QAnon is a community that in a way resembles a game - you can spend time looking for conspiracy leads online. The reasons people get into it are many, but one worth noting is the disillusionment with modern America, says Will Sommer, author of "Believe in the Plan. Where QAnon came from and how it messed up America."
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
David Krawczyk: Among Donald Trump's voters in 2016, there were those who went to the polls not just to elect a president. They supported their warrior who was going to prevail against an international pedophile shaykh who kidnaps children and drains their blood. According to this conspiracy theory, the shaykh was to be led by Hillary Clinton. What conspiracy theory do they believe in today, a few months before the next election?.
Will Sommer: The foundations of conspiracy thinking have not changed much since 2016. Most theories are based on the assumption that the world is controlled by a mysterious, sinister and powerful group with nefarious aims, such as the sexual abuse of children, sucking their blood, or more precisely extracting from it adrenochrome, a derivative of adrenaline that is supposed to provide the elite with youth, even immortality, or flooding America with immigrants. In 2024, of course, you can see seasonal updates to these theories; we've already heard that the "state within the state," or the services, were supposed to have orchestrated Trump's assassination, or that a mysterious insider government forced Biden out of the race.
When Trump was vying for the presidency against Hillary Clinton, Pizzagate reigned supreme - the theory that high-ranking members of the Democratic Party, including Clinton, held kidnapped children at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington. This year we will also hear about it?.
Not likely, but the essence of the accusations there - namely, the notion that Democrats are satanists who abuse children - is still present in the public debate.
Why do so many of these theories involve pedophilia?
Because this is a topic that emotionally engages people, much more so than mundane everyday problems. Imagine you want to mobilize voters by offering them efforts to lower taxes or introduce legislation to reduce carbon emissions. Now think of you telling them, "Listen, the most powerful people in the world are committing crimes against defenseless children. If we don't act, no one will stop them." What will work more to mobilize? Proponents of these theories, often clustered in online forums, refer to themselves as "digital soldiers" or the Army of God. They get a sense of mission, excitement and a belief that they are taking part in something important. No longer do you have to join the army or risk your life, all you have to do is connect to the Internet and post about the satanic conspiracies of the Democratic Party.
There is no shortage of twists and turns in the ongoing election campaign. The most unexpected event so far has been the attack on Donald Trump..
The assassination itself was indeed not expected by anyone, but how it was used was already not hard to predict - immediately Trump supporters with conspiracy-minded tendencies rushed to their keyboards. Theories of this type always arise on the grounds of some event that is difficult to grasp with the mind, something simply strange and unusual. Examples of such events include the pandemic or suspicious death of Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and pimp convicted of sexually abusing underage girls. Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, was known for his ties to some of the world's most influential people, including Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
These, like the assassination attempt on Trump, are situations where there are indeed unanswered questions. How is it possible that the assassin was so close to the former president? Proponents of conspiracies are unable to come to terms with the unknowns. So they answer in their own way: "It must have been planned. Joe Biden is behind it, after all, he and the satanists in the Democratic Party would benefit the most."
And how did you react to the news that the bullet swished literally millimeters from Trump's skull?
I remember I was eating dinner at the time and looked at the X. The first thing that came to my mind: it must be a fake, probably someone generated the video using artificial intelligence. But I started scrolling and everyone was just talking about it. Then, in turn, I thought that this event would set the tone for the entire campaign, and Trump could practically declare victory. Now it's not so obvious. The coup happened a few weeks ago, an eternity has passed since then - Democrats have swapped candidate for candidate, the race to the White House has taken on a completely different pace. We are in such a tumultuous time in American politics that even the assassination was news that excited people for just a few days.
Republicans have gone to great lengths to build a positive mythology around the event and to keep photos of Trump with a clenched fist in the media circulation for as long as possible. This is not as easy as it might seem. The fact that the assassin was not some fanatical Biden supporter does not help them. We don't know much about his political views. On the other hand, this is perfect ground for all conspiracy snoopers, as they can fill this void in their own fashion. Someone found information on the Internet that the assassin, as a young boy, starred in a commercial for one of the big companies in the financial industry - the road from this fact to the theory that it was then that he was recruited by this company and tried to kill Trump on its behalf was short.
Hillary Clinton has been the heroine of hundreds, if not thousands, of such unbelievable stories. Biden according to many theories has long been dead, and the man we see on TV is his double. And Kamala Harris?.
