It's more complicated than this. I don't have compassion or pity for the Capitol attackers. They chose insurrection over democracy. But many QAnon believers are trapped in their own fear of a cold and changing world that offers no easy answers, only an endless stream of enemies.
QAnon offers these people answers to their questions, a community of those who think the same things they do, and a way to strike back at those seen as keeping them down. Yes, it's a racist and anti-Semitic mythology. But they genuinely don't see it.
I would never tell anyone their anger toward coercive movements like Q is misplaced. But not all Q believers are the same. Some are violent and authoritarian, others are just looking for someone to tell them everything is going to be okay.
Ted Lieu has every right to be pissed at the people who nearly killed him. I'm pissed too. But all I'm asking for is nuance - understanding that Q and conspiracy theories in general can hook anyone, and every believer is different.

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More from @rothschildmd

3 Mar
Remember all those people who knew the stage at CPAC was *definitely* patterned after a Nazi rune? They were *definitely* wrong.
Some other infestations of Nazi horror designed by those fascists at Design Foundry: the Mandela 100 Years Gala and the Biden Cancer Summit.
Nobody's going to admit they were wrong because, hey, it's Twitter. But it's clear that Design Foundry designed the stage, the ACU approved it, and it wasn't meant to look like a Nazi rune. Now can we please go back to hating CPAC for its ideas, not its stage design?
Read 9 tweets
9 Dec 20
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad...
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
Read 5 tweets
4 Dec 20
A young Kelly Loeffler staffer named Harrison Deal was killed in a car crash today. And because Q believers are grief-addicted ghouls, they're already creating a conspiracy theory that he was murdered by Brian Kemp or Barack Obama or someone. Deal was 20.
A 20-year-old person dying in a car crash is not "comms" or a "deep state message." It's a tragedy. Only someone absolutely numb to all human feeling would think otherwise.
They're already comparing Deal to Seth Rich and Michael Hastings. I'm not screen capping it because it's disgusting. These people need a hug and to spend a week without technology.
Read 6 tweets
3 Dec 20
I hate to say it, but conspiracy movements like QAnon rarely "end." Some of the precursor scams and tropes that fed into Q have been going for decades. People will drift away, but the core values of Q - distrust of authority and need for enemies to be punished - are eternal.
That's not to say that we shouldn't be pushing back against it, exposing its falsehoods, and trying to help people get out of it. We should be. But expecting that work to lead to Q "ending" will only lead to disappointment.
Expecting Q to "end" implies that people will suddenly stop thinking they have powerful enemies, and will stop looking for order in chaos. That's never going to end. It might just go by a different name.
Read 4 tweets
26 Nov 20
Sidney Powell has released the krak...uh...oh.
Hugo Chavez is kraken-speak for Benghazi.
"The kraken" appears to be a 100 page long request that Governor Kemp declare Trump won Georgia, because of Hugo Chavez's voting machines. I'm merely an unfrozen caveman lawyer, but I don't see this plane flying.
Read 7 tweets
6 Oct 20
A really big step forward in the deplatforming of QAnon, but Q promoters are excellent at ban evasion. And when Twitter took sweeping steps against Q in July, they quickly petered out and were evaded by Q followers who latched onto "save the children" conspiracy theories.
QAnon is a cockroach. It survives. It survives bans, deplatforming, the persistent silences of its avatar, constant disconfirmations, and countless failed predictions.

It survives because it fills a hole in the lives of its believers, and makes them feel important and powerful.
Figuring out why people cling to Q is just as important as trying to pry it out of their hands. Maybe more important. But as long as Q is treated like a social media curiosity rather than a philosophical cause, they'll continue to cling. And we'll always be a step behind it.
Read 4 tweets

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