i don't know that you can get somebody out of a destructive or coercive movement if they don't want to. How do you force somebody away from that without pushing them deeper into it? I dn't think anybody knows. It's really hard to seet. And your i bias bias, i guess it's codgon to bias bias oli. So twat kind of recommendations, like you'r sitting down to dinner and crazy uncle bob brings up you now can on or the rigged election, or whatever. Keep your mouth yet. Do you ask questions? Do you say, like, thaw, do you know that? Or what do you recommend? You're not going
Michael Shermer speaks with Mike Rothschild, a journalist specializing in conspiracy theories, about QAnon and its followers.
On October 5th, 2017, President Trump made a cryptic remark in the State Dining Room at a gathering of military officials. He said it felt like “the calm before the storm” — then refused to elaborate as puzzled journalists asked him to explain. But on the infamous message boards of 4chan, a mysterious poster going by “Q Clearance Patriot,” who claimed to be in “military intelligence,” began the elaboration on their own. In the days that followed, Q’s wild yarn explaining Trump’s remarks began to rival the sinister intricacies of a Tom Clancy novel, while satisfying the deepest desires of MAGA-America. But did any of what Q predicted come to pass? No. Did that stop people from clinging to every word they were reading, expanding its mythology, and promoting it wider and wider? No. Why not?