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QAnon

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Illustration of Q-Anon vigilantes climbing an electrified letter Q.

QAnon Is the Latest American Conspiracy Theory

The rise of the right-wing paranoid fantasy, egged on by Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, reflects deep currents in American politics.
by Chris Lehmann via The Nation on February 6, 2023
QAnon proponent and Trump supporters

Bad Information

Conspiracy theories like QAnon are ultimately a social problem rather than a cognitive one. We should blame politics, not the faulty reasoning of individuals.
by Nicolas Guilhot via Boston Review on August 23, 2021

QAnon and the Satanic Panics of Yesteryear

What they can teach us about what to expect.
by Daniel N. Gullotta via The Bulwark on February 25, 2021
A graphic with web browsers open depicting lizard people, hooded satanists, Satan, Donald Trump, the jewish star, a bloody, blood being poured into a goblet, ritualistic candles, and an ominous well.

QAnon, Blood Libel, and the Satanic Panic

How the ancient, antisemitic nocturnal ritual fantasy expresses itself through the ages—and explains the right’s fascination with fringe conspiracy theories.
by Talia Lavin via The New Republic on September 29, 2020

QAnon Didn't Just Spring Forth From the Void

Calling QAnon a "cult" or "religion" hides how its practices are born of deeply American social and political traditions.
by Adam Willems, Megan Goodwin via Religion Dispatches on September 10, 2020

How America’s Rich Legacy of Fear and Hatred Fuels the Conspiracy Theories of Today

Panic about Catholics, Freemasons, and, later, Jews, is deeply woven into American history, and forms the basis of our fertile culture of conspiracy theorizing.
by Arthur Goldwag via Talking Points Memo on June 21, 2024
Josh Hawley at Senate confirmation hearing

Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon

Josh Hawley’s attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are part of a long, sad tradition.
by Paul M. Renfro, Ali Breland via Mother Jones on March 28, 2022
Postcard image of a painting of the Mayflower at sea.

Looking for an American Myth

The fevered hunt for basic symbols.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on February 6, 2022
Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention

How the GOP Surrendered to Extremism

Sixty years ago, many GOP leaders resisted radicals in their ranks. Now they’re not even trying.
by Ronald Brownstein via The Atlantic on February 4, 2021
This 1856 political cartoon depicts the responses of the three candidates to the results of the election. Winning Democrat James Buchanan sits reading the returns of the election while newspaper editors approach from the left. Behind them the defeated Republican candidate John C. Fremont rides off into the West. To the right the second defeated candidate, Millard Fillmore, laments his fall into the “caverns of Know-Nothingism.”

Here’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party

The modern GOP isn't the first party to embrace huge conspiracies. But the lessons should be sobering.
by Zachary Karabell via Politico Magazine on January 30, 2021
President Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, on Main Street, minutes before the assassination

JFK’s Assassination and “Doing Your Own Research”

Revelations about secret government programs after Kennedy’s assassination increased the power of conspiracy theories.
by Livia Gershon, Kathryn Olmsted via JSTOR Daily on April 20, 2023
Texas investigators and medical examiners stand on top of the ruins of the Mount Carmel compound.

How the Right Got Waco Wrong

Militia groups have long used Waco as a rallying cry. But it was never the example of whiteness under siege that they invoke.
by Paul M. Renfro via The New Republic on January 31, 2023
Members of the John Birch Society pledging allegiance to the flag at a meeting, Chicago, 1961.

The Birchers & the Trumpers

A new biography of Robert Welch traces the origins and history of the anti-Communist John Birch Society and provides historical perspective on the Trump era.
by James Mann via New York Review of Books on June 2, 2022
Paul Ryan against a background of graph paper and a dotted line.

The Struggle for the Soul of the GOP

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?
by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on April 12, 2022
Image of Anita Hill.

Anita Hill Saw History Repeat Itself at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court Hearings

The key witness in Clarence Thomas’s nomination process discusses how sex and race shaped the new Justice’s experience, and her own.
by Anita Hill, Jane Mayer, David Remnick via The New Yorker on April 8, 2022
"Impeach Earl Warren" billboard by the John Birch Society.

