QAnon has been increasingly used as a hashtag to create content that continuously attacks Democrat leaders and points towards impending doom.
QAnon is a modern conspiracy theory that believes in the existence of a ‘deep state’ that has been actively working against President Donald Trump. The group thrived on 4chan and 8chan — sites allowing users to post anonymous bulletins and most of the threads emphasise that celebrities, Democrats, and many high-ranking officials are part of this ‘deep state’. According to a recent poll, 56% of Republicans believe that the conspiracy is mostly or partly true. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a racist conspiracy-monger, won a Republican primary in Georgia that will almost certainly result in her winning a congressional seat in a deep-red district after her opponent bowed out recently. Greene is also a supporter of QAnon, and not just her, but 53 congressional candidates have promoted QAnon. This includes the likes of Lauren Boebert and Joe Rae Perkins who have won from Colorado and Oregon.
President Trump also continues to endorse these leaders, though he does not identify as a supporter of QAnon, he has on multiple occasions retweeted QAnon’s tweets. The FBI has also identified QAnon conspiracy theorists as “extremists” who pose a potential domestic terror threat. Thus, it is crucial to understand the impact of QAnon’s rhetoric on the US elections. This article will examine how the virality of its message-aided through social media coupled with a growing mistrust of ruling elites- has emboldened the allure of the message and its potential to shape voter perceptions before November 2020.
QAnon has spread like wildfire in recent months and has gone on from being an obscure conspiracy on the internet to being part of mainstream political conversations before the November elections. Moreover, supporters of this ideology have also internalised a deep resentment towards the “other”, and have attached catastrophic consequences to a Democrat being in power, aptly captured by one such supporter who states: “I think if Biden wins, the world is over, basically.” The dangers of QAnon is thus, the ability to create such strong fears of the enemy that losing is associated with imminent destruction.
Facebook and Google control most of our social media and internet interactions today. QAnon has been increasingly used as a hashtag to create content that continuously attacks Democrat leaders and points towards impending doom. 22,232,285 tweets used the #QAnon and related hashtags such as #Q, #Qpatriot, and #TheGreatAwakening in 2019 — an average of 60,910 tweets per day, compared to hashtags such as #MeToo (5,231,928 tweets in 2019) or #climatechange (7,510,311). This just illustrates how a conspiracy has been able to overshadow conversations about addressing issues of international call of actions against structural injustices and harms.
QAnon followers engage in constant “online warfare” to mock Democrat candidates and their online misinformation tactics help in this regard. Social media can be a great influencer in terms of shaping election results and QAnon has been capitalising on that idea. Last fall, QAnon conspiracists targeted the Louisiana and Kentucky gubernatorial elections by flooding key hashtags such as #vote and #VoteonNov5 with tweets and memes supporting the Republican candidates and smearing their opponents. This pushes for overwhelming content in favour of one party and their portrayal as saviours in the governmental system that the conspiracy believes can’t be trusted. This shift in itself, of a conspiracy and its followers actively pushing for political change, shows the weaponisation that QAnon has gone through and is now influencing voter trends and individual choices openly, including the beliefs of leaders who are standing in these elections.
On Facebook, trends dictate a user’s choices and suggestions. Simply put, the suggestions on an individual’s Facebook feed related to QAnon increases when they follow Trump or the Republican party. This tendency for social media to create echo chambers and provide consumers with partisan news that concurs with their prejudices shall only help QAnon rhetoric infiltrate the news feeds of republicans sharing a similar worldview and its impact on voter perceptions could be decisive.
However, there are certain psychological dimensions to QAnon’s appeal that make its virality on social media especially problematic in context to the upcoming election. The affinity towards QAnon and other conspiracies stems from an identity vacuum and a need to belong. The need for strong group identity and feeling of belonging is evolutionarily hardwired into us and believers of such ideologies use this group’s exclusivity and ideological appeal to fill social vacuums. QAnon supporters partaking in real-world violence-as witnessed in the infamous incident of a supporter blocking the freeway in an armoured truck further iterates the extent to which some may go to fulfill certain psychological needs of tying one’s identity closer to the group.
Apart from a sense of belonging, QAnon, much like other conspiracies, also provides a simplistic answer to complex questions. It reassures believers that things happen for a reason and everything bad can be tied to an easily identifiable cause-in this case, a “deep state” rigged against Donald Trump. Moreover, concocting elaborate and unfalsifiable stories like a pedophile sex ring or other seemingly ludicrous claims makes followers believe they are privy to exclusive secrets, reaffirming their need for uniqueness. Thus, the ability for QAnon to provide believers with closure, control, clarity, and a sense of group affiliation may explain its persuasiveness, and the endorsement of the Republican party is bound to shape voter perceptions of their followers and the influx of new people exposed to their burgeoning online presence.
The movement also capitalises on a general deterioration that citizens tend to place in the functioning of the state. QAnon in that sense is also a manifestation of the systematic loss of trust in the ruling elites. The general alienation that voters feel in a protectionist world, with threats of surveillance and lack of privacy because of the inclusion of big data in our lives has fueled ideas of general mistrust towards a government and their actions.
This mistrust is not necessarily just questioning the government but turns out to become outright cynicism. In this case, it has translated into the manifestation of looking at all of Trump’s opponents as antagonists. The weaponisation of an online conspiracy into a political movement that involves citizens taking matters in their own hands is a worrying scenario. The ‘Pizzagate’ incident iterates that individuals have harboured mistrust against the elites and the inclusion of a conspiracy about supposed child trafficking by the same individuals out of a pizza shop in that mix can embolden the hate and lead to a call for immediate violent action.
It is easy to disregard QAnon as just another ludicrous conspiracy and label its followers as deranged and misguided. However, patronising QAnon and its followers will only increase its appeal and pull more people down this rabbit hole. Conspiracy theories have a multifaceted effect on their followers that include providing a sense of worth, self-esteem, and control. Dampening the allure of Qanon requires empathy and displaying intellectual superiority like the famous Hilary Clinton “basket of deplorables” comment shall only play into the anti-elite sentiment that fuels such rhetoric. However, such deep-rooted change and ideology transformation requires time and a concerted effort. With an election right around the corner, the first order of business ought to be minimising the disruptive influence that misinformation propagated by Qanon could have on the election.
Voting is often a judgement based on simple heuristics and not fact. Thus, QAnon’s burgeoning influence, both in real and virtual worlds, could impact the public consciousness of a section of the American electorate. The election in November is looming and QAnon’s virality may have an impact on voter preferences. Social media companies must acknowledge this possibility and work towards ensuring a clean digital space that prevents QAnon and similar propaganda from infiltrating news feeds and by extension, tacitly shape voter choices.
Jibran Khan is a research intern at ORF.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Prithvi Iyer was a Research Assistant at Observer Research Foundation Mumbai. His research interests include understanding the mental health implications of political conflict the role ...
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