Elastic conspiracies

I thought I was going to write this morning about buses, and transit policies, and the pandemic -- and eventually I will.

 

But instead I got lost reading a long, heart-breaking account by Buzzfeed reporter Albert Samaha of his mom's slide into the alternative hellhole that is the Q world. Take the time -- read it. It's an all-too recognizable family story, and very San Francisco as well. Roman Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone even plays a bit part.

A snippet: 

... By 2020, I’d pretty much given up on swaying my mom away from her preferred presidential candidate. We’d spent many hours arguing over basic facts I considered indisputable. Any information I cited to prove Trump’s cruelty, she cut down with a corresponding counterattack. My links to credible news sources disintegrated against a wall of outlets like One America News Network, Breitbart, and Before It’s News. Any cracks I could find in her positions were instantly undermined by the inconvenient fact that I was, in her words, a member of “the liberal media,” a brainwashed acolyte of the sprawling conspiracy trying to take down her heroic leader.

The irony gnawed at me: My entire vocation as an investigative reporter was predicated on being able to reveal truths, and yet I could not even rustle up the evidence to convince my own mother that our 45th president was not, in fact, the hero she believed him to be. Or, for that matter, that John F. Kennedy Jr. was dead. Or that Tom Hanks had not been executed for drinking the blood of children.

At some point last summer, my mom stopped telling me in advance when she was going to Trump rallies. ...

• • •

At this moment, we might think that the Q-obsessed would be becoming disillusioned by the failure of their prophecies. But a Los Angeles Times report emphasizes the capacity of this kind of unhinged thinking to change focus as its environment changes. Its trajectory leads to well-trodden and dangerous tropes:

At the start of the virus shutdowns, said [Joel] Finkelstein [director of Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute], much of the racially charged conspiracy dialogue centered around the virus originating in China and included “disgust” toward Asians, with leaders including Trump insisting on labeling it as the “kung flu” or “Chinese flu.”

Since the election, the anti-Asian sentiment has shifted to anxiety about worldwide dominance, specifically a communist overthrow of governments backed by Jewish people who control wealth. President Biden is seen as a pawn of these elites.

“The latest round seems to be motivated by the political dominance stuff,” Finkelstein said. “There is a huge component of this that China is taking over.” 

This stuff doesn't go away; it morphs. 

Still we can hope that if the promised post-pandemic economic boom really does turn up by the end of the year, some people will find happier objects for their imaginations. We can hope ...