We are in trouble.
35 years ago I attended conferences held by what today would be called QAnon supporters. I attended for decades and was even a speaker for them because what they had to say about holistic health was spot on and far ahead of everybody else. For example, 30 years ago they spoke about getting mercury removed from your teeth and about becoming gluten free, both of which are all the rage just now. They spoke about how undetected subclinical low thyroid could leave you constantly tired — a diagnosis all holistic MDs look for today.
I would attend and ignore all the fringe crazy stuff I heard — that the lefties were run by pedophiles; that a weird reading of the Constitution entitled you to do just about anything, like not pay your mortgage or your taxes and get away with it; how Dick Cheney was a member of a Satanic cult; how the global elite runs the world and is destroying your freedoms; how martial law could be declared any minute and take the rest of your freedoms away.
Never, ever did I think this stuff would become mainstream. So when the January 6th insurrection came I was alarmed. When 73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump I was equally alarmed — throughout his presidency he spouted these QAnon principles. For example, when he said “Drink a disinfectant to kill the virus” he was actually referring to a much beloved substance many of the QAnon crowd take to kill viruses and bacteria: Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) which is like Clorox.
For those of us not acquainted with QAnon teachings we think that only ignorant people who cannot think straight have joined this movement. We think criminal, violent, jobless nut cases conducted the insurrection. That is how we dismiss them and that is a mistake that could cost us dearly.
When I attended the “QAnon” meetings, engineers, PhDs, MDs, physicists and other highly educated people were there along with me. By no means is this a dumb unemployed crowd. The same has been found among the attendees of the insurrection. Their primary concern is their rallying cry:
“Our Democracy is in danger and we have to defend it. We will all lose our freedoms. The situation is so dire and immediate that violence is called for.”
Make no mistake, the gallows and the plastic handcuffs were not symbolic. What do you do before you hang someone? Tie their hands behind their backs so they can’t protect their necks.
Here is some of the psychological rationale that was operating 35 years ago and is in place now:
“Politically, we are the vanguards of defending our constitution. We have a mandate to fight for our freedom, just like happened in the American Revolution. We must protect our Constitution because nobody else will.”
“The left is evil. Many of them are Satanists and are against our very God. They belong to witches covens and drink baby’s blood. Most of all they run pedophile rings and will get one of your children if you let them. Anybody in their right mind would start a revolution over this.”
(It doesn’t help that Jeffrey Epstein DID conduct the world’s largest pedophile operation. It was the global elite who were his customers, not just Democrats.)
Individually they think,
“I am privy to information that no one else has. It makes me special and aware of things that are going on beneath the surface that not many people understand. My superior intelligence lets me discern what is really happening. I use my intuition and my ability to piece things together to discover the facts.”
“All the rest of the people are sheep. They even say ‘Baaaaaaa’ when you try to contradict some of their facts. Often they say ‘Wake up.’ Where have they been? All the sheep listen to the ‘mainstream news’ and believe everything they’re told.”
In other words the QAnon crowd has changed reality to the “real” reality. They say “Any news contrary to our enlightened newly discovered reality is fake news. The reality that the sheep buy is not reality.”
In trying to understand my QAnon friend’s concept of Trump I said, “So for you Trump is a highly evolved spiritual being?”
“Oh, yes” she said.
“Would you consider that ridiculing a disabled person is what a highly evolved person would do?”
“Never” she said.
“I saw Trump do exactly that. Did you see it?”
“Oh no. I don’t watch the news.”
We are in trouble.