In this segment from CNN Alyson Camerota interviews three former Qanon cult members and three people with relatives still in the cult. What they say they believe is totally bonkers.
This is Koo Koo for Coco Puffs people.
They believe that not only is Joe Biden not the President, that Trump is actually still in the White House running things while wearing a Joe Biden mask.
The House has shutdown today because Qanoners apparently believe that Trump will be revealed today and re-inaugurated as the “19th POTUS” since this was the date of inauguration back in 1871 when something something ramma-lamma-ding-dong.
Trump is supposedly going to unilaterally install a new economic system that will forgive debts and mortgages which haven’t been paid over the past year, even though in truth he’s a disaster kleptocrat who can’t avoid an opportunity to grift from the government and enrich himself personally. HE OWNS PROPERTY — why would he forgive mortgage and rent payments TO HIMSELF?
Their primary news sources — other than the internet — are via Newsmax and OAN. They don’t even really watch Fox News other than Tucker Carlson, who claims he doesn’t know what Q is and that he can’t find any evidence of it.
All of them agree that it is clear that Qanon s a White Supremacist Domestic Terrorist group. They switch the meaning of their words depending whether their speaking online or on the phone. They use the term “Canadians” when referring to “less desirable” people. They feel that children are in danger, that their freedom is in danger and that they have to “go to war” to fight back.
Since the “Election was Stolen” (sic) they felt justified in storming the Capitol. It was an act of last resort, but they are now even more desperate and the Jan 6th Insurrection was merely a “drop in the bucket” for what’s coming.
Facts are inconsequential. Truth is a lie. The regular News is in on the giant plot, they are enablers for the pedophiles and blood suckers among Hollywood and Democrats.
It appears that the spread of Corona Virus has acted as a gateway for people who were nervous and anxious about what is currently happening, Q provides a pathway to answers, bad answers, a solution for those anxieties. It provides comfort and security, a way to make the world make sense. You can “choose your own doomsday rabbit hole” for whatever your most afraid of.
Q is ruining lives. It’s ruining families.
They are the ones who wanted to change the results of the election, however many of them refuse to believe that their supporters were the ones who attacked the Capitol — they think it was really Antifa dressed up in cosplay Trump gear.
Except that FBI Director Wray just testified that Antifa was not involved in the Insurrection.
Q tells you that what you are being told by the media is a lie. Then it encourages you to do your own hunting through history and old claims — like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — to find your “true” answers. These newly crafted theories get shared and debated back and forth on social media from Facebook, Twitter, TicTok, Parler, Gab and Telegram until the new narrative begins to form. The truth doesn't come from Q, his posts merely present suggestions — they're making this shit up themselves.
We need a national deprogramming scheme.
Cult deprogrammers are flush with work as the family members of Trump-conspiracy believers and QAnon supporters seek professional help for their loved ones.
According to an NPR report, professional counselors specializing in cult deprogramming are facing a mountain of requests from people hoping to break their loved ones free of Trump-related conspiracy theories.
[...]
According to the cult experts, social media plays a significant role in exposing vulnerable people to conspiracy theories.
Joan Donovan, a leading research of online disinformation at the Shorenstein Centre on Media, Politics and Public Policy called today's social media environment a "free for all" inundated with "unfathomable" amounts of disinformation.
[...]
That feeling of 'I did my own research, and I didn't just believe what I read in the newspapers' makes believers more emotionally invested," Arieh Kovler, who researches online extremism and disinformation, said. "They believe it much stronger."
One exit counselor, Pat Ryan, told NPR that he advised family members of those consumed by conspiracy theories not to take especially adversarial stances with them, as it tends to drive people deeper into their disinformation communities.
Another counselor said they used the same tactics that conspiracy theorists use to draw people in to help break people out.
Steven Hassan, a former Moonie who helps people break away from cults, uses "gentle questions" and tries to use a breadcrumb approach - leaving little bits of information leading to specific conclusions - to help those tied into cults and conspiracy theories find their way back to reality.
You can’t argue people out of this, you have to approach them in a way that they can trust you — so you have to partially “buy in” to their delusions, or at least not directly challenge them in an argumentative way. You have to slowly show them the errors in their thinking, using the same method that brought them into Q in the first place.
In the end though, they have to make the decision to come out of the cult on their own, no one can force them.
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