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| The idiots of Qanon prove that there are zillions of suckers born every minute. |
A book called, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" was a big boffo seller on Amazon, at least earlier in March.
QAnon, for those who mercifully haven't heard about it yet, is probably the most bonkers conspiracy theory in history.
The basics of the conspiracy are that the world is run by a Satanic cabal headed by Hillary Clinton. She and other prominent Democrats also supposedly run a child sex ring in the nonexistent basement of a Washington DC pizzeria.
Moreover, according to this wild and stupid conspiracy, Donald Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are secretly working together to destroy this evil cabal.
As NBC reported in March , the book was at No. 9 in all books about politics and No. 1 in all books about "Censorship."
Apparently, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" is full of garbage that comes at you willy-nilly.
NBC describes it thusly:
"On one page, the book baselessly claims that the United States created AIDS, polio, Lyme disease, some natural disasters, two Indiana Jones movies and the Pixar movie Monsters Inc."
Wow, that's some busy government we have doing all that! I wonder why this secret cabal took the time to make these movies?
NBC's report goes on helpfully:
"The book posits that Monsters Inc shows off a government plan to collect children's blood 'that gives (government figures) some form of high or youthful look."
Oh. But then why doesn't Hillary Clinton not exactly look like a spring chicken? Oh, sorry, we're not supposed to question the logic of these insane conspiracies, are we?
The reason that this weirdness is doing well on Amazon has to do with the old, sad fact in America: There is a sucker born every minute.
Social media has been playing wack-a-mole with these whackadoodle conspiracies. NBC quotes conspiracy theory research Mike Rothschild saying YouTube recently changed its algoritms to make it more difficult for the grifters pushing Qanon to make monetize their video creations.
So, Rothschild said, these grifters are no dummies: "They absolutely exploited flaws in Amazon's algorithms." The book, Rothschild said is "a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q."
In an earlier article from last August NBC tried to explain why people fall for conspiracy nonsense that is batshit crazy.
People have always thought that many things don't happen by chance. There's an underlying reason. That's how conspiracy theories are born.
I get the NBC story on why people believe conspiracy theories, but I'm still struggling with how people get to that state of mind. According to this article, people who are generally anxious and feel like their life is not fully in their control anymore, gravitate to conspiracy theories.
Alright, so I get it how people believe in things like a conspiracy over the assassination of JFK, even if the theories are pretty off. But how do people get to insane things like Qanon?
What's really dangerous is the people like Alex Jones who peddle conspiracy theories to the masses. I'm sure he doesn't believe the crap he spouts. He knows he can make money off it because of all the gullible people out there.
As thoughtcatalog.com points out, these gullible people are willing to believe the global elite are planning to murder 80% of the world's population, that children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre were just crisis actors that were part of a "false flag." Jones had a guy on his show and demonstrated support for the dude who was claiming that the 2,000 children that go missing everyday are being sold to Mars as sex slaves.
There we go again. The strangest conspiracy theories involve sexual crimes against children. I'm glad people are fighting back. Jones is being sued for his terribly harmful antics, and it's not going well for Jones at all.
The best explanation for Qanan and its popularity that I've seen came from columnist Clarence Page.
He writes:
"The Qanon theory, whatever its origins, sounds tailor-made for core Trump supporters who need supporting arguments for the alternative scenarios spun by the White House, conservative media and other Trump allies.
Qanon is scary partly because its promoters want it to be. 'Triggering the libs' or 'owning the libs' - i.e doing things specifically to upset liberals - is its own reward to many on the right. But paranoid politics can pop up on all political sides - and often does."
Unfortunately, the game of "owning" the other side, the enemy, has become more important than facts in this world. The most dangerous part of all this is that when we ignore facts for fun and profit, those facts always come back to bite us on the ass. Often with tragic results.
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