In the eyes of QAnon, the “genius” of Mr Trump will save us. Oh, the irony. Thanks to social media technology invented by the very people QAnon reviles, we now must contend with QAnon plaguing Canada.
The Illusion of Hidden Knowledge
Many people feel powerless. Fifty (50) Americans hold an amount of combined wealth equivalent to that held by a combined 165,000,000 other Americans. Many people also want to make sense of what seems to them meaningless chaos, especially in this year of turmoil. QAnon helps some of these people fill in the blanks for what they don’t understand. The less a person understands, the more help QAnon seems to offer. Conspiracy theories — like the ones pushed by the extremist far-right movement QAnon — provide believers with a sense of empowerment.
According to the two-volume, 925-page encyclopedia Conspiracy Theories in American History, “conspiracy theories are a popular explanation of the workings of power, responsibility, and causality in the unfolding of events”. In his preface to the work, editor Peter Knight begins by explaining that “Conspiracy theories (and, from time to time, actual conspiracies) have played a vital role in shaping the course of American history, from the Puritans to the present.” We can only hope that the contemporary super-spreader conglomeration of conspiracy theories known as QAnon will not shape the course of Canadian history. It may be too late.
The other pandemic: QAnon plaguing Canada
Canada is often the unlucky recipient of some of the worst things its southern neighbor has to offer the world. A warning in the periodical Foreign Policy presents a justified sense of urgency about QAnon plaguing Canada. On July 2, a middle-aged Manitoban QAnon enthusiast took his rifle and revolver to Rideau Hall, where Canada’s governor general resides. Neither Trudeau nor the governor general were around [to be on the receiving end of the man’s anger], but this story serves as a cautionary tale of what the right-wing extremist group is capable of spawning with their poisonous Q fanfiction.
Yet Canada thankfully also has somewhat different (read: better) values than Trumpland. Case in point, Saskatchewan Party candidate Daryl Cooper. It turns out that here in Canada, promoting COVID-19 conspiracy theories on your campaign’s Facebook page is not acceptable. Canadians on the whole know that anti-science conspiracy theories are not helpful during a pandemic. Cooper has resigned for sharing QAnon misinformation and the dangerous SARS-CoV-2 disinformation that is circulating amongst lost souls on the web. The outcome of this political anecdote contrasts sharply with stories from the 2020 election in Murica, where dozens who have run or are running for national office are openly sympathetic to the collective cognitive failure known as QAnon.
The state of collective cognitive failure in the States
Based on voting habits, we can estimate that ~60 million people among the U.S. population of 328 million can be considered Trumpists. Among these Trumpists are true devotees, or “cultists”, composing some unknown tens of millions of Americans. Qpers* are primarily found within this cultist subset of Trumpists.
In other words, while QAnon is a branch of Trumpism, not all Trumpists subscribe to QAnon propaganda. The most extreme form of delusion on the right-wing delusional spectrum is apparently a bridge too far even for some Trumpists. But we’ve also seen that this mental pandemic continues to spread more each month in 2020. In a poll published on October 20, half of Trumpists responded with support for QAnon.
As of September 2020, polls suggest that ~7% of the U.S. population (23 million) have a favorable view of QAnon and say they can trust QAnon to provide accurate information at least most of the time. Seemingly bizarrely, some 28% of Q-friendly respondents said Biden will have their vote in 2020. But what this actually underscores is that many Q sympathizers not only tend to have a tenuous grasp on reality — they also are unaware of the basic tenets of QAnon.
* Instead of using the popular term “Qtards” in reference to QAnon adherents, for now we refer to them with a more politically correct one: “Qpers”
Numerous slogans such as this one (“It can’t be a conspiracy if it’s true” ) reveal the flaccid intellectual prowess of your typical Qper. We can only hope they someday begin their deprogramming by cracking open books — starting with a dictionary.
Review: Some conspiracies are real, others are fictitious
“Nobody sensible is denying that conspiracies happen”, writes Mick West in the Introduction to his 2018 book Escaping the Rabbit Hole. We shouldn’t even need to review concepts that ought to be taught in secondary school, but that’s another discussion. So here we are. For the sake of convenience, we can place any conspiracy into one of three categories: [1] actual and “known”, [2] actual and “unknown”, and [3] non-existent (in simpler terms, “imaginary”).
[1] Actual and Known
There are well-documented conspiracies taking place in North America at any given time. For example, the Republicans who prop up Donald Trump are conspiring to delegitimize 2020 election results. This conspiracy is out in the open, with lawsuits filed across the nation. Trump himself admitted to us that he’d lose the election if everyone who has the right to vote is able to vote. As dual citizen David Frum wrote in Canada’s Maclean’s, “If everyone eligible to vote is allowed to vote, if every vote legally cast is counted — then Trump is doomed.”
