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Not being sarcastic, but a lot of them are honest-to-god cultists; their connection with concrete reality is tenuous at best. They think that Q is real, and tha

Not being sarcastic, but a lot of them are honest-to-god cultists; their connection with concrete reality is tenuous at best. They think that Q is real, and that Trump had secret information about vague evilness being done by Congress (eating babies or similar) that was going to be revealed when they got into the Capitol. Then they were going to arrest them all and execute them as punishment for their alleged crimes. This is what Q believers call “the storm”. It’s never possible to point to one or two stories that radicalize people like that; it’s not possible to do it that quickly. It takes a certain prior mental state (having a weak social net seems to make it worse), and continual exposure to increasingly radical stories. Like any cult, the rejection of non-members is heavily pushed, which leaves the victim more dependent on the cult and with fewer anchors to reality. I think any good book about how cults work would be relevant for these people, given that I believe they’re in a cult. But if you’re looking for something more specific, Bellingcat has a great article[0] on the Ashli Babbitt, the Q supporter shot and killed by Capitol police as she breached the final barrier to where congress members were hiding. 0 - Content Warning: lethal violence is discussed and shown in this article. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/01/08/the-journey-of-ashli-babbitt/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/01/08/the-journey-of-as...

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
This post like this that remind me the people seriously believe there aren’t just the same number of crazies on the right and left. That “your side“ has all of the “reasonable people” and is “morally right”, what an amazing coincidence. You only want one side to have to “own“ their crazies. That isn’t how it works. Neither side should be thought of or represented by their “crazies”, that isn’t anywhere near good faith.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I mean, currently one 'side' is lead by a guy who's still in complete denial that he lost the election, against all available evidence, so this may not be as 'both-sides'-y as you seem to believe.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    That just means that one side has a crazy who is currently in power. It doesn't mean that the other side doesn't have just as much crazy.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Sure. But that’s a pretty weird digression when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol. When the crazies on the left do something crazy, we can talk about them. But in this context bringing up such a “both sides” argument smacks of whataboutism.
      - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
        > when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol. Thats only because you are choosing to talk about that exclusively. You aren’t taking into account the violence and destruction about BLM. I mean, a known BLM voice/advocate went and murdered 5 cops, and not one bit of that blew back at BLM the Org, because no one forced them to own their crazies. None of the destruction, murder and lawlessness over the summer blew back on BLM, Dems, Antifa. It’s not whataboutism when it’s similar events. A whataboutism would be if someone said “the left doesn’t need to own their crazies because Obama faced criticism for Benghazi”.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Please point to the sentence where I made any of those claims.
- hdhsh8263 6y ago
  The 9/11 truthers were left wingers. The Bernie Bros seem pretty cult-like. Obama certainly had a bit of a cult-of-personality around him at the beginning of his first term. The difference is that on the right the inmates are currently running the asylum, and a significant portion of the right wing media / messaging apparatus has been pushing this stuff.
- carapace 6y ago
  Well, FWIW, I grew up in SF and I'm mostly Left-leaning (although I would have voted for Mitt Romney rather than Biden if that had been an option) and I'll go ahead and "own" our crazies. I've met a few Left-wing nut jobs here over the years. I once attended a Communist rally by accident (I had a crush on the math teacher's daughter, no one told me the overnight field trip was to a Commie rally until we were already on the freeway.) Even as a kid I could tell that they were just a pathetic "religion"-without-God, I would say the lot of them (American Communists) are card-carrying loonies. But (and you can see it coming can't you?) But they never stormed the capitol. Two questions for you: 1) What were they trying to do? (If they are not weird cultists?) 2) Can you think of a group on the Left like Qanon on the Right? I'm sincere, I'm not trying to troll you or talk shit. What do you think?
carapace 6y ago
I've heard that too, not that they're a cult so much as a kind of Live-Action Role-Playing that escaped into the real world. I don't know to what extent that's true, but it helps me try to answer one of the questions foremost on my mind, to wit: what the hell did these folks think they were going to do? What was the plan here? - - - - From the article you posted there's a line that seems particularly telling to me as an older person who does not use a smart phone: > As Babbitt lay dying on the floor, her fellow members of the crowd pulled out their phones and began to film Even in this media-saturated era, that seems particularly cold-blooded or rather disassociated. They didn't help, nor leave, they started taking video.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game. The QAnon crowd unquestionably has a lot of members who genuinely believe this stuff. Generally LARPers don’t play act their way into hundreds of federal felonies, nor do LARPers vote along LARP lines. Also, those guns and bombs are sure real.
  - carapace 6y ago
    > I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game. That's all I meant by "escaped into reality". These folks (and it seems like most of them were pretty young) seem more like Pokemon GO players who think Pokemon are real than a out right cult.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

