One in ten Democrats are QAnon conspiracy theorists, right? One in ten. That’s 10 percent of the Democratic Party of America. Right? QAnon, therefore, is one of the most prevalent and dominant parts of the Democratic voter base. It’s as important to them as ‘The Squad’.
Sounds manifestly gibberish, right? Well, a recent study quoted by The Times of London, conducted by the influential Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), alleges precisely this statistic, and presumably with a straight face. Not having to see the faces of pollsters, I assure you, is a form of mercy.
I happened upon this information in Saturday’s Times of London, in a piece filed from Washington, by a reporter called Hugh Tomlinson. Amusingly, The Times appears to have plagiarised an Associated Press headline from two years ago on the same topic:
In Tomlinson’s efforts to terrorise and bewilder the average Times reader (think of a white-haired lady called Doris, who lives in a semi-detached home in Cornwall) he writes:
New data from the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that the proportion of Americans who believe the main tenets of QAnon rose from 14 per cent in March 2021 to 18 per cent in March this year. Crucially, the proportion of people who dismiss the movement out-of-hand has softened sharply. In March last year, 40 per cent of Americans rejected QAnon’s beliefs completely — the figure is now 30 per cent.
So I looked at this “new data” and specifically what the “main tenets” of QAnon are, according to PRRI. Here they are, in their words:
The government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.
There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.
Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.
I don’t know if these are, in fact, part of any QAnon manifesto, but we can boil these down to the proofs positive on the claims being made, without sounding so panicky about it all:
Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew, etc;
Centralised global governance vs. Federalism or Localism;
Literally what America’s founders believed and undertook.
In other words, according to PRRI the only way you can not be a QAnon follower is to disbelieve in these heavily documented things.
Again - if you tell a pollster you believe Jeffrey Epstein was grooming young girls for global leaders – you are a “conspiracy theorist”. The smart people who developed this survey, by the way, are also the same people who think government is able to dispassionately conduct “background checks” into potential gun owners without that becoming partisan or punitive. Ha!
And now it’s quite easy to see how you come out with both an increase in “believers” and a decrease in “disbelievers” per Tomlinson’s article – which, with the above in mind, now reads more like a recruiting tool than analysis.
No wonder we can so easily arrive at the risible numbers quoted by PRRI: that “QAnon beliefs remain most prevalent among Republicans (26% are believers), compared to fewer independents (16%) and Democrats (10%).”
Frankly, it’s a wonder it isn’t several degrees higher. And just so we are clear, that is equal to the number of people who identify as “Democratic socialists” within the Democratic Party.
This either tells us that a significant number of Dems are actually extremely based on the subjects of elite groomers, globalism, and potential violent revolution – or the methodology of these polls is absolute dogshite. I welcome your thoughts in my own poll (two can play this game!) below.
But before you vote, consider the implications of this. Thousands of Doris’s will read Tomlinson’s piece, and become convinced a la Tea Party outrage circa 2009, that mobs of pedo-hunting patriots are marauding through Central Park on red, white, and blue horses, armed to the teeth with ASSAULT RIFLES.
If only.
Articles like this inform public and political opinion. Surveys from PRRI are designed to aid lawmakers and legislators.
Instead, I contend that both Tomlinson and his source data provide nought but a load of old toss. Penny for your thoughts:
Here's a thought --- everybody currently of the belief that Biden, Harris, Austin, Garland, et al ---represent the sorriest [and, paradoxically, most dangerous] collection of misfits and crybabies and oddballs ever assembled, drop all reference to Satan when classifying them --- percentage of those sympathizing with your viewpoint climbs into the 90% range. Easy.
Michael, I like your thought but I am sticking with Satan, Satan, Satan.