How Do We Come Back From This?
That so many people agree with a key tenet of QAnon is, shall we say, not good.
Want to see an absolutely terrifying statistic? Here it is.
You’re reading that right. 44 percent of registered voters think that the government is controlled by a “secret cabal”.
They probably aren’t thinking about this, either.
There are some other wild findings in the poll conducted by the Democratic firm Benenson Strategy Group, too. Some more disturbing than others:
54% agree with the statement that “The way we currently interpret the Second Amendment does not place enough limits and restrictions on guns”
Only 21% agree that “I personally believe having an abortion is wrong and should be illegal”
64% support limiting Supreme Court Justices to one 18-year term.
59% support abolishing the Electoral College.
71% agree that authoritarianism is on the rise in the United States
42% agree that there are times when citizens have to ignore election results to do what's best for the country
59% agree that the U.S. is heading toward a second civil war,
Not exactly the most beautiful picture of the state of our nation.
The stat I really want to focus on is the idea that a cabal is controlling this country. At a glance, it is understandable that such an idea exists. There are a lot of people who believe that the government generally and their elected officials specifically just do not care about them. And, to a point, that is probably true. Just look at how many blowhards are out there spouting off about this, that, and the other thing without being too concerned about what their actual jobs are (looking at you AOC and MTG).
Get beyond that, however, and things get ugly. Just look at the recent trends in socialmedia, the public statements made by celebrities like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, and the rising antisemitism in our country. Antisemitism itself seems tied up a lot in the opposition to globalism on the fringes of both parties.1
The fact that people believing in a secret cabal come at a time when antisemitism is on the rise shouldn’t surprise you; all that is old is new again.
You also won’t be surprised to learn that a “cabal” is deep in the lore of QAnon, either:
QAnon is a big tent conspiracy theory, a meta narrative that knits together contemporary politics and hoary racist tropes with centuries of history behind them. At its core is the idea that all American presidents between John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump have been working with a cabal of globalist elites called “The Cabal” to undermine American democracy and forward their own nefarious agenda. (Predictably, the cabal includes investor/philanthropist George Soros and the Rothschild family, but the theory is more anti-elite than explicitly anti-Semitic.) In all versions of the mythos, the Cabal seeks to destroy American freedom and subjugate the nation to the wills of a world government. In some versions of the mythos, the agenda also includes pedophilia, blood sacrifice, Satanism and other attention-getting transgressions.
That 44% of voters in this poll basically align themselves with what QAnon thinks is the reddest of red flags that I can imagine.
But how do we back ourselves off of this cliff? How do we come back, as a country, from this? Republicans don’t seem interested in doing it; in fact, many of them are embracing it. Democrats don’t seem too interested in it either considering their messaging consists of “vote for us or else” seems to be a threat more than anything else.
I’m not sure I have any answers right now. But if we don’t think of one soon, things are going to get much, much worse before they get better.
Most people who yell about “globalism” don’t actually understand what it is but are actually confusing it with “globalization” which is something much different.