The Republican Party Qan’t Quit Qanon

Ryan Liu, Staff Writer

In an election year, the marquee matchup on everyone’s mind will inevitably be the Presidential race. That’s for good reason: whoever assumes the White House for the next four years will have the opportunity to either wreak untold havoc or usher in unparalleled progress.

I hope as much as anybody that Joe Biden beats Donald Trump, but that’s not the only history being woven in November. Sure, if you want to know the future of this country, keep a close eye on the Presidential election.

If you want to see the future of the Republican Party, then look to Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

Here, Marjorie Taylor Greene is the Republican nominee, owing her position to her performance in the runoff primary. Since legal snafus have forced Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal out of the race, she’s technically running unopposed—not that it would matter, since the district leans heavily red. 

This is incredibly concerning. The near-inevitable ascension of Greene to national office should horrify Democrats—and any conservatives still clinging onto slim hopes of the Republican Party reforming itself in a possible post-Trump era.

Ms. Greene is, in many ways, your typical ultraorthodox alt-right politician: to her, American Presidents are secretly Muslim, Jewish philanthropists are secretly Nazis, and Donald Trump is secretly a moral Christian.

But her personal beliefs have also been the subject of national criticism: she’s an adherent of the Qanon conspiracy theory—an unhinged alternate version of reality according to the teachings of ‘Q,’ an anonymous poster originally from 4chan. The central tenet is that liberal international elites are using the Democratic Party as a front for a Satanic child abuse cult that dabbles in esoteric cannibalism rituals. Followers maintain that the truly devout should make ready to wage war against enemies of Q when The Storm comes on the day of reckoning.

Qanon has been rightfully excoriated by most authority figures. The FBI considers them an extremist domestic terrorism threat, with scores of Republican legislators denouncing the movement as incompatible with conservative values.

The problem is, there’s no better embodiment of these values than the Qanon movement. As much as Republican leadership would like to be rid of the party crazies, their only option might be to lean in further.

After all, to do otherwise would be the antithesis of their history. Anti-Trump groups like The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump would have you believe that Donald Trump is a virus unto himself. Nothing could be further from the truth: the President is a symptom, his very election a direct consequence of the choices of tens of millions of Americans. 

A Trump rally attendee demonstrates their adulation of Q by emblazoning his likeness on their child.

What was Donald Trump known for before his controversial entrance into the 2016 Presidential race? In mass culture, it would have been his billionaire branding: Trump towers and steaks and universities, Trump’s face in game shows and Christmas movies. But politically, his claim to relevancy was his role in spearheading the Birther conspiracy movement—a racist allegation that President Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen, that he was, in fact, born in Kenya, and that his birth certificate was illegitimate. 

This collective delusion, though completely unfounded, was enabled by media provocateurs like Trump and bolstered by a shockingly large contingent of racists eager to believe any conspiracy theories that demeaned the first Black President. Is it really a surprise, then, that Barack Obama’s natural successor could only be Donald Trump? The subject of nationwide racial animus, replaced with its chief instigator.

Donald Trump’s penchant for supporting conspiracy theories did not subsist when he became President Trump. The President has repeatedly amplified Qanon-adjacent beliefs, frequently giving them a platform through retweets and labeling them as “people that love our country.” While it’s not particularly surprising that the awesome power of the office has not changed Donald Trump much on this front, it should still be intensely worrying. Through the influence he wields, he has transformed conspiracy theories from fringe partisan politics to the lifeblood of conservative identity. The linkage between past, present, and future presents itself through this model of a party increasingly defined by conspiratorial paranoia. 

Anti-mask protestors in Romania display their allegiance to the Qanon movement, which is rapidly evolving into a global coalition. AFP, Daniel Mihailescu.

The aforementioned Republican groups who wish to one day restore their party call for a sort of generational cleansing on Capitol Hill; they aim to electorally flush out every sycophantic Senator and Representative who enabled the President. While this is an admirable goal, there’s credible fear that if Democrats seize control of the center, the only place left for hopeful Republican candidates to venture is further rightward, and farther down the rabbit hole.

In fact, it’s already happening. Angelo Carusone, President of the group Media Matters, labeled Qanon adherents as “the most die-hard audience you could possibly have” for a Republican seeking office. How could they not be? When you are utterly convinced that the Democratic Party is responsible for incomprehensible levels of evil and sin, you will bleed to see their defeat. 

Republican candidates are willing to exploit this obsession. Ms. Greene is likely a true believer of the Qanon cause—she privately supported the movement long before she ran for office. But of the dozens of candidates running for office this year who have been identified as Qanon-sympathetic, the most frightening possibility isn’t that all these men and women believe that Democrats are demon-worshipping pedophiles.

It’s that some of them know that espousing such dangerous ideas will win them votes.

There is nothing intrinsic to the Qanon movement that will grant its ideology immortality. At its core, it is the ramblings of one particularly seedy denizen of the internet, given voice, given audience, given stage writ large. It is not special. It is not unique. It was not the first, and it will not be the last. 

There are institutional steps that can be taken to curb such movements. Social media giants like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have attempted to purge Qanon-related discourse from their platforms. News agencies are wrestling with how to cover stories in which they are necessarily adversarial. There has been a public push to unilaterally label Qanon for what it is, to not let it permeate subcultures or communities. 

But these actions are inherently reactive. Conspiracy theories proliferate precisely because of a lack of proactive response. And when the people in power, and the people who seek power, are incentivized to encourage conspiratorial metastasis?

Then there’s a Storm coming, indeed.