Are You Telling Me?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i think what people find in these ings is an anidote to the kind of meaningless grind of life. We want to believe that there is a deep state running things, and we can do something about it. And an uncovering theories like this makes us feel like werethe heroes in our own story. The size of the cause should match the size of the effect. Ifyou get something big, you dlekt. It's n different names for the same thing. You no call it the deep state, the new world order, the illuminat, whatever. It's there are powerful people in charge, and we're going to stop themd.

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?