I wouldn’t call it a gap for the supernatural as such, I think phenomena appealing to a supernatural explanation just lend themselves well to filling that gap. There’s nothing actually supernatural about the bare-bones QAnon story, for example. Adrenochrome may be mythical, but it’s more like science fiction than fantasy, if you get me.
That is a good point. It makes sense it is filling a gap in their worldview. One can armchair psychologize along the lines of,
These people are mostly middle class and white. They have been in a position of privilege their whole lives. The privilege is being questioned now and power is shifting to POC and immigrants who previously didn’t have it. This is very hard to align with their existing worldview which, while not always consciously, is formed on a bedrock of white supremacy. This lose of power is very disconcerting and needs an explanation which can’t be their prior success was, at least, partly based on privilege rather than their own hard work. A perfectly good explanation is that a broad conspiracy has been operating to reset the world order, the leaders of which are the worst thing our culture can conceive of-pedophiles.
This also explains why republicans no longer really care about policy. All they care about is their politicians be FIGHTERS. All that matters is they be fighting back against this new world order. This leads new GOPers to fill their staff with communications people rather than traditional policy staff. They don’t really care about tax cuts, budgets, trade etc except how they interface with this larger global battle for the rightful social order that places them at the top.
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Or perhaps not:
But polls have shown few differences on QAnon between voters with and without college degrees—Civiqs’s latest survey, for instance, registers 72 percent opposition and 5 percent support for the theory among graduates. The split is 71 to 5 among nongraduates and 78 to 3 among postgraduates. And, notably, Americans without college degrees are less likely than graduates to have heard of QAnon in the first place.
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Yeah it absolutely helped shape mine too. Those arguing against should give it a listen.
Its mostly a danger at looking at Q believers, Republicans or any group lately and drawing large conclusions. I dont think a poll of a few hundred people is accurately capturing everything. I used to follow the author on Twitter but don’t fully agree with most of the piece.
I don’t fully agree with it either, I must say:
And when she runs for reelection next year, she’s sure to enjoy the support of many college-educated Republicans who, whether they personally believe in QAnon or not, want to keep as many right-wing firebrands as they can in Congress. Those who think such voters will inevitably doom the party would do well to remember the 2010 midterms—despite the Tea Party’s rhetoric and antics, Republicans took the House in a historic wave.
In the bolded lies the rub. And kind of a nit, but ‘despite the Tea Party’ is a bit of a take imo.
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Like there is a gigantic gap in even people who will vote MTG over any Democrat, from the “taxes” crowd to “they eat babies” crowd. But they count the same.
I think what you are saying is related to my point but I actually think religion precedes AM radio/Fox news which precedes Qanon.
As a kid who was brainwashed in the Lutheran church and through AM radio simultaneously I think I am qualified to speak on this. When you teach a kid that a magical being who loves you will solve all your problems you detether them from reality.
I very distinctly remember being at my grandma’s funeral at 10 and praying the entire time for literally like 2 hours to bring her back to life. When it didn’t happen and there wasn’t even any semblance of a sign that it mattered that put a niggle of doubt in my mind. Then there was the intersection of politics and religion that occurred constantly. I went to the lutheran school associated with our church. A kid in my class was expelled in 7th grade for bringing a condom to school. Every election there were people at the parking lot entrances to the church/school handing out pamphlets of who to vote for. Being a democrat would get you socially ostracized.
Worst of all was the abortion protesting. Wichita was pretty much the epicenter of abortion protesting in the early 90s and beyond starting with the “Summer of Mercy”. My parents took me to those protests and I stood there like a good little boy with my “God hates abortion” sign or whatever it was. My parents were both arrested that summer. Eventually the movement got what they wanted and some nut shot and killed the abortion doctor George Tiller.
Then there was the AM radio brainwashing. Literally driving to and from everything it was on. Driving to school, church, sports practice, vacations it was always Rush and his slightly less fun AM people spewing the propaganda into our heads.