This post like this that remind me the people seriously believe there aren’t just the same number of crazies on the right and left. That “your side“ has all of the “reasonable people” and is “morally right”, what an amazing coincidence. You only want one side to have to “own“ their crazies. That isn’t how it works. Neither side should be thought of or represented by their “crazies”, that isn’t anywhere near good faith.

rsynnott 6y ago
I mean, currently one 'side' is lead by a guy who's still in complete denial that he lost the election, against all available evidence, so this may not be as 'both-sides'-y as you seem to believe.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  That just means that one side has a crazy who is currently in power. It doesn't mean that the other side doesn't have just as much crazy.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Sure. But that’s a pretty weird digression when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol. When the crazies on the left do something crazy, we can talk about them. But in this context bringing up such a “both sides” argument smacks of whataboutism.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      > when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol. Thats only because you are choosing to talk about that exclusively. You aren’t taking into account the violence and destruction about BLM. I mean, a known BLM voice/advocate went and murdered 5 cops, and not one bit of that blew back at BLM the Org, because no one forced them to own their crazies. None of the destruction, murder and lawlessness over the summer blew back on BLM, Dems, Antifa. It’s not whataboutism when it’s similar events. A whataboutism would be if someone said “the left doesn’t need to own their crazies because Obama faced criticism for Benghazi”.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Please point to the sentence where I made any of those claims.
hdhsh8263 6y ago
The 9/11 truthers were left wingers. The Bernie Bros seem pretty cult-like. Obama certainly had a bit of a cult-of-personality around him at the beginning of his first term. The difference is that on the right the inmates are currently running the asylum, and a significant portion of the right wing media / messaging apparatus has been pushing this stuff.
carapace 6y ago
Well, FWIW, I grew up in SF and I'm mostly Left-leaning (although I would have voted for Mitt Romney rather than Biden if that had been an option) and I'll go ahead and "own" our crazies. I've met a few Left-wing nut jobs here over the years. I once attended a Communist rally by accident (I had a crush on the math teacher's daughter, no one told me the overnight field trip was to a Commie rally until we were already on the freeway.) Even as a kid I could tell that they were just a pathetic "religion"-without-God, I would say the lot of them (American Communists) are card-carrying loonies. But (and you can see it coming can't you?) But they never stormed the capitol. Two questions for you: 1) What were they trying to do? (If they are not weird cultists?) 2) Can you think of a group on the Left like Qanon on the Right? I'm sincere, I'm not trying to troll you or talk shit. What do you think?

carapace 6y ago

I've heard that too, not that they're a cult so much as a kind of Live-Action Role-Playing that escaped into the real world. I don't know to what extent that's true, but it helps me try to answer one of the questions foremost on my mind, to wit: what the hell did these folks think they were going to do? What was the plan here? - - - - From the article you posted there's a line that seems particularly telling to me as an older person who does not use a smart phone: > As Babbitt lay dying on the floor, her fellow members of the crowd pulled out their phones and began to film Even in this media-saturated era, that seems particularly cold-blooded or rather disassociated. They didn't help, nor leave, they started taking video.

ashtonkem 6y ago
I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game. The QAnon crowd unquestionably has a lot of members who genuinely believe this stuff. Generally LARPers don’t play act their way into hundreds of federal felonies, nor do LARPers vote along LARP lines. Also, those guns and bombs are sure real.
- carapace 6y ago
  > I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game. That's all I meant by "escaped into reality". These folks (and it seems like most of them were pretty young) seem more like Pokemon GO players who think Pokemon are real than a out right cult.