They had pinned their hopes on secret "messages" which led them to believe that the USA was really run by a bunch of child-trafficking, pizza-eating traitors. And that Donald Trump would lead an uprising to arrest all the liberals, execute Mike Pence, and install himself as President for Life. Or something. Sounds a bit unlikely when you put it like that, but I'm sure if you were inside it, it all made sense.
A word to the wise.
A lot of this kind of thing has roots in apocalyptic, fundamentalist Christian circles. Where the expected return of Jesus is always imminent. But every time you put a date to it - it doesn't happen.
When this happens, you don't give up. You regather. You realise you misread the clues. You do some more calculations. You continue to have faith.
And then it doesn't happen again.
When this happens, you don't give up. You regather. You realise you misread the clues. You do some more calculations. You continue to have faith.
And then it doesn't happen again.
Honestly, it never does. Well, it might do one day. But you wouldn't catch me trying to decide which prediction was wrong. Except the next one. That's always wrong.
Now, if you belong to QAnon, you may be feeling a bit stupid now. You may have lost all your friends. Wasted thousands of hours of your life when you could have been watching "Last of the Summer Wine" or maybe doing a genuinely Christian thing like feeding the hungry, or giving to the poor, or doing some shopping for someone, or wearing a mask so you don't infect a vulnerable person with a deadly virus.
Maybe you were arrested for invading the Capitol while wearing buffalo horns.
Maybe it's time to grow up and move on.
But, if not - I have some secrets I can share with you about how the Pope is running a secretive cabal of guinea-pig restaurateurs and will soon declare Moldova independent. Just send a check for 50 dollars to Archdruid Eileen, c/o The Big House, Husborne Crawley - and I'll let you know more.
The problem with conspiracy theories is just that a mistaken theory. A bit like anti-vax theories, which are so stupid, but are believed by seemingly sane people. To all of those who believe in this way, just think about others who may well suffer and die because of your ideology do you want that on your conscience for life? And as the Commandment says, Thou Shalt not Kill. Which I believe you might understand, than obey it and abandon nonsense.
ReplyDeleteWe have not had any 'End of the World is nigh' promoters lately. We had one when I was at school in the 1950s and I remember reading that a group of people sold all their belongings, climbed up a mountain to sit and wait for the end. They had to sheepishly come down when the end did not happen.
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