I've been doing a few hours of study to try and understand some of what we might call "off-the-wall" statements posted in this thread. Its always my goal to understand rather than criticize and belittle. There's always time for that later.
A smarter man than I who has done extensive analysis of the Qanon phenomenon summarized as follows:
"there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything. They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump."
I also learned that there seems to be no clear idea of the originator with theories ranging from a military intelligence officer, to Donald Trump himself.
One analyst in the attempt to define individuals attracted to the phenomenon wrote:
"He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millennialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse... Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated – if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the individual directs his attention."
The sad part of my studies arose from this observation:
"People in the QAnon community often talk about alienation from family and friends. ... Though they typically talk about how Q frayed their relationships on private Facebook groups. But they think these issues are temporary and primarily the fault of others. They often comfort themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of vindication sometime in the near future which will prove their beliefs right. They imagine that after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn to them as leaders who understand what's going on better than the rest of us."
The good news in all of this is that some Q followers reportedly break away when they recognize the content of the theories is not self-consistent, or they see that some of the content is directly aimed at getting donations from a specific audience. This then "breaks the spell" the conspiracies had over them. Others reportedly have watched Q-debunking videos; one former believer claimed that the videos "saved" her.
We can only hope that our fellow AH'ers are as fortunate.
