I was listening to an episode of the Conspirituality podcast recently, and one of the guests was a former QAnon follower who shared what he had found to be so intoxicating about QAnon, and also why he believes such a surge of people started following QAnon shortly after Trump was elected.

As I listened to him lay out his observations, it occurred to me that what he was sharing about QAnon could easily apply to the anti-vax, anti-mask uproar that’s happening across parts of the country.

On the first question, one thing he found so intoxicating about QAnon was, ironically, its optimism and hopefulness. The consistent message of Q was, everything is under control. The good guys are winning. What you’re seeing – from Trump, the military, etc – is a show. And when this show is over, which will be soon, all the bad people will be destroyed.

On the second question, he reflected on how he felt as a (now former) Trump supporter one year after the election. At that point, Trump had not accomplished anything really meaningful as president. The wall was not built. Hillary Clinton was not locked up. Infrastructure week was a running joke. There was a moment where Trump supporters might have felt like they had made a mistake, that this guy whom they had deified was not what they believed him to be. Then Q came along and saved them from having to admit they were wrong, that they had been duped.

There are few things people avoid more strenuously than having to admit failure, especially if the particular failure is one that makes you look foolish and naive. And double-especially if there’s a social stigma attached to it, like supporting Trump. Even Mitt Romney once wrote a whole book whose very title – No Apology – suggested that never admitting wrong is some kind of virtue. QAnon followers will go deeper and deeper into bizarre and fantastical beliefs before they will face the idea that they could be wrong. And then it becomes a vicious cycle.

Here lies the connection to the anti-vaxxers. Even as evidence piles up that the COVID vaccines are safe and effective, they will ingest livestock dewormer, they will risk their own children’s health, before they will admit they were wrong.

This is also why mocking them makes them even less inclined to change.

Some right-wingers have posited a bizarre twist on this last idea, arguing that the left is using reverse-psychology on Trump voters to trick them into not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The idea is that by urging everyone to get vaccinated, people on the left are actually hoping that Trump voters will instead choose to die, to own the libz.

Armchair Pundit

Never Wrong