When it was time to go to college I had long since started to check out (although the right wing brainwashing was still there, more on that in a minute). I did not really believe anymore and was drinking and using church as a place to meet people my age for sex. There were always the “bad kids” at church and by this point I was one of them. My parents decided they weren’t going to give me a penny to go to college unless I went to a 2 week christian reeducation camp in Manitou Springs called Summit Ministries. I made a financial decision and I went even though I knew it would be awful.
Awful it was. Every day there were hours of class telling you about how the liberal media and college was going to feed you lies. They taught extensively that the Earth was 6000 years old with “scientific” proof. I always laugh when you guys bring up Ken Ham because he was there spewing his lies at this camp in 1999. They taught about the dangers of socialism. They taught about the evils of abortion. It was two weeks of hell for me. I called home the first week every day begging to come home. The weirdest thing was some older guy who worked there pulled me aside about halfway through and told me he had been having dreams about me. In them he was supposed to talk to me because I would do great things. Even at 18 I realized I was likely being groomed for sex and so just walked away completely grossed out. Eventually it ended.
I say all that to get to my point. After that I was never going to have faith in God in that sense. The control of “religion” was gone. But the control of the right wing propaganda I had been subjected to continued. I am very ashamed of that.
I continued to spout anti-evolution nonsense to my friends. I continued to spout anti-climate change stuff. I supported Bush both elections and the Iraq war. I was anti-gay marriage. This went on for almost a decade after leaving the re-education camp. The right wing propaganda was much stronger than the religious propaganda.
I credit the 22 pol forum and my wife with starting to deprogram me. Now I look back at all the people stuck in that with anger and fear. Mostly because the Christian movement in this country isn’t religious. It is a hate filled political organization camouflaged by some crappy songs and fake prayer time. Look at how the Christian leaders were willing to sacrifice everything for Trump.
TL, DR: I grew up in an insane right wing church family and the AM radio brainwashing is much stronger than the religious brainwashing. Religion primes you for right wing nuttery which is now priming people for Qanon.
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And just to sharpen my point a bit once you base your entire life around an imaginary being is it really that insane to think Donald Trump is the GOAT and solved every problem this country had? Once you believe that is it really that insane to believe that Biden and Tom Hanks have a secret pedophile ring? They all take faith after all because none of them are real. Faith rather is than reality is taught as a virtuous trait in these circles.
When your entire worldview is based on lies from the start you are conditioned to believe the insane and the impossible.
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Fantastic post. Thank you for giving us a really interesting look into that world. And major props to you for managing to break free from it. I can’t even imagine how difficult that must have been, both growing up like that and eventually confronting it enough to change your world views.
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Bigoldnit posted a link to this in the Covid thread:
Supreme Court exempts California church from Covid restrictions
because in-person indoor worship is more important than defeating this pandemic. Once again Faith>Facts.
A bunch of congregations here in Alberta are suing our extremely right wing government for having the temerity to institute any limits on attendance in their churches.
Imagine looking at SCOTUS and the judiciary and thinking republicans don’t play to win.
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Not really, it’s just projection.
They truly live in a bizzaro up is down world. It’s incredible.
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Thanks for this.
It seems you would have been growing up on the tail end of the satanic panic (at least here in the states.)
I’ve posited after listening to Alex Jones and Qanon anonymous that there is little difference between what is happening now and what was happening then but I’m curious about your experiences with stuff like that in the early 90s.
Listening to Jones now compared to 2016 it’s very striking. He is nearly a satanic panic preacher at this point. The guys on Knowledge Fight skipped over almost a third of his show this week because the main host refused to cover the vile and false pedophilia and satanic ritual claims he was throwing out about various democratic members. Its sick and so insidious.
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I’m sure unstuckpolitics is right up there with them.
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Pretty fantastic episode about how the chans came about in Japan and how they tie to the alt-right.