...when you belong to a religion that tells you to dismiss logic and reason in favor of faith and obedience, it’s not that big of a leap for worshipers to accept a difference kind of mythology. If the members of your church are spreading QAnon memes online, then maybe you weren’t doing that great of a job teaching them how to think for themselves.
That’s not specific to evangelicals, obviously. But many of the factors that make a church grow and thrive — a sense of shared purpose, a feeling of knowing something others don’t understand, a desire for knowledge in any form — are the same weapons being used by online conspiracists. If those pastors, who rightly reject QAnon and just want their members back, don’t understand the role Christianity played in convincing people to adopt comforting myths that defy common sense, they have no chance of “saving” the people who need to be rescued.
I really hate this type of thinking. QAnon people are not "dismissing logic and reason" any more than Liberals, democratic socialists, neoconservatives, etc. They are no more or less coherent than any other ideology in public consciousness.
They have a stronger awareness of the American deep state & intelligence community than Liberals & the most of the Left. They have a weaker awareness of the Trump family's entanglement in the deep state.
The public ambassador of socialism in the US spent the last week sharing a stage with high financiers & pedophiles. The world is contradictory. You're either a dialectical materialist or you choose to ignore contradictions to explain others.
QAnon is not uniquely "illogical." They're just dangerous.
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I am well aware. And those propagandists are willing to provide their audience with a look behind the veil that other propagandists will not.
For example, more QAnon people are aware of Operation Gladio than any other mainstream political current. They just think these programs were meant to crush "patriots."
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That is what I'm saying... They're the only mainstream political current talking about it. That's why QAnon is extraordinarily popular, and will only continue to grow.
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From what I've seen, they are upset about Assange. But they just believe that Trump is a messiah who is taking every correct step towards defeating the deep state. I don't know if you actually talk with QAnon supporters much. If you asked them "what about Assange?" they'd just say his silence is tactical. "If he freed Assange, the deep state would yada-yada-yada."
It's shilling for Trump, and the components of the Republican Party that will bend to Trump's will.
QAnon provides people with a language & political project which identifies the deep state, and conspiracy of finance capital. Until another project can speak to the specifics of these conspiracies, QAnon will continue to fester.
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Q accounts have been purged, so I cannot provide the tweets. But the primary current in Q lore is that Assange's arrest will be the moment that the deep state over-extends, and their game comes crashing down. They celebrate Assange's arrest because they believe he's a necessary martyr, or at least, a necessary event for Trump to take down the deep state.
There are a few voat threads which explain their lore better, but I'm at work right now, can't search much.
If QAnon was just repackaged neoconservatism, I would not be nearly as concerned as I am. Neoconservatism weighs down its political message with Liberalism, which is antithetical to reality & collapses under its own ideological contradictions much easier.
You absolutely can synthesize both, you just need to frame the deep state & the globalists (Jews) as a disease infecting the American nation. It's a tried-and-tested strategy for when the contradictions of capitalism become too great. It's just fascism lol
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"Awareness" was not the correct word.
Rather, they have a willingness to discuss the American deep state as a real, political actor that must be addressed. Many Americans are aware of the deep state, and QAnon has become extremely popular by virtue of being the only voice in this arena. Liberals & the Left have refused to touch this issue because they are afraid that the "conspiracy" label will alienate them from the people.
I'm hopeful that the Epstein case, the Democratic Primary, and the rise of QAnon will wake the Left up to this issue.
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The Left only exists in public consciousness through its representatives in the Democratic Party, so yeah, demsoc/socdem types. Those members of the Left only ever describe these issue in the abstract, never the specific. Describing the specifics would destroy their ill-conceived efforts to "infiltrate" the Democratic Party.
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