The Democratic Party Has a Fatal Misunderstanding of the QAnon Phenomenon

[Withywindle]

30. Add Mysteries to the list of genres

QAnon people are encouraged to think that they're solving a mystery and bringing hidden truth to light. They believe they're following clues and that they ARE thinking logically. Think of political/crime thriller novels and movies.

There are whole genres devoted to this: add in the idea that the government is hiding stuff about UFOs (Project UFO, the X-Files), any number of theories about Ancient Aliens on the History Channel etc. which is fiction claiming that it might not be. (Also racist in that the whole premise is based on the idea that black and brown people certainly couldn't have created those marvelous buildings and things, it must have been ALIENS)

Of course the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the ancient anti-Semitic blood libel is a huge part of this, to the core, and can't be removed from it.

Speaking as an SFF and mystery and horror nerd myself, I can say that MOST of us are quite content with fiction being fiction and don't get drawn into thinking it's reality - but we can certainly see how the process works.

Study of cults shows that most people drawn into them as adults (as opposed to being raised in them from childhood) are NOT uneducated or narrow-minded. Rather, the cult encourages them to think that they ARE being rational by joining, that the cult's beliefs are a logical explanation for what they see around them.

edited to add: The first person I knew who really seemed to be on the edge of seriously engaging the theory that Hillary Clinton is an occulist who sacrifices children was a manager in an arts organization who has a Philosophy degree.

The belief that the government is hiding things is not an irrational belief. It's true, all governments do. The room to really spiral out into the weeds, is the nature of those secrets.