Why white supremacists and QAnon enthusiasts are obsessed – but very wrong – about the Byzantine Empire
“No matter the provenance of the recent interest in Byzantium from America’s white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, one thing is clear: It is based on a very warped idea of the Byzantine Empire that has emerged out of the empire’s fraught place in our histories, caught between ancient and medieval, spirituality and bureaucracy.” - The Conversation
Interesting article. I didn’t realize that Byzantium was relevant in Quanon. A while back I got interested in Hebrew Israelite stuff. It’s amazing to see how distorted history ends up being common to all these groups.
why are we so obsessed with what a few QANON kooks think?
[josh p]Speaking only for myself, I don’t think I’m obsessed and I haven’t seen it much on SI. There has been some discussion but it’s not as if it’s everyday.
The media in general Josh. Its QANON 24/7. One story after another in a vain attempt to connect every Trump supporter with a bunch of wackos. Now they are trying to connect regular “evangelicals” with QANON.
[Mark_Smith]why are we so obsessed with what a few QANON kooks think?
A few reasons. 56% of Republican believe that QAnon is partly or mostly true. So definitely not a “few”. Whether that % is fully accurate or not, it is clear by numerous studies that the ideology is pervasive within the Republican party. Some of the ideas were espoused and promoted by the President, both while he was in office and out of office. Further studies have shown a significant overlap between QAnon and White Conservative Evangelicals (also one of the strongest consistent support bases for Trump). While some people view it QAnon as fringe and not “infecting” our churches, the facts at least from polling don’t support this. QAnon is increasingly becoming more pervasive and it is a belief that is held by an increasingly number of evangelical Christians. Lastly, studies have shown that QAnon supporters are significantly more inclined to believe other conspiracy theories.
Add on top of that, that QAnon supporters have shown a propensity toward violence. It should be concerning for people in general and specifically for leaders in our churches.
[dgszweda]
Bull.
[Mark_Smith]Bull.
Here are a few (from the last 6 months, some just a few weeks old):
- 56% of Republicans: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/02/majority-of-republica…
- 30% of Republicans: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/nearly-30-percent-of-republican…
- 50% of Trump Supporters: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/22/qanon-poll-find…
- 27% of white evangelicals: https://religionnews.com/2021/02/11/survey-more-than-a-quarter-of-white…
I want specifics on what was asked. How exactly the question was phrased. The methodology, etc. None of your links have that. Sorry.
This is propaganda to get you to think Republicans and conservative Christians are nut-job kooks.
For example, if you dig into one of your links, it claims QANON (and hence Republicans and Conservative Christians) is anti-semitic. As proof it claims to ask if you believe George Soros is a negative influence on politics and is a pedophile. People who say “yes” are labeled anti-Semitic because somewhere in George Soros’ genes is Jewish genealogy. Now the problem is, that is a silly link to make.
This gives you an idea of some of the questions. Most organizations will not release raw data
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/after-the-ballots-are-cou…
Most of these results are coming from think tanks that lean conservative, such as the American Enterprise Institute, so bias is more limited. We could probably pick apart different surveys, but stepping back there are almost 20 surveys from different organizations that all lean toward the same result (25% to 50% of conservatives buy into the QAnon conspiracy theory). I guess you would have to believe a conspiracy is taking place that so many surveys from a broad spectrum of organizations are all propoganda.
Arguing about the details of each survey probably evades the overall comment that you stated “why are we so obsessed with what a few QANON kooks think?” The fact is that it is not a “few”. A few is not many. 25% of Americans identify as Republican accoding to Gallup. That means that anywhere from 6% to 13% of Americans support the QAnon conspiracy theory. Not just a few.
The 50% numbers are a Daily Kos poll and a USA Today internet poll. We are not talking about anything reliable by any stretch of the imagination here.
Regarding the more reasonable numbers, let’s keep in mind that a very significant sex trafficking ring led by Jeffrey Epstein was prosecuted under Trump’s Presidency, and that those in contact with Epstein did indeed skew left. Now it’s not a clean “Democrats did this and Republicans did not”, but it was a big deal that had certain things in common with the core QAnon theory, and that will show up in survey results.
(one of Epstein’s other friends includes, of course, Donald Trump, and Trump did something really strange with appointing and keeping Alex Acosta at Labor long after it was clear Acosta was a key player in the whitewash of Epstein’s first conviction….one has to wonder how much Acosta knew that would put others close to Trump in jail as well)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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