By Taylor Matthews
What if I were to tell you that the US government and media is controlled by a secret cabal of devil-worshippers who are organising the mass kidnapping of children? Well, according to a recent poll, 17% of Americans believe this to be the case.
Another 30% believe the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. A further 36% think the COVID-19 pandemic was intentionally planned by a global elite.
If these figures are anything to go by, a worrying number of Americans believe reality is not what it seems. More specifically, they endorse the conspiracy theories collectively known as QAnon, a conspiracy group which has become something of a quasi-religious cult since its emergence in 2017.
QAnon’s overarching doctrine is that the “deep state” – a secret network of global elites with its own political agenda – is controlling world affairs. Although this might seem ludicrous, an element of this doctrine has long been taken very seriously by philosophers – that, for all we know, our understanding of the world around us is deeply distorted.
This idea – often referred to as radical doubt or scepticism – was famously articulated by the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Realising that many of his previous beliefs were mistaken, Descartes suggested that an all-powerful “evil genius” could be systematically deceiving him about his most basic beliefs – much like how the supposed deep state is apparently deceiving those who believe in QAnon.
From this, Descartes set out to demolish any beliefs that weren’t “completely certain and indubitable”, and then to “start again from the ‘foundations’”.
Trump the messiah
Just as Descartes seeks certainty about the world, so supporters of QAnon (known as QAnons) seek a day of reckoning prophesied by its anonymous figure-head, “Q”, called “the storm”. As researchers on radicalisation Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko note, this is the supposed day that Trump will arrest those upholding the deep state and either send them to Guantanamo Bay or execute them. In the aftermath, people will celebrate the “great awakening” as they are freed from their deception.
In the weeks leading up to the January 6 US Capitol attack, they remained eerily silent, but there were some high-profile QAnons involved in the riot. After that, the storm was meant to occur on January 20 2021 – US presidential inauguration day. However, instead of dismantling the deep state, Trump left the White House. Disappointed, QAnons either doubled-down on their convictions or drifted away from the movement.
That was until November 2022, when Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign. After two years, QAnon’s messiah figure had returned and, since then, Trump has been galvanising QAnons to take the battle to the deep state once again. On February 11 2024, he posted the following call to arms on his Truth Social platform:
2024 is our Final Battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State … we will rout the Fake News Media, we will Drain the Swamp, and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all!
Trust the plan
Descartes famously found certainty in his capacity to think: “I think, therefore I am”. The idea is that, even if he doubted his own bodily experience, he could not doubt his existence as a thinker. That’s because doubting that you’re thinking is, itself, a form of thinking.
This certainty, referred to as the Cogito, provided Descartes with the foundations to escape the hypothetical “evil genius” deception.
There seems to be a different kind of Cogito at play in QAnon’s overarching mantra, “Where we go one, we go all”. This is a call for solidarity amongst QAnons to “trust the plan” – Q’s prophecy that Trump will prevail over the deep state.
But doesn’t that imply there is at least something in the world worth trusting? If there wasn’t, it’s difficult to see how there could be a plan to trust in the first place – and it would be difficult to understand how QAnons could even trust each other. So, the very existence of QAnon must presuppose a degree of trust, which is a foundational certainty for QAnons.
Many QAnons “trust the plan” because they report feeling fearful, anxious, and isolated in the world. QAnon and Trump may have earned trust by preying on these emotional vulnerabilities.
Like any good conspiracy theory, QAnon claims to offer its devotees social and existential shelter from the deep state. Like any good saviour, Trump promises to destroy the deep state. This might explain why his 2024 presidential campaign has coincided with renewed support for QAnon.
Ultimately, QAnon is underpinned by a trust that’s rooted in fear and anxiety. By overcoming these fears and anxieties, one stands a better chance of escaping its grip. As with fear more generally, courage is typically the antidote.
QAnons potentially have a network of support just waiting for them. They just need the courage to seek it from those outside their circle.
Taylor Matthews, Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Taylor Matthews is a Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
JW says
Descartes famously said: “I think, therefore I am”. I remember this from High School (in Europe).
Taylor Matthews states that many QAnons “trust the plan” because they report feeling fearful, anxious, and isolated in the world. QAnon and Trump may have earned trust by preying on these emotional vulnerabilities.
This is the dark side of American cheerfulness: insecurity and depression that drives much the country’s commerce and nearly all of it’s psychiatry. On September 11, 2001, the nation’s worst fears were realized.
This brings me back to education. The goal of education is NOT memorizing facts you can test in SAT’s, it is learning how to THINK! And that is a SKILL
Unfortunately, we can see all around us that education is being hollowed out by (mostly republicans) with book banning, limiting teaching domestic and world history, not allowing discussing sensitive topics like slavery, LBGTQ, world religions (all of them), politics (capitalism, democracy AND socialism, communism, autocracy, oligarchy, theocracy) and debate them in class. That is what teaches you to THINK!