Certainly, the conspiracy universe that accompanied Hillary Clinton is not yet as rich. Harris is supposed to be part of the same satanic circle ruling the world, but she is more of a puppet in the hands of powerful figures like George Soros and Bill Gates. She's been in politics much shorter than the Clintons or Biden, she simply hasn't provided as much fuel with her career to date as her predecessors. Anyway, conspiracy theories about Biden have weakened in recent years. The main accusation against him has been his old age and poor health - and these aren't unstated fantasies, just facts visible to the naked eye.
Donald Trump disputes the ethnicity of Kamala Harris - at a meeting with black journalists he said that the Democratic candidate has only recently become black, and previously only admitted to having Indian roots. There are also those who question her right to run in the elections, suggesting that she was not born in the United States. A repeat of entertainment - the same allegations were made against Obama..
Long before he became president and got involved in politics, Trump was the best-known promoter of the conspiracy theory challenging Obama's birthplace. An entire movement, called the Birther Movement, grew out of these accusations - many say it was on the wave of this movement that Trump decided to run for election. And indeed, we are seeing echoes of this theory to hit Kamala Harris now - from the fact that her parents did not have American citizenship when she was born, Trump's supporters infer that she is not American and cannot run. This is complete nonsense, completely unconstitutional. If this were true, millions of Americans would not be de facto Americans. There is no basis for building a meaningful legal argument here, but that's not the point. Questioning her ancestry is a way to instill the idea among voters that Harris herself doesn't know who she is, and is changing her ethnic identity for the public.
Another popular conspiracy theory posits that we are ruled by lizards from outer space who possessed the art of impersonating various human forms. Do such beliefs have a real impact on political life?".
Quite a lot. There was a long-held belief in the American media and among the political establishment that since conspiracy theories are so absurd, they are believed by some marginal group of fanatics and should not be paid attention to. Added to this was a long tradition of viewing both sides of the political spectrum in the same way, which is combined with the belief that various kinds of lunatics are in both camps.
That all changed on January 6, 2021, when a crowd of Trump supporters staged a storm on Capitol Hill. Many of those who broke into the building belonged to the QAnon movement. Its representatives had previously been tried for murder, but even then their significance was downplayed.
In the book Believe in the Plan you describe what rallies involving QAnon members were like. What are these people actually like? What do they believe in?".
QAnon is a vast conspiracy theory. Its adherents believe that the world is controlled by a secret group of financiers and wealthy from Hollywood, the Democratic Party, NATO and the UN. The main purpose of their existence is to sexually abuse children in satanic rituals, during which they drop their blood and then drink it to live forever. They also believe that Donald Trump was recruited by the U.S. military elite, which prompted him to run for president. His goal was to become president, so that at some point he would arrest members of this secret group and curb their activities - this event is called "The Storm" in QAnon mythology. When that day comes, the representatives of the sinister forces will be incarcerated in Guantanamo, and the rest of us - that is, those who do not end up in Guantanamo - will be able to enjoy life in a kind of utopia. The name QAnon comes from the fact that proponents of the theory get tips on online forums from a character with an undisclosed identity who goes by the name Q - that's someone who started publishing his mysterious posts in 2017. QAnon members are convinced it's someone with close ties to Trump, and some suspect him.
You reported on the assault on the Capitol, being on the ground, among the people who tried to force their way into the building. The whole world was watching the scenes from Washington at the time. Did you have a sense of satisfaction that it came out your way? These supposedly marginal groups of followers of absurd conspiracy theories proved to be dangerous indeed..
To be honest, I was thinking largely about how to keep myself safe. As at other rallies of the far right, I had my typical "disguise" - dark glasses, baseball cap, grown beard. But I had been writing about QAnon for some time by then, for many of its members I was the enemy - unfortunately, I was quickly recognized in the crowd. I expected there would be a protest outside the Capitol, but not that it would be such a bloodthirsty crowd.
I also thought about what brought us to this place in history. January 6 was the culmination of many conspiracy theories and right-wing stories about American politics that were born in 2016, during Trump's first campaign. Followers of QAnon hoped that on the day of Biden's inauguration there would be a "Storm" and the patriotic people would imprison and judge the members of the satanic sect ruling America. There they fought to the death. One of the women who lost her life in the battles with the police was heavily involved in QAnon.
During the storming of the Capitol, QAnon played an important role, but are these unbelievable stories present in the daily debate between serious politicians?
