Republicans Mainstreamed QAnon, Ground Politics to a Halt

Conspiratorial thinking has become a central part of the GOP

I remember the first time I heard about QAnon, the ridiculous mass delusion that states that Democrats are secretly killing children and drinking their blood. I thought it was so ridiculous; I found it hard to believe anyone would buy into it.

That was about four years ago. Now the QAnon mass delusion is firmly ensconced in one of our major parties, and that would be the GOP. QAnon-like conspiracy theories have been tied to the downfall of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which led to the disastrous presidency of Donald Trump. And QAnon has also been linked to Jan. 6, which will go down as one of the most embarrassing and dangerous days in American history.

In addition, Republican politicians have now started attacking Democrats with the term “grooming,” which is a reference to the QAnon mass delusion. The idea is that all Democrats are sexual deviants who want to lead children astray. This is straight from the QAnon mindset. According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll, about 25% of Republicans now believe in the central tenets of QAnon.

The QAnon Security Threat

The FBI now clarifies QAnon as a national security threat and it has been linked to several other attacks, apart from Jan. 6. Obviously, QAnon is no laughing matter. If there’s one thing both the rise of Trump and QAnon have taught me is conspiracy theories can be deadly.

Thousands of people attacked their government on Jan. 6 because they believed BS spewed by the former president of the United States. Those conspiracy theories killed seven people. Additionally, two years into the Biden administration, millions still falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen, even though several Trump cabinet-level officials have refuted this.

If one of the two parties was going to latch onto a conspiracy theory, it was going to be the Republicans. Republicans have always been suspicious of facts, figures, and science. They are even suspicious of the news industry.

Obviously, QAnon is no laughing matter. If there’s one thing both the rise of Trump and QAnon have taught me is conspiracy theories can be deadly. Thousands of people attacked their government on Jan. 6 because they believed BS spewed by the former president of the United States. Those conspiracy theories killed seven people.

The GOP has long dismissed the news business as “the liberal media.” However, this was a bait and switch tactic designed to get the media to lean to the right. And it worked. Even mainstream organizations, such as CNN and The New York Times, bought into this Jedi mind trick and started bending their coverage to be more favorable to Republicans to fight off the deadly “liberal media” smear.

This is something late media critic Eric Boehlert often talked about. The fear of being branded the ‘liberal media,’ was one of the reasons why The New York Times didn’t dig into the Russian investigation. The media didn’t want to be accused of being biased against Trump.

“The American news media is possessed by a deep fear of Republican hardball. Therefore, they were nervous about being portrayed as out of touch because Trump had won and they missed the story. They’re nervous about being portrayed as part of the ‘liberal media’ and they had never experienced anything like Trump before,” said Boehlert in a Salon interview.

An Alternative News Ecosystem

However, Republican fear of critical media has made them create their own news ecosystem. And FOX News Channel, a right-wing propaganda network, sits at the top of that food chain. Unfortunately, Fox News’ success spawned even more toxic copycats such as One American News (OAN) and Newsmax. These anti-news organizations only further enabled Republicans to create a world where facts and truth don’t matter.

“Americans who most trust such far-right outlets as One America News Network and Newsmax are nearly five times as likely to be QAnon believers than those who rely on more mainstream news outlets, the study found. Those who trust Fox News are twice as likely as those who watch more mainstream news outlets to subscribe to QAnon theories,” according to a U.S. News & World Report article.

Right-wingers' motto seems to be, “It doesn’t matter what CNN says, I’m going to listen to what FOX and Tucker Carlson say, even if it kills me.” Conspiracy theories flourish in this kind of environment. Carlson has also started mainstreaming conspiracy theories, such as the racist Great Replacement, into his show.

But, this seems to be like the chicken and the egg problem. What came first? The conspiracy theory, or the audience that was hungry for them? The same type of thinking was found in former White House advisor KellyAnne Conway’s notorious phrase, “alternative facts (lies.)” She was essentially saying that they could disregard the truth!

However, there are two main culprits for the explosion of conspiratorial thinking among right-wing voters. And they are Trump and Alex Jones.

Jones has always been a conspiracy entrepreneur, that is someone who makes money by selling feared-based claptrap, and then getting marks to buy junk to save them from the impending apocalypse. He was very good at his hustle, and it made him a multimillionaire.

But when he paired up with Trump, it was a match made in hell. Early in the stages of the Trump campaign, Republican operative Roger Stone formed an alliance with Jones. According to the brilliant documentary “United States of Conspiracy,” Stone did this because he wanted to tap into Jones’ huge audience.

According to a 2016 Vox article, at one point “InfoWars” received 10 million views in a month. (Jones has since been banned from YouTube.) But Jones and InfoWars are about as real as the WWE. Jones always knew that, but I’m sure many of his listeners didn’t.

Trump, Jones Combine to Misinform America

However, according to “United States of Conspiracy,” Jones was so close to the Trump campaign, that at one point the former president repeated lines straight from “InfoWars!” “InfoWars” is a show that talks about kidnapped children being held on Martian prisons and Jewish cabals running Uber.

Unfortunately, this was symbolic of the Trump presidency. Instead of listening to his advisers, department heads, and experts, Trump often believed whatever junk he read on the Internet. Alex Jones was one of his top advisers!

“The big shock was Alex having the ear of a president-to-be,” said Jon Ronson, an expert on extremism, who was featured in the documentary. “Of all the people I’ve interviewed over 35 years, I can think of a lot of people I would rather have the presidency than Alex Jones. It’s a bit of a shame that one of the most spiraling people I’ve ever met is the one who is influencing Trump.

It’s no wonder thousands of Americans died from misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic!

Now we’re at the stage where one side of the political spectrum is so deep into conspiracy theories, that it’s willing to believe the worst about the other side. For example, the ridiculous Internet-based lie about a school district allowing students to identify as “furries” and use a litter box has been long debunked, but it has been repeated several times by Republican politicians!

However, this is a perfect example of the problem. Republicans seem to have abandoned any critical thinking skills and will believe the most idiotic rumor about the left, even if it’s been disproven several times.

It’s no wonder our political system has almost ground to a halt. One side isn’t grounded in reality. You can’t have a functional political system if you spend hours arguing over the truth.