Until then: our politicians find their way to manipulate WE THE PEOPLE because too many of us are just too ignorant to know what QAnon is. (Its another religion)
JOE D says
Yes….absolutely!
An EDUCATED population that THINKS for itself is Dangerous to politicians who just want you to take whatever they say at FACE VALUE, and not say to themselves, “Huh, what did he just say?” “Is that REALLY true..I’d like to see where they got that information?”
The Saddest thing (maybe) since the 2016 election and up to current times, is the FACT CHECK article that gets published after EACH major POLITICAL SPEECH (by BOTH parties). The fact check article counts the LIES and the 1/2 truths in the speech…and explains the TRUTH (facts) about what’s being said…can you GUESS whose speeches contain the most lies, and twisted truths…shouldn’t be difficult to guess!
It’s gotten to the point, where I don’t even listen to the original speech giver anymore…I just go straight to the FACT CHECK article to get the TRUTH about the issue….how SAD!
Sadder STILL are the people who don’t even READ the FACT CHECK ARTICLES…to have the REAL truth explained.
Can’t wait for the FACT CHECKERS working overtime after the first Presidential debates..I’m sure it’s going to be a DOOZY as my Father would say.
Maybe there should be a new JOURNALISM sub-specialty in colleges…A FACT CHECKING major! Boy would that give you JOB SECURITY in the future.
Bill C says
Does anyone know who Q is supposed to be? Apparently Q belongs to an even deeper deep state operating from a bunker below a cave below a pizza parlor with an underwater entrance.
Ray W. says
Is it possible to disprove the theoretical existence of a vast conspiratorial “deep state”?
Consider this. Mix (1) an off-duty senior sheriff’s deputy; (2) too much alcohol in a beachside drinking establishment; and (3) too many pretty women. Is there any conspiratorial force in the world, any form of a deep state, that can restrain the deputy?
I say: Free will, however inebriated, rules! No deep state can contain inebriated free will. I could be wrong.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe, every weekend, month after month, year after year, all across this great land, Americans of all types get drunk. Some go on the internet. Some link to their favorite Q Anon sites. In their addled state, they absorb conspiracy theories. It all makes sense to them at the moment. In the morning, all they remember is the sense of understanding, not the understanding itself. Is that the “true” deep state?
To paraphrase Piter de Vries, the House of Atreides mentat: “It is by [drunken] will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed. The lips acquire stains. The stains become a warning. It is by [drunken] will alone I set my mind in motion.”
Voila! Q Anon set free from reasoned thought.
I drink. Therefore, I am.
Bill C says
Were you drinking when (hiccup) you wrote this??
Ray W. says
Thank you, Bill C. I was just trying to stir up a little hatred and discontent.
As my father taught me at a young age, he and his first law partner fresh out of law school used to sit around in their office on slow days trying to figure out ways to make money. They would ask themselves: How can we stir up a little hatred and discontent so we can get our names in the paper? You have to agree with me that the two were decades ahead of today’s no-longer conservative Republican “pestilential” partisan members of factors who roam the clogged byways of Flagler County.
As an aside, I seldom drink alcoholic beverages, but I know enough to know that alcohol consumption has many effects on human misbehavior.
Bill C says
Agreed
Laurel says
A Dune fan! Yes! My favorite character in the first book was Duncan Idaho.
Foresee says
Unlike the fictional characters from a James Bond movie, Goldfinger for example, who exist in a world in which villains want to shape the world to their own benefit by any and all unscrupulous means, that is fiction. However, what is not fiction, is real super rich characters exist now who are the real deep state. Look no further than Timothy Mellon, a billionaire who was born into one of the wealthiest families in the U.S. and has donated $50 million to the Trump campaign. Or Harlan Crowe, worth 31 billion, giving undisclosed “gifts” to Clarence Thomas to influence decisions before the Supreme Court for cases in which Crowe had an interest. If you want to believe these billionaires have the best interests of the average person in mind, you are believing in fairy tales, Qanon just one of many distractions from reality.
Watcher says
I’ve read all of Q’s posts and none of the claims in this article are accurate. No research was done at all by the author. Read it for yourself, then decide for yourself. https://qalerts.app
Laurel says
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/qanon-founder-who-forensic-linguists-q-b2019432.html
Pogo says
@In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
— Desiderius Erasmus
https://www.google.com/search?q=Desiderius+Erasmus
Sherry says
The question in my mind. . . Is Aileen Cannon a member of Q? She certainly seems to believe the “deep state” garbage. She’s currently doing everything she can to drag out the stolen classified documents case. . . Is she hoping trump will get elected again so that he can simply throw out all the federal cases against him? If what the “extreme right” Republicans are doing at every level of government isn’t “deep state” fascism, what is? Read all about terrifying “Project 2025”!
Laurel says
Sherry: I would like to see two articles here. One about Project 2025 and one about Mudsill Theory. Both would explain a lot about what’s going on in this country right now. I believe Foresee is correct.