Speaking at a White House press briefing on 19 August 2020, President Donald Trump claimed “I don’t know much about the movement” when asked about QAnon, only then to refer to followers of the movement as people who “like me very much” and also” love our country”. Conspiracy theories have been around for a while, but seldom can their their followers have been endorsed so publicly and so enthusiastically from such a high quarter.
QAnon is but one of many conspiracy theories that have thrived during the Covid-19 pandemic, apart from the virus itself. This particular online conspiracy has been wholeheartedly embraced by many right-wing Americans, having placed Trump at the forefront of a no-holds-barred fight against a satanic “deep state”, made up of “elites” involved in paedophilia, child trafficking, cannibalism, and other wholly unacceptable activities. These elites apparently include Democratic politicians, international financiers, media personalities, journalists and other “liberal” figures so actively disliked by those on the right.
QAnon can be traced back to November 2017, when a YouTube video creator and two moderators of the 4chan website began to construct a new conspiracy theory out of a series of anonymous, ominous, and somewhat paranoid posts by “Q”, supposedly a high-ranking military officer. As QAnon has steadily grown, an entire parallel universe of alternative reality has arisen from its copious internet output. Its unsubstantiated theories have recently gone mainstream, and QAnon supporters have started turning up regularly at Trump’s pre-election mega-rallies, ever since mid-2018.
Long before QAnon’s “deep state”, the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and other groups, including some secretive religious sects, were being identified as sinister, subversive, and omnipotent controlling forces of the dark. But the list includes many much bigger players. At various times, Communists, Jews, Roman Catholics, Muslims, China, Russia, the EU, national governments, vaccinators, even reptilian humans and various aliens have all featured as alleged nefarious conspirators, each aiming to dominate the world in one way or another to best suit their respective interests.
While conspiracy theories may appear to explain natural disasters, economic depression, terrorist attacks, political assassinations, election results, deaths of celebrities, airplane crashes, wars, pandemics, and climate change conspiracies, such theories can also be invoked to help better understand the world as a whole. Theories like QAnon thus seem to provide a convenient and all-embracing explanation for the combination of globalisation, international finance, terrorism and other forces that appear to be threatening the “American way of life” today, while providing solace through the anticipation of an apocalyptic event following which the righteous will pass into a new and everlasting utopia.
It is easy to understand how and why such conspiracy theories take root and then spread so rapidly, at a time when so many people feel no longer in control their own lives. Conspiracy theories provide a convenient place to shelter, in a deeply troubled world. It is thought that almost every adult in the Western World believes in at least one conspiracy theory, which is often linked to a single event, such as the assassination of President Kennedy, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or the death of Princess Diana. There is also no stereotypical follower of any particular conspiracy theory, as a belief in a conspiracy may cut across all boundaries of gender, age, race, educational attainment, occupation, religion, and political affiliation.
For those who feel threatened and victimised by current events, theories of global conspiracies may provide a way to make some sense out of the conflicts and disasters that afflict the world, whether economic, social, ethnic, religious, or political. Many conspiracy narratives of the day invoke a New World Order-a global governmental, economic and religious system-as the intended outcome of conspirators. It seems easy to imagine a global network of political parties, big businesses, banks, intelligence agencies, media corporations and social media platforms, all conspiring together under as part of a single mysterious, overarching and overwhelming entity. But whatever the reality, conspiracy theories cannot be disregarded, for two main reasons: because they may actually contain some elements of truth, and also because real conspiracies do, in fact, happen sometimes, as demonstrated by investigative journalists and other crusaders for the truth.
The revolution in information technology has created a fertile breeding ground for the ideas of the conspiracy-minded public. The internet has accordingly overtaken books, magazines, pamphlets, radio and television as the principal medium for spreading conspiracy theories. QAnon is best described as an online conspiracy, whose followers are constantly being enlightened by coded posts (“Q drops”) and shared text, images and videos.
Freedom of speech and opinion define a free society. Conspiracy theories therefore cannot be uniformly banned or legislated against. But there are limits to freedom, and liberty carries a price tag- one that can turn out to be most expensive. For example, Timothy McVeigh’s murderous bombing campaign in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995 was guided by a conspiratorial belief in a big and unfettered federal government, inspired in part by The Turner Diaries, a dystopian novel written by a white supremacist.
Conspiracy theories are here to stay. In the new reality, it can be easy to come under the influence of such theories. Unfortunately, as “fake news” is so widespread, it has also become difficult to find the truth. Not only that, but the constant repetition of misinformation is only creating more so-called “fact” out of pure fiction, just as Adolf Hitler did so effectively in Nazi Germany. Covid-19 is not the only agent spreading “virally”, but so is misinformation. We have, as of yet, not developed the means of reliably differentiating real conspiracies from those that are generated in the mind. All we can do is to remain vigilant for the latest conspiracy theory, no matter how superficially appealing it may seem at first glance.
Ashis Banerjee