Thread by @JYSexton

Okay.

We need to talk about how the Republican Party absorbed the QAnon conspiracy theory in order to enrich and empower itself, and how it's shedding the name but keeping its features for purposes of radicalizing its base.

This has happened before.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/on-the-outsi…

What's happened with the paranoid lawyer Lin Wood recently is instructive in understanding how this works, and how the GOP has brought QAnon and other conspiracy theories in for its own purposes while pushing out the people who infected the public with it.

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People want to pretend the QAnon conspiracy theory is just an absurdity we don't need to think about, but like other paranoid narratives it isn't about the original movement, it's about how it prepares populations for violence and antidemocratic actions.

It lives on.

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Of course, we're all familiar with how former disgraced general Mike Flynn peddled QAnon while telling people he believed a military coup was necessary and that violence was needed to solve political problems.

He's moving away now, and we need to understand why.

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Flynn played a major role in spreading QAnon, going so far as to recite a pledge to be a "digital soldier" in a war against corrupt and dangerous elements.

This served a purpose. In the base it created a subset of those who were becoming prepared for violence.

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We've seen this before in America, and the best example is the John Birch Society, which peddled absurd conspiracy theories claiming foreign elements had overtaken the government, were perverting the nation, and represented an apocalyptic threat.

This should sound familiar.

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The basis of the John Birch Society's conspiracy narratives was the threat of communism.

Right Wing reactionaries base their appeals on the fear of foreign elements partnering with internal traitors and radicalizing populations of color.

It's ultimately antisemitic.

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It needs noted, by the way, that one of the founding members of the John Birch Society was Fred C. Koch, a businessman and father of the Koch Brothers who would use the paranoia and conspiracy theories years later to create this current crisis we're struggling through.

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Though the Birchers were something of a joke, much like QAnon, as the Civil Rights Movement began to gain momentum their paranoid narratives took hold in the Right Wing ecosystem.

It was useful in discrediting necessary calls for reform and legitimizing violence.

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Racist figures like Governor George Wallace used Bircher conspiracy theories to attack Civil Rights, claiming it was all a communist plot to hurt America.

This was a widespread phenomenon that gave white supremacists a story that rationalized their positions and violence.

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Eventually the Bircher conspiracy theories came to hold sway over a Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater.

Goldwater would be routed in the election, but the GOP recognized the usefulness of these conspiracy theories in manipulating its voter base.

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Republicans weren't the only ones who understand the usefulness of conspiracy theories.

The Kochs learned from their father that these paranoid stories were a great means of manipulating the masses and used them to radicalize the country and enrich themselves.

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The basis of the Kochs and other wealthy elite's plan to use conspiracy theories was the story of the New World Order, a rebranding of the communist/antisemitic conspiracy theory that claimed, again, foreign elements and internal liberal traitors were hurting the country.

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In 2010, the Kochs and other billionaires created a fake movement called the Tea Party, which capitalized on white supremacist fear of the first black president.

It was Bircherism reborn with a new coat of paint, all of it intended to deflect anger from the wealthy.

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Right Wing media like Fox News quickly recognized the opportunity of the Tea Party and helped to create a fake "movement" they could wield like a weapon.

This created a completely alternate reality where the Right was fighting socialist, New World Order forces.

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In this alternate reality, Barack Obama, a completely normal president, was turned into the antichrist and an agent of the New World Order.

The Kochs and Fox News succeeded in radicalizing the base and pushing the political spectrum into absurdity and pre-fascism.

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The Republican Party faced a dilemma: either embrace the Tea Party or face a potential opponent.

The GOP made its choice, bringing the Tea Party in, absorbing it, and shifting the party itself to the Right until the standard bearers were replaced.

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There is no Trump presidency without this conspiracy theory.

There is no Trump messiah cult.

The Tea Party, a completely constructed, paranoid farce helped facilitate this current crisis we're in, and it was the realization of Bircher ideas weaponized.

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And what's more, this led to a new generation of GOP candidates who now embrace QAnon conspiracy theories completely, claiming to fight a war against the very New World Order/Deep State/cabal forces.

The conspiracy theory has changed our politics by normalizing this.

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And there's a reason QAnon has been absorbed into the GOP.

It's effective.

The conspiracy theory narrative allows the GOP to perform antidemocratic actions to *save* the country.

It's defense, after all. A war. And rigging elections is only the least they can do.

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QAnon principles, even if the people preaching them don't know they're doing it, prepared the GOP's base to get involved in localized fights and abuses against schoolboards and local governments.

It made widespread radicalization A NECESSITY.

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By harnessing the power of QAnon conspiracy theories, figures like Tucker Carlson have been carrying out their own plans, including pushes for the destruction of liberal democracy as a "Defense of Western Civilization"

They're casting QAnon off because it's *ALREADY* worked

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Crackpots like Lin Wood are disposable because they discredit the project to normalize conspiracy theories in culture.

QAnon and the GOP are already merged. They don't need people embarrassing them. The basis is ALREADY primed for violence and coups.

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If you want to read more of this history, including how these conspiracy theory narratives have been used throughout American history for these types of purposes, check out AMERICAN RULE: HOW A NATION CONQUERED THE WORLD. It gets into all of it.

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