The Storm Is Upon Us
How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything
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発行者による作品情報
"I hope everyone reads this book. It has become such a crucial thing for all of us to understand." —Erin Burnett, CNN
"An ideal tour guide for your journey into the depths of the rabbit hole that is QAnon. It even shows you a glimmer of light at the exit." —Cullen Hoback, director of HBO's Q: Into the Storm
Its messaging can seem cryptic, even nonsensical, yet for tens of thousands of people, it explains everything: What is QAnon, where did it come from, and is the Capitol insurgency a sign of where it’s going next?
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? Who were these rapt listeners? How do they reconcile their worldview with the America they see around them? Why do their numbers keep growing? Mike Rothschild, a journalist specializing in conspiracy theories, has been collecting their stories for years, and through interviews with QAnon converts, apostates, and victims, as well as psychologists, sociologists, and academics, he is uniquely equipped to explain the movement and its followers.
In The Storm Is Upon Us, he takes readers from the background conspiracies and cults that fed the Q phenomenon, to its embrace by right-wing media and Donald Trump, through the rending of families as loved ones became addicted to Q’s increasingly violent rhetoric, to the storming of the Capitol, and on.
And as the phenomenon shows no sign of calming despite Trump’s loss of the presidency—with everyone from Baby Boomers to Millennial moms proving susceptible to its messaging—and politicians starting to openly espouse its ideology, Rothschild makes a compelling case that mocking the seeming madness of QAnon will get us nowhere. Rather, his impassioned reportage makes clear it's time to figure out what QAnon really is — because QAnon and its relentlessly dark theory of everything isn’t done yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Rothschild (The World's Worst Conspiracies) provides an enlightening history of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Drawing on interviews with QAnon followers and their friends and family members, Rothschild delves into the movement's roots on the message boards of 4chan and Reddit, and describes the counterintuitive appeal of conspiracy theories in general, noting that it can feel more plausible that a cabal of bad actors is responsible for terrible events, rather than "honest mistakes by others or random chance." Pointing to the prevalence of QAnon symbols at the January 6 Capitol riot, Rothschild claims that the movement has "saturated Republican politics," and estimates that "there are likely hundreds of thousands who buy into at least some part of the complex mythology." Though the contours of Rothschild's findings are familiar, he unearths startling examples of the group's twisted logic and wide reach. For instance, a 2019 tweet by former FBI director James Comey was misinterpreted by QAnon followers as an announcement of a "false flag" attack on an upcoming charter school fundraiser in California; parents were so alarmed by reports of a threat that the event had to be canceled. Rothschild also offers useful advice on how to help loved ones get out of QAnon. This is a disturbing and well-informed look at the darker side of modern American politics.
