Thread by @page88

Time to notice that QAnon is finished. My column ⁦@latimesopinion⁩ : latimes.com/opinion/story/…

Prophecies are all duds. No more Q. No more messiah Trump. Q Shaman in jail. Powell says there’s no plan. Even Flynn says major ideas are nonsense. Infighting. Many want straight anti-Semitism; some still want to shill for intravenous bleach.

Nothing gold can stay.

The Watkins porn duo created Q — that’s common knowledge now, no?

washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

Why is it important for to recognize that QAnon has withered?

It's not just important—it's urgent.

The far-right paranoiacs have the Republican Party hostage. Popular wisdom has it that no one in the GOP can move for fear of a primary challenge from "the right"—meaning cultists.

We think that we're being realistic & prudent in talking about "QAnon" as though it were a formidable monolith with a creed, inspiring leadership, marching orders, and a standing army.

In fact, the power of the "QAnon" hoax lies entirely in seeming to be worldwide movement, and spiking everyone's cortisol with its relentless snuff and porn.

The selling point of the headliners at the recent Dallas QAnon convention? Not that they were right. Not that they had a clear channel to god or Q. Not that they had saved souls or were happy or could heal people. JUST that...

they'd been "censored"!

This is a dance of death. The media conjures these scattered phantoms only to scold them, and a "movement" coalesces around the scoldings!

Sure, journalists stopped with the diner visits to tell us about exotic Trumpites who chew on nails and starve their children to buy more red hats.

But we keep trying to scare the sh-t out of each other with hysterical stories abt the imagined beliefs of the silliest members of Congress, and the saddest people on the internet.

It's not because of some terrifying new global army called "QAnon" that the Republicans are stuck in their tracks, & thus that the country is.

It's for FEAR of that imagined army.

Hold onto the fear if it serves you. But at least take stock:

Q has been exposed as the invention of a father-son team of pornographers living in Asia.
Q has been silent for 6+ months.

The chief pornographer behind Q, Ron Watkins, has said:
“We gave it our all, and now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able. We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution."

Trump the messiah is a defeated and deplatformed former blogger who can't sustain even a minimal audience for his rants, much less the White House.

Once bright QAnon lights, Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn, are now saying
1. There is no plan.
2. There are no military tribunals coming for Trump's enemies.
3. Much of QAnon is "nonsense."

Ideologically, "QAnon" is just shards. Some just want the antisemitism. Some have made common cause with New Agers around anti-vax. Some are all about crypto. And almost no one is using QAnon catchphrases anymore:

medium.com/dfrlab/qanons-…

There is an enormous danger in overestimating the real-world power of a washed-up and diffuse concept like "QAnon." Not only does it feed the ego of the dispossessed, but it creates a pitched battle where there is none. (Which means real battles get ignored.)

This is the argument, in part, of "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," by Richard Hofstadter, the 1964 Harpers essay that keeps on giving.

harpers.org/archive/1964/1…

First, from Hofstadter, *everyone* is projecting when it comes to paranoia and conspiracy.

A succinct example is in the news today:

The most rabid conspiracy theorists from January 6 have been arrested for...conspiracy.

Here is Hofstadter:

So there's ample evidence that there's nothing to Q. Just like there's ample evidence that there's no Satanic cabal.
But those who fear Q say, no, Q has infected the GOP at the highest levels. That engenders paranoia: "Q believers are lizard people posing as world leaders &c."

Here's another excellent point by Hofstadter.

Americans like to see treason. And they are blind to the "comedy of errors and museum of incompetence" that actually characterizes most hostile action.

I realize there's a penalty on Twitter for saying any danger is being exaggerated. And YES—when Trump commanded the US Army & cd issue executive orders, and when the pandemic was killing everyone—I believed things were much *worse* that people said.

But we have a vaccine & Biden now.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a carnie with no committees and almost no power. By contrast, Trump was once THE US PRESIDENT.

It has been a terrifying period in history. But things are much better now. And Q is in steep decline.