Forgive me, but I'm reading through r/qanoncasualties, I've been watching the QAnon documentary on HBO, and I've listened to QAnon Anonymous for at least a year. I find the subject totally fascinating. QAnon is like this twisted mirror image of socialism.

Basically it looks like this creepy fucking boomer named Jim Watkins and his weird shitposter son Ron created QAnon to bring more traffic to 8chan, which they own but which has never made any money for them. (I'm far from an expert on QAnon but the documentary makes a compelling case, let's say.)

I've seen the first three episodes of the documentary, where people are starting to literally kill each other over QAnon, and the Watkins' boys just don't fucking care. This may even go beyond CIA-level psychopathy, or is at least at a similar level. Meanwhile, r/qanoncasualties has story after story of friends and relatives losing their fucking minds, their jobs, all their relationships, and often killing themselves because of QAnon. It's just absolutely insane.

I've also spent maybe about two years "studying" (listening to podcasts on) Zizek and started drifting toward Marxism at around the same time a lot of these people were turning to QAnon. I haven't lost any close friends or family because of this, but it's definitely strained some relationships. (All of my close friends and relatives are either liberals, Berners, social democrats, or even beyond.)

When normies or liberals talk to QAnon people, they clearly think that the QAnon people are insane (although to some extent the average American believes in at least some parts of QAnon—including me, if Jeffrey Epstein counts as being part of QAnon, although I can't recall ever hearing a QAnon person mention him).

When normies or liberals talk to Marxists, does the same reaction take place? Do they just deploy horseshoe theory on us? Would they prefer to talk to QAnon folks over Marxists? Do they think that Marxists, who point to systems as the main issue, are really the same as QAnon folks, who blame all the woes of the world on a shadowy cabal of Satanic pedophiles?

To sum up: how do your non-Marxist / non-anarchist friends and family treat you when you talk about politics?

  • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The social reality we all have to face, at least in the U.S., is that for most people horseshoe theory is very true. If you're politically disconnected, which is most people, then there is no tangible difference between someone yelling about Stop the Steal and someone yelling about Defund the Police. Both groups are just loud, scary malcontents that are part of the background noise of daily life. In that context, most people's instincts when confronted with an outspoken member of either a far-left or far-right camp is to just nod, put their heads down and walk away.

    If forced to interact with one of those people, that indifference can turn to incredulity or even anger, as here is someone that is not only disrupting their peace but forcing them to contend with opinions outside what they've been told their whole life is socially acceptable. Opinions that potentially threaten the systems and norms they tacitly understand they depend on. Until conditions worsen to the point that just about everyone is forced to abandon the current status quo (which has its own competing currents), then yes, many of us will likely be seen as just as crazy as Q types.

    After I last got fired for trying to unionize my job, my own mother screamed at me that she didn't want me to become the next unibomber, so... :shrug-outta-hecks:

    • triangle [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I think a very important difference for us is rooting slogans and theory in praxis - decades of propaganda will melt in the face of commies and anarchists that bring you food, run neighborhood clinics, help you set up a neighborhood committee or equivalent soviet, etc.

      • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Oh absolutely. Now is the time we need to be building left institutions and working to make those institutions part of peoples' day-to-day lives.

        On that note, I have a lot of frustration with activists in my area who do good mutual aid praxis but refuse to call themselves socialists or attach themselves to the handful of orgs that are about. :agony:

        • duderium [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          At least you have orgs and mutual aid in your area. I’ve tried to start them and my efforts have gone basically nowhere. I’m going to keep trying once I get vaxxed.