump for not pardoning the rioters. And contrary to what this guy is saying, a large number of QAnons are throwing up their hands and saying "we've been had." A moderator at one.major Qanon forum deleted the entire site, calling it "euthanasia", although someone else restored the site. There are reports that prominent Republicans are lobbying the Senate to convict Trump. and I think McConnell is probably in that camp. This ia all anecdotal, but it's also intuitive. He's losing his mojo. Donors are fleeing. Stores are dumping "My Pillow". Maybe the spell has finally been broken.

In fact there’s a ton of overlap between SolRo-style antisemitic conspiracy theories and QAnon conspiracy theories. Many of the Capitol attackers scrawled and shouted anti-Jewish messages. Hate movements have a way of bleeding into each other.