Conspiracy theories in American politics prepare the ground for various attack strategies that are used by major politicians. Let me give an example. In the campaign in which Trump competed with Clinton, allegations began to surface against the Democratic candidate that she was a pedophile, murderer and head of an organized crime group involved in human trafficking. How could Clinton deny this? After all, she won't make an election spot in which she announces: "Dear compatriots, I wanted to tell you that I am not a pedophile or a murderer." So these theories live a life of their own, outside the mainstream, but in the traditional media or even during televised debates, Republican politicians wink at adherents of such theories, for example, throwing in a phrase like: "and by the way, it is known what you can do with children" - it is impossible to hold someone accountable for such a watered-down accusation, but the effect is achieved.
There is really no shortage of issues in American politics that politicians should be concerned with. Gun access, health care, the rising cost of living are not exciting enough topics for voters?.
Certainly not like QAnon. It's all about that sense of agency and order in life, where the news that reaches us fills us with horror. Let's look at the pandemic. It's harder to admit that we're simply dealing with a chaotic course of events than to say, "Here are these few people responsible for all the evil in this world. Let's judge George Soros and Bill Gates." In American politics, and in fact in any developed democracy, it is very difficult to effect any real change. Added to this is the polarization that makes cooperation between the two feuding camps virtually impossible.
Since I am unable to change anything in politics, I will at least fight for the big stakes, such as the war against global conspiracies?.
This is exactly how this line of thinking works. People choose such political battles where fundamental values are at stake because it gives them a sense of community. QAnon is a ready-made community that, in a way, resembles a game - you can spend time looking for conspiracy leads online. There are many reasons why people get into it, but in my opinion it is worth noting the disillusionment with modern America.
Many people I've talked to got into QAnon because they had a very bad experience with the health care system. They got into huge debts. They began to wonder: "Why do we basically have these problems? I've always believed that America and capitalism are perfect." QAnon offers a simple explanation: our country and the world in general are fine, but sinister elites have taken over. If we overthrow them, utopia will prevail.
And who actually believes this? These are the typical Trump voters - white working-class Americans spinning imperial fantasies of a "great America"?.
Initially, QAnon's supporters were indeed mainly those attending Trump's rallies - white, mostly older men, devoted Fox News viewers, and often the evangelical right. After a few years, especially during the pandemic, the situation began to change. The popularity of conspiracy theories on TikTok and Instagram helped broaden QAnon's base of supporters. Today, the typical Trump electorate you're talking about still supports QAnon, but the movement has also opened up to the young, people of non-white skin color, and especially women - made possible by the Save the Children campaign, which is emotionally moving and declaratively apolitical, making it appealing to people regardless of their party affiliation.
Maybe QAnon is simply a successful Kremlin project to stir up American politics? It would be neither the first nor probably the last disinformation operation organized by the FSB..
We know that Russian social media accounts supported and spread QAnon content. However, it seems to me that Americans don't need the Russians to believe in conspiracy theories. It may indeed be that Russia somewhere on the fringes of the movement recruited a few people to it, but in general I don't share this tendency of American liberals to explain all the political problems that happen to us in the States by the actions of the Kremlin.
Tim Walz recently joined the presidential campaign as the Democrats' vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Will he land on the target of conspiracy trackers .
It certainly will. When Tim Waltz joined the race, within the first 24 hours I had already seen various theories that suggested he had changed the flag of the state of Minnesota, of which he is governor, to look like the flag of Somalia. There were also unsubstantiated accusations that he was grooming children to mutilate their genitals - typical QAnon movement fantasies of a pedophile elite conspiracy. It is apparent, however, that Walz does not intend to be indebted and is able to give back - perhaps not on the same terms, but on similar ones.
What do you have in mind?
You've probably heard about this rumor that J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, was supposed to copulate with his couch.
What was he supposed to be doing?
Satisfy himself sexually by rubbing himself against a piece of furniture in his home. Someone posted such a dorky entry on the X portal and added that Vance described it in his autobiography. That's not true, but it by no means slowed down the speed with which this peculiar story began to spread online. Politicians joked about it until it finally reached the top of the US election campaign. Well, Walz addressed the joke in a not particularly veiled way during his first appearance as a vice presidential candidate. He said he was willing to stand up to debate Vance at any time of the day or night, and then added that as long as the latter was able to get up off the couch. This is what our campaign is like now.
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Will Sommer - American journalist on a regular basis for The Washington Post. A graduate of international relations at Georgetown University. He has previously published in The Daily Beast, The Hill, The Goergetown Voice and The Washington City Paper. He is the author of the reporter's book Believe in the Plan. Where QAnon came from and how it messed up America. His work focuses on analysis of right-wing media, issues of political radicalization and right-wing conspiracy theories in the United States.