Rise of the Far-Right Ultras

A new book shows just how porous the dividing line has been between the far right and mainstream conservatism.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on January 11, 2022
A bronze statue of Civil War soldiers on horseback, in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

How Twitter Explains the Civil War (and Vice Versa)

The proliferation of antebellum print is analogous to our own tectonic shifts in how people communicate and what they communicate about.
by Ariel Ron via The Strong Paw Of Reason on January 6, 2022
Photo of Philip Rieff at microphone waiting to speak

The Importance of Repression

Philip Rieff predicted that therapy culture would end in barbarism.
by Park MacDougald via UnHerd on September 29, 2021
Illustration of a black mother working, doing housework, and caring for a child

Daddy Issues

The murderous hysteria over white patrimony is inseparable from the private capture of both economic opportunity and political authority.
by Bethany Moreton via Dissent on August 25, 2021
Digital illustration of a wagon filled with newspapers.

Fear in the Heartland

How the case of the kidnapped paperboys accelerated the “stranger danger” panic of the 1980s.
by Paul M. Renfro via Slate on August 9, 2021
Graphic of Earth surrounded by red and white squiggles

What Is the Most Damaging Conspiracy Theory in History?

"What makes this conspiracy theory so damaging is its adaptability."
by Christine Caldwell Ames, David G. Robertson, Daniel Kolitz, Jennifer Rice, Joseph Parent, Sara Lipton, Peter Knight via Gizmodo on July 12, 2021
H.P. Lovecraft.

The Shadow Over H.P. Lovecraft

Recent works inspired by his fiction struggle to reckon with his racist fantasies.
by Siddhartha Deb via The New Republic on March 19, 2021
An illustration featuring Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The John Birch Society Never Left

Why it’s foolish to think the modern GOP will ever break with its lunatic fringe.
by Rick Perlstein, Edward H. Miller via The New Republic on March 8, 2021
A man standing at a crossroads holding an American flag.

The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind

The peculiarities of how American Christianity took shape help explain believers’ vulnerability to conspiratorial thinking and misinformation.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on March 4, 2021
Rush Limbaugh at a Trump rally

From Limbaugh to Trump: A Historian of the Right Wing Explains Rush’s Real Legacy

In so many ways, Limbaugh helped sow the seeds of the pathologies we're now living through.
by Rick Perlstein, Greg Sargent via Washington Post on February 17, 2021
Donald and Melania Trump waving from airplane.

How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency

Donald Trump's four-year tenure in the White House revealed extraordinary fissures in American society but left little doubt that he is a unique figure.
by Michael Dimock, John Gramlich via Pew Research Center on January 29, 2021
Ronald Reagan at a news conference in Los Angeles on Jan. 4, 1965, after announcing that he would run for governor of California.

Long Before QAnon, Ronald Reagan and The GOP Purged John Birch Extremists From The Party

Six decades ago, leaders in the GOP backed away from the conspiracy theories peddled by the leader of the increasingly influential John Birch Society.
by Erick Trickey via Retropolis on January 15, 2021
A sign being held at the January 6 Trump rally that depicts Donald Trump holding the head of Karl Marx.

Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates

Misunderstood historical imagery at the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
by Matthew Gabriele via Perspectives on History on January 12, 2021
Person wearing pro-Trump attire in front of the U.S. Capitol.

What Should We Call the Sixth of January?

What began as a protest, rally, and march ended as something altogether different—a day of anarchy that challenges the terminology of history.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on January 8, 2021
Trump supporters standing outside of the U.S. Capitol building.
partner

What Pro-Trump Insurrectionists Share — and Don’t — With the American Revolution

Some supporters of the violent mob scene at the Capitol proclaimed it was the beginning of a “Second American Revolution.”
by Jordan E. Taylor via Made By History on January 7, 2021
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