Read on Twitter
1/ @joshtpm hits on something here that's been tickling my brain for a while about Qanon and what people 'believe.' His conclusion (likely correct I think) is that it's a mistake to think of Q as a group of conspiracy theories that people think are necessarily factual.
2/ Marshall's reframing of Q explains why, if people really believed these things, wouldn't they be storming their Democrat neighbors homes at this very moment guns blazing? (The Welch below is Edgar, the gunman who want after Comet Pizza five years ago.)
3/ Rather, it's better to start thinking of Qanon as the violent wing of a revanchist party, and the 'conspiracy theories' merely as a way to juice members up. For most, it's not about belief in Q - it's about motivation to take action they were inclined to take anyway.
4/ FWIW, this jives with what I've seen in other radicalized groups in my own assignments.
There's a mistake we all tend to make - born I think from wanting to show good will - that regular people come to these movements with good (or at least neutral) intentions and naivety.
There's a mistake we all tend to make - born I think from wanting to show good will - that regular people come to these movements with good (or at least neutral) intentions and naivety.
5/ IOW, you drop in to an MRA web site or a 3%er chatroom or an Oathkeeper rally out of curiosity, and there's just such a steady stream of racism, antisemitism and/or misogyny that you naturally get swept up in it.
But that's not the way it usually works.
But that's not the way it usually works.
6/ What I have seen time and time again is that the people who are drawn to these movements arrive with those beliefs already deeply seated. They're coming to the group is almost always motivated by a desire to have those opinions confirmed.
Afterwards, of course, if things go
Afterwards, of course, if things go
7/ south for them, they tend to rewrite their experience as one where they were initially innocent - and fwiw, I think they talk themselves into truly believing this. That's just how the human brain works.
