Q fever, we're told, is sweeping the nation. Polls show that some 7 percent of Americans believe in or support QAnon, the cultish conspiracy theory and community that originated in online message boards in late 2017. Other fringe ideas draw wider support, but few are as bizarre or alarming. QAnon defies easy summary, but its core premise is that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a cabal of celebrities and Democratic politicians who abuse children in Satanic rituals. In one lurid variation, Hollywood stars harvest the chemical adrenochrome from children’s bodies. According to Q, the anonymous poster who started the movement, the Mueller investigation was a false-flag operation, ordered by Trump, to investigate these sex criminals. In a prophesied event called “the storm,” Trump will strike against them with mass arrests and possibly executions.
The rise of a community committed to such outré notions has drawn extensive media coverage, much of which seems animated by a simple question: How can so many people believe such crazy stuff?
New research provides a partial answer: They don’t. Until now, polling on QAnon has generally gone no further than asking people how they feel about the movement. This left unexplored what it actually means when someone says they believe in QAnon. Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts University, recently sought to find out. In September, he conducted a nationally representative online poll asking respondents not just whether they support QAnon, but also whether they believe in eight specific false claims, including four that are central to the QAnon worldview. The poll was funded by Luminate and published by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The results suggest that most “QAnon supporters” have never even heard of, let alone believe, some of the most outrageous claims associated with it.
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