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Review
Trust the Plan review: How QAnon – and Trump –
unhinged America
Will Sommer of the Daily Beast paints a troubling
picture of a conspiracy theory showing few signs of decline
Lloyd Green
Sun 5 Mar
2023 02.00 EST
Donald
Trump is out of office but QAnon holds sway. Last September, Trump posted an
image of himself with a Q lapel pin and the words “The Storm Is Coming”. A few
months later, Liz Crokin, a QAnon promoter, spoke at Mar-a-Lago and posed with
the former president. In one photo, the pair flashed a thumbs-up sign.
QAnon is
the latest great American conspiracy theory. Its key beliefs: a secret cabal
“controls global governments”, the 2020 election was stolen, Hollywood and liberal
elites crave the blood of children in a bid to sustain their youth. You read
that right. QAnon is rife with stories of “mole children”, stashed away in
caves for the delectation of the rich and powerful.
“The
suspicious 2019 jailhouse death of wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein … prompted
new public interest in the idea of powerful elites abusing children,” Will
Sommer writes.
With his
first book, the Daily Beast reporter jumps into this steaming cauldron of
conspiracy and distrust. He emerges to offer a close examination of the rise
and continued presence of QAnon on the US political landscape.
Detailed
and impeccably researched, Trust the Plan is essentially a crash course on a
volatile and vocal segment of the US population. It is unlikely Sommer will win
hearts and minds. Trust the Plan is essentially written for blue (Democratic)
America. But it is eye-opening, nonetheless.
Sommer has
spent considerable time among QAnon adherents. At a May 2021 conference in
Texas, they treated him suspiciously and accused him of trespassing. “You
should be ashamed of yourself!” an elderly woman scolded. The walk of shame
stuck with him. Sommer takes QAnon seriously – as do Republicans, as should
Democrats.
QAnon
followers are largely young and male, and lack a college degree. They are
disaffected but not oblivious. For them, the Great Recession left its mark.
Marriage and stability became luxury goods. Life expectancy and birthrates
receded. Covid turned the world on its head.
QAnon is
sufficiently amorphous to adapt to changing facts and realities. It can muster
the devotion and fanaticism of a religious group. The dream never dies.
QAnon logos
and banners loomed large on 6 January, in the prelude to and the aftermath of
insurrection. QAnon adherents did not know what to make of Mike Pence, Trump’s
vice-president who that day refused to block certification of Joe Biden’s
election win. Some hated him, others thought he was one of them. Gallows on
which his name was affixed appeared. Trump didn’t care.
Michael
Flynn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump loyalists on the national political
stage, count themselves among the ranks of QAnon. Other politicians, like Ron
DeSantis, Florida’s governor, and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House,
would prefer not to talk about it – but they know QAnon is a source of
Republican votes as well as Trump shock troops.
The
politicians prevaricate. McCarthy once said there was no place for QAnon within
the Republican party. Three months after that, as Sommer puts it, “he suffered
a bout of selective amnesia”.
“I’m not
sure what that is,” DeSantis told one reporter. In March 2022, he appointed
Esther Byrd to Florida’s board of education. She had tweeted her support for
the insurrection and the Proud Boys. She flew the QAnon flag on her family
boat.
George
Soros and Hillary Clinton, familiar boogeymen to the right, feature in QAnon
lore. One early internet post from “Q”, the anonymous instigator of the
conspiracy, read: “Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7.45am-8.30am EST
on Monday – the morning on 30 October 2017.”
Clinton
remains free. Trump flogs Soros in fundraising emails. Meet the new
antisemitism: a lot like the old version.
Some QAnon
adherents contend that John F Kennedy Jr, oldest son of the 35th president, is
still alive. Some say he is actually Q. They believe he faked his death in 1999
to avoid the cabal, which his father failed to do. Sommer describes how dozens
of the faithful flocked to Dallas in 2022, convinced JFK Jr and a passel of
other deceased celebrities would return. Suffice to say, they were
disappointed.
Sommer also
shows how the Covid pandemic breathed life into QAnon just as the movement was
flailing. Adherents were losing interest. The “storm”, the moment in QAnon lore
when the wicked are punished and Trump emerges resplendent in triumph, appeared
to be slipping away. The chatrooms and social media accounts that doubled as
QAnon conduits were narrowing.
But Covid’s
reach, its origins in China and the US government’s response played into the
movement’s distrust of institutions and simple fear of foreigners. And worse.
Sommer records how QAnon adherents defiantly flouted Covid public health rules,
then died.
The fact
that Covid mortality rates diverged between red and blue America was not a
gamechanger. Recent revelations about US intelligence and whether the coronavirus
came from a lab leak stand to bolster the fury. That the powers that be have
been less than candid is disappointing but no surprise. Anger should be
expected.
As he
watches the 2024 primary calendar, Trump stokes and internalizes it all.
Already, he is lobbing the words “pedophile” and “groomer” towards his main
challenger, DeSantis.
Recent
polls show Trump solidifying his lead. White evangelicals lacking a college
degree are a key voting bloc. Trump is playing to his strength.
Sommer
suggests answers to the emergence of QAnon. He acknowledges that direct
confrontation is not the way to go. With organized religion in retrograde, amid
a growing national malaise, the fury may be here for some time.
This article was amended on 6 March 2023. An
earlier version said that “forty percent of Republicans and three-in-eight
Democrats” believe the central claims of QAnon to be “very” or “somewhat”
accurate. This misinterpreted the results of a survey which found that, of US
adults who believe that QAnon’s central claims are “very” or “somewhat”
accurate, 40% are Republicans and 38% are Democrats. The reference has been
removed.
Trust the
Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America is published
in the US by HarperCollins
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