[2] Actual and Unknown
At this very moment, undocumented conspiracies are also taking place. For example, in the “United” States a high tolerance of white-collar crime allows for untold illicit financial conspiracies to occur each year. We usually only hear about such conspiracies in the mass media when they fail spectacularly, leading to financial ruin too extensive to ignore, e.g., Enron. The lack of prosecution (read The Chickenshit Club ) or meaningful punishment ensures that the feasibility and probability of illicit financial conspiracies remains unabated.
[3] Non-existent
Lastly, we have conspiracies that simply don’t exist. These conspiracies take place not in reality, but solely in the mind. Thus the term conspiracy theory, which itself is somewhat a misnomer. Imagination is the only limit in fabricating a conspiracy theory. The requirement of what passes for “evidence” is defined by the inventor of the yarn, thereby eliminating any need for intellectual rigor. QAnon tries to bullshit their way into credibility with bizarre “proofs” that for the rest of us come across as grasping at straws (because we are not “awake”, apparently).
Recruitment: Bait & Switch
People want a scapegoat. They want to hold somebody accountable for the chaos and decline they see on television news or in their actual life.
QAnon recruits the confused or dispirited with truly despicable tactics. Perhaps the most reprehensible of these is QAnon’s use of a very real problem — child sex trafficking — as a political prop to ensnare well-intentioned but emotionally vulnerable people into a fantasy world. Some have a void in their life that allows them to vehemently jump into the “Rabbit Hole”. In turn, a fraction get lost in the Rabbit Hole and transform into ticking time bombs [domestic terrorists] who champion the Far Right.
QAnon insidiously spikes their cesspool of fabricated, politically-motivated child trafficking fiction with a quantity of truthful external facts about human trafficking. Why is this Machiavellian? Because it further blurs the lines between their extremist right-wing agenda and legitimate anti-trafficking activism. A vile tactic in any context, but truly shameless when we learn that it hinders real efforts to counteract actual child trafficking, such as when “concerned citizens” flood honest anti-trafficking organizations with bogus information.
Recruitment: Deception of Biblical Proportions
Another route of administration [for the toxic brain drug known as QAnon] is religion. Not just any religion, of course. It just so happens to be the religion Donald Trump pretends to have faith in (or as Amanda Marcotte puts it, “White evangelicals still hold considerable political power, which is why Donald Trump occasionally tries to get photographed fondling a Bible in ways he vainly hopes are convincing”).
But plenty of Christians aren’t buying what QAnon is selling. After all, when a new movement offers a new messiah, this naturally can become a threat to organizations offering an established messiah. “Q drops often quote Scripture—as even the devil does (see Matt. 4:10)—a tactic that adherents have said helped convince them the theory was worth their time”, writes Bonnie Kristian on a popular Christian website in her sapid attack on QAnon’s rubbish ideas.
[Conspiracy theories] hurt individuals by affecting their life choices, in terms of money, health, and social interactions. They hurt society by distracting from the very real problems of corruption and decreasing citizens’ genuine participation in democracy.” — Mick West
How QAnon plaguing Canada is Perilous
Qpers not only commonly issue death threats, they also occasionally commit conspiracy-related crimes and actual acts of domestic terrorism. We expect to see much more of this if Mr Trump loses the election. Yes, this is a troubling threat to live under, but minor acts of terrorism are still small potatoes when we contemplate the broader picture.
The integrity of democracy itself is at stake. Truth is the intellectual currency of a healthy democracy. You can’t really have a functional democracy if you don’t have a shared factual reality. The Trump administration’s introduction of “alternative facts” — presenting them as though they are valid, verifiable truths — has shattered the ability of citizens to move forward together in conversation, much less anything else. If countrymen can’t agree on facts, then meeting on common ground becomes onerous, and polarization persists. Without a functional democracy, a nation is wide open to demagogic strong men like Donald Trump.
The peril of the Q scam is that it serves as a distraction from the truth behind many salient contemporary issues, including actual threats to actual children. As ECPAT UK states in their downloadable FAQs on child trafficking resource brochure, “Primarily, preventing child trafficking requires addressing and responding to the factors that make children vulnerable around the world, including poverty, inequality and conflict.” Compare this to QAnon’s thesis of simply scapegoating by pointing at elites from an American political party (in fact the one that is less likely to promote inequality than the other party), and you can see where the cognitive failure occurs.
QAnon plaguing Canada in QUÉBEC
QAnon has gained traction in Quebec. You’ll see the magical letter “Q” emblazoned on signs and apparel at anti-mask protests in Montreal. In normal times, we might guess it has something to do with the Hydro-Québec logo. But we don’t live in normal times. Ironically, Q is an anglophone who may not even know that the province / nation of Quebec exists, yet Q’s agenda is pushed onto francophones by none other than the son of Jacques Cossette-Trudel and Louise Lanctôt. (If you’re relatively new to Quebec you may not know what the Front de libération du Québec, or FLQ, was; that’s a long story for another time).
