QAnon is Mainstream. That Means Antisemitism Is, Too

QAnon or QAnazi?

Reminder to self: in the UK, underwear = “pants” and pants = “trousers”. People keep looking at me weird for complimenting their “pants”.

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The Washington Post published an opinion today declaring that QAnon has gone mainstream; experts on NPR pondered the same thought last week. Both pieces described how the intense questioning from Republican senators of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on child pornography cases are essentially a dog whistle to QAnon supporters.

They feel a bit late to the party. The loudest (and most contemptible) Republicans have been either genuine QAnon sympathizers themselves (Taylor Green, Boebert) or actively courting the QAnon vote (Cruz, Hawley) since at least the 2020 presidential election. The rest of the party has since followed with increasing zeal.

To its credit, The New York Times was a bit more on top of things when it warned of QAnon seeping into the mainstream a year and a half ago – ahead of the January 6 insurrection that brought the movement to the forefront of American politics, shaman and all.

A poll this August from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core found that 14 percent of Americans believe in the core tenants of the QAnon conspiracy theory and 55 percent of Republicans only “mostly disagreed” with the outlandish statements.

In sum, just one in five Republicans fully rejected QAnon’s premises outright.

It’s true that the proceedings during Jackson’s nomination hearing have unveiled the continued courting of conspiracy theorists in this vein, but the American news media has failed to consistently call QAnon – and by proxy, any political leader that endorses or appeases its advocates – what it fundamentally is: antisemitic.

The QAnon conspiracy erroneously posits that a ‘Satanic, cannibalistic cabal’ of notable public figures is secretly sexually abusing and trafficking children, as well as generally conspiring against T****.

Sound familiar? Because to me, that sounds an awful lot like blood libel.

Never mind that it’s nonsense, never mind that in fact T**** is just as likely as anyone to have committed sexual misconduct, never mind that there appears to be a group of wealthy and powerful individuals that do commit serious sex trafficking crimes – conspiracy theories aren’t supposed to make sense, nor do they need to in order to catch on.

Blood libel is the myth that accuses Jews of murdering young children to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals, namely the baking of matzah. The antisemitic conspiracy can be traced back all the way to early Roman Christians up through medieval, early modern, and modern times.

A twist on the myth – that Jews were secretly planning to take over the world – was popularized in the fabricated text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1903.

Of course, it’s unnecessary to remind anyone reading of the ramifications of widespread antisemitic conspiracies in the 20th century.

While QAnon is in many ways an all-encompassing conspiracy theory such that believers genuinely thought JFK Jr. would reanimate from the dead to announce T****’s reinstatement as president (with him as his VP), a significant portion of the conspiracy framework is riddled with antisemitic strands.

There is a hyperfocus from the right on targeting George Soros as pulling the strings of global politics, hearkening back to the Protocols. Consistently blaming the Rothschilds for national ills has factored into QAnon beliefs as well. Further is the belief that politicians and ‘Hollywood elites’ (a dog whistle for Jews in and of itself) engage in "adrenochrome harvesting", in which adrenalin is extracted from children's blood to produce the psychoactive drug ‘adrenochrome’ – a conspiracy theory that is a clear descendant of blood libel. And of course, who can forget the space lasers.

This all comes from the same cloth of right-wingers who have openly advocated book burnings and have chanted ‘the Jews will not replace us’.

Nearly four in five Americans who believe in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion also subscribe to QAnon.

QAnon or QAnazi?

QAnon is the latest in a long line of antisemitic conspiracy theories, and it’s important that those in the media reporting on it are consistent in saying as much. Instead, outlets have failed to repeatedly remind viewers and readers of the blatant ties to antisemitism extant on the far right, and antisemitism has become increasingly normalized in the US. For all the criticism Taylor Green received for her ‘space laser’ comment, she was not censured by congress, and, like other Republicans, has not faced any consequences for her inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric.

In October, a report by the American Jewish Committee found that one in four American Jews said they experienced antisemitism in the past year. In 2020, Jews were the target of 58% of all religiously motivated hate crimes and 9% of total hate crimes in the US.

The lack of widespread outrage is extraordinarily concerning. Where antisemitism is left to fester, democracy rots.

“First they came…”

Photo by Anthony Crider