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Wither Q?
Q is a cult, and its prophet and instrument of salvation is Donald Trump. As of last Sunday the faithful were still insisting that the Plan would be fulfilled. What’s the Plan? Why, it’s a brilliant, complex, breathtaking long-game effort to take down the hydra-headed pedophiliac crime syndicate that controlled The Swamp. While things may have seemed dark on Sunday, the faithful were assured that everything was still working. The president was not in Washington, but in Texas; the White House videos had been filmed in front of a green screen to distract the enemies. Trump was actually directing the military from a secret base.
Later in the afternoon, some people on Twitter started a story about DC’s air traffic shut down completely, with massive numbers of troop-carrying planes on the runway. Debunkers posted shots of air traffic from flight-tracker apps; people whose accounts had lots of numbers in there names and eagles in their bios noted that jets had flown over their house very low and loud, so yes, it’s happening.
Except it didn’t, and it won’t. Donald Trump will leave office without making the Q prophecies come true. You have to wonder what that means for the cult. There’s a precedent, after all. Some recalculate the date of the Rapture; some turn on the person who was supposed to lead them to heaven; some fall away, disheartened, and pull a caul over the episode in their life and move on, abashed.
In a way, it already happened. After the election, Q had to revise its predictions to accommodate events, and for some the Stolen Election was proof of the existence of powerful contrary forces. But moving on past the inauguration means losing faith in Trump as the powerful force that will sweep away iniquity. Obviously, he wasn’t, and didn’t. The Deep State wasn’t supposed to win. Pelosi was supposed to be in Gitmo wearing Clockwork-Orange eyelid-spreaders watching film of all the things her minions did to children in the catacombs under a pizzeria.
The left is not burdened with Q-type nonsense. The Putin-Puppet stuff came close. Fitzmas was another. But compared to Q, those are garden-variety political-scandal narratives with an institutional conclusion. I wonder if the left can move past these things easier because they have deeper narratives that offer solace. They can always fall back on the comforting certainties of American sinfulness, the knowledge they are virtuously embroiled in a long twilight struggle against the idea of American exceptionalism. The country is fatally corrupted by racism, sexism, and capitalism, with slavery the Original Sin that taints every atom of ink in its founding documents – but that somehow this uniquely immoral construct can be redeemed by a devotion to a slow-grinding, never-ending rearrangement of its fundamentals, punctuated by violence to encourage the stragglers.
Marxism is Q without the “best by” date printed on the label.
Published in General
I was watching James on a podcast once and saw him lick his eyebrows. It was then I knew he was one of the reptile people.
I’m 71 and have bladder problems. DO you think that uncivil suggestion might help me? I confess, I don’t understand the reference. Please enlighten me!
I was 15 when William F. Buckley went after the Birchers on behalf of Goldwater. The effect, from my perspective, appeared to be simply suppression of Goldwater’s base as about every businessman in Phoenix, and many others under the sway of Western rugged individualism, was a card carrying Bircher. Buckley’s efforts didn’t help much then, and such efforts to purge the kooks on the right won’t help much now. Reagan had a better approach: “They may support me, but I don’t support them” eg, I’ll take their votes. Worked out much better for him, don’t you think?
The kooks, like the poor, will always with us. And they are called, as they say, our fellow Americans.
Personally, I subscribe to the conspiracy theories promulgated by Klavanon.
And, personally, I think DeGaulle’s characterization of Brazil currently fits America much better: We are no longer a serious country. With an approval rating of Congress almost in single digits and a “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” atmosphere in Washington, and politicians who obviously consider themselves our overseers and masters, and are unable to see beyond their own sense of self importance, and ivy-league founders on Ricochet (who CHOOSE to live in NYC, can you believe it?) going on rants about our stupidity, I try to follow Santayana’s words (…I keep within the parchment furled, That prompts the passions of this strutting world.) but don’t succeed as well as I would like.
According to the Boston Globe, Adam Schiff had iron clad documentary proof that Trump colluded with Russia.
I still don’t understand why this is such a big deal. “Q followers think a secret group of government investigators are working to root out a child predator ring involving powerful people” is actually kind of adorable as conspiracy theories go. Again, I’ve never read or watched any of their material so I’ve only heard what others have said about them, so perhaps more extreme things are happening I’m not aware off.
I for one embrace our new reptilian overlords. Yes, they eat people, but they aren’t as pathologically misanthropic as our current political class.
You caught a rare glimpse of Rob Long, in the wild, and you didn’t tell us?
Oh, there it is – just make good policy arguments and we’ll win the day.
The left’s version of “compelling strategy” is “we’ll provide everything and make rich people pay for it”, which seems to garner an inordinate number of votes, every 2, 4, and 6 years. 150 million or so people vote. What, exactly, would it look like, to convince 75 million, plus 1, that Republicans have better things in store for them than Democrats?
If you’re arguing to return to normalcy, I think we’re well on the way to getting it. Which means more massive expansion of federal power and spending, catastrophic debt and unfunded liabilities to the tune of 100 trillion, etc. The other normal we can looking forward to the earliest is interest on the debt crowding out the shrinking pie of the budget that remains discretionary – including, primarily, defense.
I kinda wanna give an atomic wedgie to your PhD pal. Smug and stupid cries out for shaming.
Well wake up Reagan and get crackin’! No one’s holding you back.
MMT, baby.
OT, but there’s an article in The Federalist about the libs moving in on East Tennessee, if you’re interested.
Is there a link?
Here.
Thanks.
I suspected he was talking about Maryville College.
Yesterday, on January 16, 2021 Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse wrote a lengthy 2,000 word essay on Q-Anon titled “QAnon is Destroying the GOP From Within” with the subtitle: “Until last week, too many in the Republican Party thought they could preach the Constitution and wink at QAnon. They can’t.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/conspiracy-theories-will-doom-republican-party/617707/
I filed a OP on this issue at https://ricochet.com/871442/ben-sasse-takes-on-qanon/#respond
You are a one-man PR firm in addition to your other talents.