I came across an article recently on The Atlantic named ‘The Dark Reality of Betting Against QAnon ‘, and it was a reflection of how the QAnon instigated conspiracy theories are infiltrating a lot of realities. The recent attack on the Capitol is another blaring example of that. QAnon is an ideologically motivated movement that believes that the ‘deep state’ which comprises of elite democrats, government officials, and celebrities , are all pedophiles involved in child-sex -trafficking. The only man who could put stop to all this according to the believers of this unfounded theory is Donald Trump.
QAnon garnered momentum with the pizzagate conspiracy theory , but the pandemic has been an effective propellant of conspiracy theories, and has broadened the movement further. During uncertain times, conspiracy theories help in making sense of a reality which we cannot comprehend and that is exactly what has happened in 2020 and it has had some disturbing consequences. The article that I mentioned above, talks about a gambling platform, but you don’t bet against the conventional stuff, this betting involves politics. ‘Predictit’ which facilitates this, is a reflection of how delusional the reality is to a major faction of the population, and the sources of their bizarre beliefs is QAnon.
In the early days of the pandemic, when the US downplayed the severity of COVID-19, QAnon built on that further to create chaos. The initial theories that this was a bio-weapon made by China to hamper the 2019 US elections was something that gained so much momentum, or the QAnon believers who so deeply believed that this is something that was started by the ‘Deep State’ and calling it the ‘plandemic’ was all a reflection of distrust in government but at the same time how powerful such polarizing beliefs can be in uncertain times. The initial months of the pandemic also witnessed the rise of another conspiracy theory that this was all orchestrated by ‘Big Pharma’ in conjunction with Bill Gates. The underlying narrative was that this was all being done to pave way for large scale vaccination programme and would hence generate huge profits for the industries involved in this.
These various conspiracy theories, where each one of them has had some kind of massive support led to what has been termed by the UN as ‘infodemic’, which was one of the potential reasons that there was a surge in cases initially and now for maybe an improved immunity or could be a bit more caution that is being exercised, at lease the developing and underdeveloped nations have seen a decrease in cases. Maybe the narrative towards covid conspiracy theories has changed but the propensity of QAnon hasn’t . The recent rioters at the Capitol was a culmination of that. The constant narrative that has been peddled by Trump ever since the US election results have been out, is that the election has been rigged and that fuels the QAnon movement, so much so that the believers thought of going and attacking the Capitol so that the certification of the Electoral college vote would stop.
These events are a reflection of how crucial it is to be introspective of the narratives we are fed and the one’s we choose to believe, because it doesn’t take long to make a mockery of ourselves.
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Weekly Musings 