QAnon

QAnon believers are part of a broader swath of Americans who are immersed in conspiracy theories. Once on the far-right fringes, these theories now hold people from across the political spectrum in their thrall, from anti-lockdown libertarians to left-wing wellness types and “Stop the Steal” Trumpists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/...tion=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

To that we can add conpiracy theories about the SEC, hedge funds, GameStop, Robinhood, etc.
 
From the article linked above:

But while much has been said about how people descend into this world, little is known about how they get out. Those who do leave are often filled with shame. Sometimes their addiction was so severe that they have become estranged from family and friends.

The theories seem crazy to Ms. Perron now, but looking back, she understands how they drew her in. They were comforting, a way to get her bearings in a chaotic world that felt increasingly unequal and rigged against middle-class people like her. These stories offered agency: Evil cabals could be defeated. A diffuse sense that things were out of her control could not.

The theories were fiction, but they hooked into an emotional vulnerability that sprang from something real. For Ms. Perron, it was a feeling that the Democratic Party had betrayed her after a lifetime of trusting it deeply.

Her immigrant family, from the former Yugoslavia, were union Democrats in working-class Detroit who had seen their middle-class lifestyle decline after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. As an inspector for the insurance industry, she spent decades in factories seeing union jobs wither. Still, she stayed with the party because she believed it was fighting for her. When Bernie Sanders became a presidential candidate she found him electrifying.

“He put into words what I couldn’t figure out but I was seeing around me,” said Ms. Perron, who is now 55. “The middle class was shrinking. The 1 percent and corporations having more control and taking more of the money.”

She felt sure the Democratic establishment would back him, and she began volunteering for his campaign, meeting many new friends in the movement. But she felt that the news media was barely covering him. Then he lost the 2016 primary. When she began reading through leaked emails that fall, it looked to her like the party establishment had conspired to block him.

She spent weeks combing through the emails, hacked from Mr. Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton. Her stunned discovery enraged her and put her on the path to conspiracy theories and, eventually, QAnon.

The emails were Ms. Perron’s doorway to the conspiracy world, and she found others there too. She was no longer a lonely victim of a force she did not understand, but part of a bigger community of people seeking the truth. She loved the feeling of common purpose. They were learning together how to research, looking up important people in the emails and figuring out how to trace them back to big donors.

People who tried to talk her out of the conspiracy theories by sending her factual information only made it worse.

“Facts are not facts anymore,” Ms. Perron said. “They are highly powerful, nefarious people putting out messaging to keep us as docile as sheep.”
 
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I have to chuckle because some posters around here exhibit characteristics similar to Ms. Perron.

Everyone's "faith journey" is unique in particulars, but the sense of victimhood and grievances against unseen forces are strong, and the common ingredients.

Hopefully, credibly accused creepy joe is successful in making people feel that government is working on their behalf and not on the behalf of those powerful hidden forces. It's gonna be a heavy lift.
 
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You've become 57. A joke

as more and more of your party gravitates toward the insurrectionists, you seem to stand arm and arm.

I mean, if your policies were worth voting for, there would be no need for gerrymandered districts or trying to overthrow an election or even welcome with open arms people that chase kids that survived a school shooting down the street yelling invectives.


Do you really expect people to believe you get updates on QAnon from here
 
Yeah I voted for the coward who left me alone instead of the coward who wants to dictate every aspect of my life.

Tha k you for telling me that voting third party was a waste. I agree!
 
Just remember it is always a good idea to think carefully when you find yourself in a 3some with AOC and Ted Cruz.

At least AOC is hot.

But I'm certain this will result in less liberty for citizens. I'm also certain you will fully support it
 
good lord, you have devolved from an acolyte of Amash to a cheap knockoff of Marco Rubio.
Must feel liberating

Probably the way history will view you and your ilk
 
is FB still acting like qanon isn't a thing/just a fringe thing and that he doesn't know anything about it?
 
Yeah I voted for the coward who left me alone instead of the coward who wants to dictate every aspect of my life.

Tha k you for telling me that voting third party was a waste. I agree!

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