Stannard: QAnon is no laughing matter | Perspective | rutlandherald.com
If you’re like me, you can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see if the world has tilted off its axis a little more than it’s supposed to. For the most part, the world can be a pretty scary place. Those of us lucky enough to have been born and raised in Vermont have a very different paradigm than folks who live in other states. Many people look at Vermont as being a very special, if not mysterious, place, and they’re right, just maybe not for the same reasons.
Overall, and yes, there are plenty of exceptions, Vermonters are pretty well educated and do see what is happening in the world around them. However, they may be too busy simply trying to survive to try to come up with solutions to the world’s problems.
As a very young person, I remember the British Invasion. Music was blowing out of a country that was once our adversary. In 1964, the Beatles arrived in America and immediately, kids started growing their hair out. It took about 18 months to two years before that fad hit Vermont. We tend to be a little more cautious and a little less gullible. It could be that our DNA is wired differently.
People who came to Vermont 200 years ago did so because they had had enough of “the regimented ways in old New England,” says Scott Bartley and wanted a different, and presumably more independent, life. They worked very hard, learned to mind their own business and respected others who worked as hard as they did. Vermonters will give you the shirt off their backs … but they want to know what size you wear first. It’s not easy to pull something over on Vermonters, because we’re raised to be a bit suspicious of new fads and crazy ideas.
On Nov. 2, another act of strangeness happened in Texas. Inasmuch as Texas appears to have lost its mind lately, the most recent event hardly created any stir at all. In fairness, the news has been dominated by the Democrats finally passing the infrastructure bill and they are on the verge of moving forward on the president’s “Build Back Better” plan. These two things took up a lot of bandwidth. The rest was reserved for another grand jury being called to further investigate the former, disgraced president.
So it should come as no surprise that many of us missed what was happening in Texas. A few hundred people actually came from all over the country to Dallas, Texas, to see and hopefully meet John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. Now, if you’re scratching your head at this, don’t feel bad. Both JFK and his son are dead. However, QAnon convinced hundreds of Americans that JFK Jr. would return from the dead to run with the former, disgraced president as his running mate.
I am not making this up. There really are people in the country, and around the world, who believe in QAnon and the nonsense they spew. While the rest of us are laughing up our sleeves at them, at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 2, hundreds of people began to chant “God bless America” and “JFK.” That is until neither Kennedy showed up. The crowd was disappointed. They had hoped, and anticipated, that others might join the Kennedys, such as the late Robin Williams and Richard Pryor. One woman was heard saying, “I can’t wait to meet Kobe Bryant.” Seriously, folks, this really happened.
I guess on some level this is amusing, but it’s really not. What it is, is scary. Sure, we’ve always had more than our share of fringe characters and some that have done some real harm; Jim Jones and the former, disgraced president come to mind. This is from The New York Times: QAnon, an outlandish and ever-evolving conspiracy theory spread by some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent followers, has significant traction with a segment of the public — particularly Republicans and Americans who consume news from far-right sources. Those are the findings of a poll released today by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core, which found that 15% of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, a core belief of QAnon supporters. The same share said it was true that “American patriots may have to resort to violence to depose the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful order.”
FYI 15% equates to around 50 million people. You heard me. Not 500 people, not 5,000 or 500,000 people — 50 million people. It’s time for those of us who do not believe in crazy conspiracy theories to stand up and shout down those who do. QAnon is like an invasive species growing in your garden. You yank it out as soon as you see it or suffer the consequences. We’re surrounded by folks who believe in conspiracy theories over facts and truth, and that is no laughing matter.
Bob Stannard lives in Manchester Center.
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