This son, Alexis Cossette-Trudel, was recently booted off major social media platforms for feeding expired shit sandwiches to the public. In other words, he is a Québécois version of the infamous Murican conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. YouTube kicked Alexis off their platform on October 15, but not before he spread a colossal quantity of disinformation inside of Quebec. His media outlet Radio-Québec was reportedly “removed not for its ties to QAnon but for spreading incorrect information about COVID-19”. Good riddance for sure, but this was tantamount to closing the barn door after the horses bolted (considering that his videos have been viewed 100s of 1000s of times).
Meanwhile, Quebec continues to be Canada’s highest COVID-19 caseload, same as it was during the first wave of the pandemic. Thanks, Alexis, for encouraging Quebecers to make sure the province wins first place in the worst contest of 2020. QAnon plaguing Canada amounts to more than an exacerbation of Quebec’s exposure to SARS-CoV-2. We should probably view QAnon as a mental health pandemic on top of the public health crisis caused by a submicroscopic infectious agent.
Let’s worry about ACTUAL conspiracies
The world needs less mis- and disinformation and more people who can mitigate the damage done by actual, real conspiracies. How do we counteract an extremist narrative that’s grown beyond tin foil obscurity to become nihilistically malignant on a grand scale? Strategies against the threat have ranged from responding with compassion on one end to treating Qpers as terrorists on the other. When staring madness in the face, you can laugh to keep your own sanity — but mocking QAnon obviously changes nothing. Ignore them at your own risk. Alternate realities will eventually collide with our fact-based, shared reality.
If you’re unfortunate enough as to have Q sympathizers in your life, you could try the charitable (but also most vexing) approach first, as Mick West suggests in his book. Since QAnon means different things to different people, he warns us that there is no magic bullet for getting a Qper out of their fantasy world. If you need additional resources for this task, also check out his website Metabunk and especially his podcast Tales from the Rabbit Hole, “an interview-style podcast focusing on people whose lives have been affected by the conspiracy theory rabbit hole”.
Beyond a compassionate response to Qpers who we personally know, there isn’t much to be done directly, short of activism. It always helps to read up on a cult-like movement before confronting it. (If you never end up confronting it, at least you’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on around you.) Speak in verifiable truths as much as possible. In an ideal public square, the volume of verifiable truths would be so loud that the agents of mis- and disinformation would be thwarted.
Many more acts of QAnon-inspired domestic terrorism will occur. We can only hope that authorities will have the resources available to prevent the mayhem from spiraling out of control in the next couple of years.
ANTI-QAnon Resources
Right here in Montreal we have our own QAnon expert. Marc-André Argentino is a PhD candidate at Concordia who studies the rhetoric and Machiavellian strategies of extremist groups like QAnon. You’ll hear his name come up all over the place if you’re looking for what QAnon doesn’t want you to know about QAnon. Many useful links are found at his public scholar profile page under the “Recent activity” heading, categorized by month.
If someone you care about has fallen into the Rabbit Hole and is making your life miserable (not to mention destroying their own), there are online support groups such as QAnonCasualties.
Q Clearance: The Hunt for QAnon
This podcast began just in October and already we can tell they have the personal backgrounds necessary for uncovering more truths about Q’s conspiracy theory network. Their premier episode “Entering the QAnon Universe” [below] is as good a place as any to start learning about this extremist network. The episode is especially helpful for listeners who aren’t already familiar with the ugly side of the web.
The Qanon Anonymous Podcast
A casual, humorous, and definitive podcast for those of us who want to keep abreast of the latest Q methodology / flavors of Q-insanity without exposing ourselves directly to a seemingly contagious psychosis. Nobody likes to be laughed at, which is exactly why these podcasters laugh at QAnon. But these guys also dive deep, take the threat seriously, and reveal what QAnon doesn’t want you to know about QAnon. They recommend you start with their first episode, which has been updated since its original release:
Conspirituality Podcast
QAnon serves as an abstract headquarters for any conspiracy that ultimately will lead a Q sympathizer to mingle with conspiracies that support Far Right ideologies. If you already see how Q causes Qpers to lose the plot, then you won’t be surprised to learn about how “Pastel QAnon” does a number on yoga moms around the globe. The Conspirituality Podcast tends to focus on this side of the equation. “At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon.”
The half-hour video interview [below] with Seane Corn (a groundbreaking yoga teacher) is only a portion of Episode 17: The Politics of QAnon Spirituality, which is a lengthy 2½ hours.
Interview: QAnon plaguing Canada in QUÉBEC
If you have 23 minutes for a leisurely conversion about conspiracy theories in Quebec (a transcript is also provided, if you prefer reading instead), here’s this interview: