SUP is proud to present an adapted excerpt from chapter 3 of Pastels and Pedophiles by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko with a special SUP blog exclusive introduction.
To many of us, QAnon emerged suddenly and surreally, a bizarre collection of outlandish stories that would be laughable if they hadn’t inspired an attempted insurrection on January 6th, 2021, or horrific crimes such as parents murdering their young children because they feared lizard DNA would turn the kids into monsters (1) or be enslaved and tortured by a Satan-worshipping pedophilic cabal (2). National polls report around 15% of American adults believe QAnon conspiracy theories (3), including that COVID is a hoax and that COVID vaccines are actually tracking devices designed by Bill Gates to control population growth (4). How are we to understand what drove tens of millions of people into the QAnon rabbit hole? And how can these people––our family, friends, colleagues and neighbors––be helped out of it? In Pastels and Pedophiles », Mia Bloom and I explain the QAnon phenomenon through the lens of psychology and political science, tracing QAnon’s rise to individual and cultural causes, and suggesting solutions for curtailing its influence. Below are two short excerpts from the book.
Radical right-wing movements, from QAnon to Proud Boys, often talk about “red-pilling,”1 referencing the Wachowski siblings’ movie, The Matrix (1999). In the pivotal scene, Morpheus, a mysterious wise man, speaks to Neo, a disgruntled computer hacker who has sought him out:
“It’s that feeling you’ve had all your life. That feeling that something is wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”
Morpheus explains that Neo lives inside the Matrix, a computer simulation of reality:
“The Matrix is everywhere,” Morpheus says. “It’s all around us, even in this room. You can see it out your window, or on your television. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church, or pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
“What truth?” asks Neo.
“That you’re a slave, Neo. That you, like everyone else, were born into bondage, kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison of your mind.”
Morpheus offers Neo a choice:
“You take the blue pill [and] . . . wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
“Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more,” Morpheus adds.
The co-optation of the Matrix’s metaphor by the radical right offers an important insight.
Like Neo, the people who seek out Q-conspiracy theories feel that “something is wrong with the world,” that their lives are disconnected from some important truths. Like Neo, they feel that their quest might lead them into danger—yet they “take the red pill.”
Conspiracy theories are neither new nor rare. What’s different about QAnon is just how many conspiracy theories it accrues under its ideological umbrella, and how many people subscribe to the beliefs. The magnitude of the QAnon phenomenon poses unique threats. Just keeping up with the unfolding narratives is so time-consuming that followers might lose sleep, sever relationships, and lose their jobs, glued to their screens while they “connect the dots” day and night.2 At the same time as enthusiasts become entangled in conspiratorial thinking, QAnon followers are further radicalized in a community of likeminded others. Most radicalize only in opinion, but a minority will materially support violence, plot attacks, or engage in political violence in real life.
Let’s try first to understand the roots of feeling as though “something is wrong with the world” that fuels Q-conspiracy theories. What makes “red-pillers” risk alienating friends and family, or their lives and freedom, as did the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021? What specific attraction does QAnon hold for women?
***
Some QAnons seem to have stumbled into the conspiracy theory world as a result of losing their footing in the real one. Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot and killed during the mob breach of the Capitol on January 6, had trouble transitioning to civilian life after she left the military. In QAnon, she found the purpose her civilian life lacked. A similar path characterized the QAnonization of 51-year-old Lt. Col. Ret. Larry Brock76 of Texas. Brock was photographed inside the breached Capitol building carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs, presumably meant to restrain kidnapped lawmakers. After a highly successful military career, Brock couldn’t find the same thrill and fulfillment until he discovered QAnon. Another “zip-tie man,” Eric Munchel,77 came to storm the Capitol with his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, with whom he was still living. An unemployed bartender, Munchel had a criminal arrest record for violent assault. His social media featured pictures of him sporting military gear, a tentative association to the high-risk, high-status life he wanted but couldn’t have––until QAnon. Rosanne Boyland, trampled to death by the mob storming the Capitol, was a recovering drug addict with a history of drug-related arrests. Her QAnonization was an attempt to fill her life, devastated by years of substance abuse, with meaning and purpose.
