Mr. Q Goes To Washington
Lizard people, mole children, and Satan worshippers... Oh my!
Last week, the House voted to strip first-term Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments. Democrats argued that Greene had abused her pretty privilege in order to spread dangerous conspiracy theories: QAnon; 9/11 was an inside job; Sandy Hook was staged; California wildfires were started by a Rothschild space laser; blondes have more fun. Democrats had no choice but to act.
By kicking Greene off of committees, they hoped to revoke most of her power in Congress. The only recent precedent was when Steve King lost his committee roles in 2019 for questioning why “white supremacy” is considered offensive. Greene did not let the Dems get under her Juvedermed skin. She tweeted that she was “literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons [they] are for giving someone like me free time.” Without the demands of Congress, Greene can now get back to doing what she does best: posting Yelp reviews, crashing a GMC Yukon under the influence of HerbaLife supplements, and drinking too many Applebee’s Dollaritas then grabbing the waiter’s junk on a dare.
Across the nation, around the world, everybody’s worried about conspiracy theories. The Capitol riots of January 6th put the prevalence and potency of right-wing delusions on display. Immediately, everyone became concerned that their loved ones or neighbors may be a disciple of Q or Stopping the Steal. On Reddit, someone asked if she should break up with her boyfriend because he believes in “Epstein, 9/11 is inside job, and Hillary Clinton maybe being associated with Epstein.”
America’s boyfriends are under attack. You can be dumped simply for saying it is strange that Jeffrey Epstein was the first person in 14 years to successfully commit suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. “Potential best husbands” are kicked to the curb just for noting that Jeffrey Epstein’s was the only person to die by suicide in a New York City jail in the past 50 years with three fractures in his neck. You can not say that Hillary Clinton was associated with Epstein just because Ghislaine Maxwell attended her daughter’s wedding and her husband frequently visited his sex island wearing a “Female Body Inspector” t-shirt. The authoritarian grip of girlfriends is tightening. Nice guys everywhere are being rounded up, put up against a wall, and broken up with for speaking their minds.
Once an idea is framed as a “conspiracy theory,” that idea is verboten. It’s a dragnet term that creates false equivalency between genuine questions and deranged delusions. Despite the many strange details in the Jeffrey Epstein case, calling it a “conspiracy theory” makes it seem as ludicrous as Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Jewish Space Laser. Inquiry is written off as tinfoil hat paranoia, like when Trevor Noah jokingly asked Hillary how she killed Epstein on The Daily Show. The elimination of nuance with regard to “conspiracy theories” leads to the girlfriend’s assertion that her boyfriend is wrong to be “generally skeptical of government.” But isn’t that skepticism healthy? Don’t the principles which define our democracy -- checks and balances, transparency, government by the people -- require some healthy skepticism?
There’s an oft-circulated infographic called “The Conspiracy Chart.” It shows the range of conspiracy theories as a pyramid, from “Things That Actually Happened” to “Detached From Reality”.
The trouble with the chart is that it assumes anything beyond the “Actually Happened” category is false just because it can’t be definitively proven. But consider what did “actually happen.” Project MKUltra was the CIA’s secret effort to achieve mind control by surreptitiously dosing thousands of people with LSD. Tuskegee refers to a “scientific study” by the CDC and US Public Health Service. For forty years, Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama were told they were receiving free healthcare, then left to with left to suffer from syphilis without treatment, killing 128 people. COINTELPRO was the FBI’s program to neutralize American civil rights organizations. Standing out among countless abuses are the assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and J. Edgar Hoover’s letter to Martin Luther King urging him to kill himself. And that’s just a fraction of the “Actually Happened” category.
How can you possibly write off the rest as ridiculous? In the second-to-worst category, “Dangerous to Yourself and Others,” are 5G and Covid being created in a lab. Those are a bit vague, aren’t they? NOAA and NASA tried to stop the FCC from auctioning off 5G rights because the wavelengths would set the accuracy of weather forecasts “back to the 1970s.” The FCC auctioned them off anyway. Is that a conspiracy theory? A recent cover article in New York lays out the history of “gain of function” work on microbes. For decades, government scientists have intentionally created more contagious, deadlier viruses for research purposes, some of them quite similar to Covid-19. Many raised concerns that a simple accident could unleash such a disease on the world. Is that a conspiracy theory?
When The Notorious M.T.G. got elected, a bunch of feverish articles were written about Mr. Q going to Washington. But the real surprise is that we only elected one Qongressperson. A 2020 survey asked whether “Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.” (What a mouthful. Just say Jews!) 17 percent said the statement was true, 37% said they were unsure, and only 47% said the statement was incorrect. With that amount of untapped popularity, it’s kind of a miracle the Republican party hasn’t embraced QAnon in a bear hug. If you were to ask me that question, I’d pause and respond: “Well, I guess it depends on if Epstein worshipped Satan.” As long as mainstream politics refuses to look corrupt power in the eye, both parties cede ideological territory to the world of conspiracy theorists. Since politicians in both parties benefit from that power, the tide is unlikely to turn.
The demonization of “conspiracy theories” is not in itself a valiant defense of “truth.” It largely serves to further alienate already disgruntled people. The boundary between “conspiracy theory” and fact is often a small failure of Occam’s Razor, or a simple matter of time. The kook who believed in government mind control was proven right once the right documents were declassified and MKUltra was revealed. Your Facebook friend who believes the 5G rollout is nefarious and dangerous is onto something, but looking in the wrong direction. The QAnon nut who believes lizard people are harvesting children’s adrenochrome might be unable to swallow the crueler, more bitter pill: that the lizards are just powerful people and children are not being eaten; they are being sexually abused. There is some religious comfort in thinking of them as Satanic monsters, rather than humans like you.
The sanctioning of Marjorie Taylor Greene is the first step in a looming War on Conspiracy Theories. Claiming something is a conspiracy theory will be enough to instantly disprove it. That is dangerous. First, it represents a stifling chill on inquiry. History is rife with government abuses so egregious, they would be laughable if they were not definitively true. Just look at the bottom tip of that pyramid. If it were not for whistleblowers, vigilant press, and public pressure, the Senate would never have launched the Church Committee which exposed CIA and FBI abuses. Likewise, if it were not for Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, we would not know about the NSA and domestic surveillance overreach. Thinking beyond certain, proven fact is the only way to uncover what is being hidden from you.
Second, it entrenches political divisions and pushes people away. I suspect QAnon’s growth might have been blunted if this country had ever looked frankly at institutionalized sexual abuse. Instead, those who are rightfully outraged and suspicious of those in power are treated as crazy. Marginalized and unacknowledged, those emotions assume more insidious forms. If unity is supposedly our most important goal as a nation right now, we must not keep insisting that people are crazy for seeing what is right in front of their eyes. We must acknowledge that power and capital are hoarded and concentrated in a few hands and often used for clandestine, grotesque aims. The scariest thing about these theories is not that so many people believe them, but how close to true they actually are.