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A long time ago i was covering a very public federal trial and I was doing some national TV appearances and a guy I barely knew from high school and hadn’t spoken to since apparently began following my coverage.
He reached out on Facebook and having not seen him in a decade I didn’t know not to say hi back. Quickly, that proved to have been the wrong move, as he had become a paranoid schizophrenic in the interim.
He was convinced — at various points — that the only way to save the human race was to impregnate me. He also thought at times I might be Hillary Clinton undercover. He sent me super insane stuff. He thought I was trying to kill him.
He would post pics of guns and then pics of me, and discussed coming to the federal courthouse where I was covering this trial. I talked to someone during all this who gave me what has been a helpful perspective.
This person said “Imagine giant ants are chasing you. What would you do? If you were certain that your death or the safety of people you care about was imminent?” And the answer obviously is i would do whatever I had to do. Kill the ants? You’re damn right.
Now imagine you think those are giant ants chasing you. But they’re not. You’re just paranoid enough to think they are, or you’ve been convinced into believing that giant ants lurk in the shadows. And the media won’t report on it!
I mention this because it helped me understand that situation and it helps to understand the QANON situation. People who think giant ants are chasing them are incredibly dangerous. But they’re not inherently evil people.
They’ve become convinced they must fight something incredibly scary and dangerous — something that, like giant ants — isn’t real. Or at least isn’t real in the sense they think it is.
Anyway, the QANON phenomenon is sad. And it’s scary. And that’s a really shitty combination.
I’m not excusing the grifters and chaos agents and accelerationists and antisemites. I’m simply saying that much of the QANON believer base is convinced there are giant ants chasing them.