But for many QAnons, it wasn’t unemployment, addiction, or trouble with the law that sent them searching for the red pill. Neither economic anxiety nor teenage rebellion drove their radicalization: Two thirds of those arrested for participation in the January 6 riot were 35 or older, and 40 percent owned a business or held white-collar jobs.78 One surprising finding, however, points to the importance of threatened worldviews and shifting value systems. Most who came to “the Storm” did not come from deep-red pro-Trump states. Rather, they came from battleground states where Biden won close to half the votes.79
While social norms can be deeply entrenched in established Democratic or deeply Republican states, in battleground states the battles rage not only over votes, but also over all the things the votes represent: marriage laws, gender norms, the role of religion and science in school curriculum and daily lives. It is in the battleground states that the shifting of worldview’s tectonic plates is most salient and mass unfreezing most prevalent.
Research on radicalization has consistently found that the subjective matters more than the objective when predicting violent trajectories.80 Relative deprivation is more predictive of anger and resentment than objective deprivation.81 Their bank accounts may not have been in distress, but that didn’t help the psychological distress of changing culture and eroding social norms. Highly subjective “life meaning” is a better predictor of overall well-being than objective economic measures.82
One of the predictors of meaning in life is awe, the experience of “perceptually vast stimuli that transcend one’s ordinary reference frame”83––like the “Whoa” moment QAnon followers experience when, escaping their relative deprivation, they connect the dots into a pattern. Their pain and anger transcend ordinary reference frames, filling their lives with meaning.
To those searching for meaning in the devastated sociocultural landscape, QAnon promises to make everything better. Personally discovering “the Truth,” followers experience awe, and their lives become more fulfilling as a result. Contemplating “the plan” and carrying out “the Storm” filled them with the significance they so desperately sought. In this, QAnon provided a personal utility.
The caveat here is obvious. If life’s meaning is based on a conspiracy theory, it’s as strong as the conspiracy theory’s weakest link. When Trump left DC instead of assuming the presidency and proceeding with the promised arrests of the cabal, when “the plan” failed and the forecasted “Storm” was barely a drizzle, those who invested their well-being into the lie felt betrayed. “Trump just used us and our fear,” said a disgruntled Lenka Perron.84 “It’s obvious now we’ve been had. No plan, no Q, nothing,”85 said a post on a QAnon forum. Another post said, “It’s like being a kid and seeing the big gift under the tree thinking it is exactly what you want only to open it and realize it was a lump of coal.”86
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Notes from the Special Introduction
Notes from the Excerpt
1. Stephen Marche, “Swallowing the Red Pill: A Journey to the Heart of Modern Misogyny,” The Guardian (April 14, 2016). https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/14/the-red-pill-reddit-modern-misogyny-manosphere-men
2. Sabrina Tavernise, “‘Trump Just Used Us and Our Fear’: One Woman’s Journey out of QAnon,” New York Times (January 30, 2021). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/leaving-qanon-conspiracy.html
76. Ronan Farrow, “An Air Force Combat Veteran Breached the Senate,” New Yorker (January 8, 2021). Retrieved https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-air-force-combat-veteran-breached-the-senate
77. Patrizia Rizzo, “DYNAMIC DUO: Who Are Eric Munchel and Lisa Eisenhart,” The Sun (January 11, 2021). https://www.the-sun.com/news/2118042/eric-munchel-lisa-eisenhart-capitol-riot-trump/
78. Robert A. Pape and Keven Ruby, “The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists,” The Atlantic (February 2, 2021). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/
79. Ibid.
80. Sophia Moskalenko and Clark McCauley, Radicalization to Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
81. Morty Bernstein and Faye Crosby, “An Empirical Examination of Relative Deprivation Theory,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16 (5) (1980): 442–456. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022103180900505
82. Tatjana Schnell, “The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe): Relations to Demographics and Well-Being,” Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 (6) (2009): 483–499. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301231622_Sources_of_Meaning_and_Meaning_in_Life_Questionnaire_SoMe_English_version
83. Huanhuan Zhao, et al., “Why Are People High in Dispositional Awe Happier? The Roles of Meaning in Life and Materialism,” Frontiers in Psychology, 10 (May 2019): 1208. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01208/full#:~:text=Those%20who%20perceive%20their%20lives, of%20life%20easier%20for%20them.
84. Tavernise, “‘Trump Just Used Us and Our Fear.’”
85. Joseph Menn, Elizabeth Culliford, Katie Paul, and Carrie Monahan, “‘No Plan, No Q, Nothing’: QAnon Followers Reel as Biden Inaugurated,” Reuters (January 20, 2021). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-QAnon/no-plan-no-q-nothing-QAnon-followers-reel-as-biden-inaugurated-idUSKBN29P2VO
86. Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny, “Some QAnon Followers Lose Hope After Inauguration,” NBC News (January 20, 2021). https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/some-QAnon-followers-struggle-inauguration-day-n1255002
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