U
ntil recently, most people asked to
identify “Q” would mention an eccen-
tric inventor of gadgets for James Bond.
Now a nastier, if equally fictitious, Q is be-
coming better known. Digital searches
surged this month among people who
hoped to unpick the meaning of “Q-
Anon”—an anti-Semitic and incoherent
conspiracy theory. It has been spun for
three years in cryptic messages posted by
Q, posing as a senior government official.
The alleged conspiracy is both outlan-
dish and dismally familiar. Supposedly Do-
nald Trump is set to smash a cabal of pae-
dophiles and cannibals, including Hillary
Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros.
Every generation or so, some outfit alleges
that a secret league of the powerful—often
cast as a financial, globalist or simply Jew-
ish elite—is out to destroy America.
QAnon’s version has echoes of Robert
Welch, a sweetmaker who founded the
anti-communist John Birch Society in 1958.
He claimed a “furtive conspiratorial cabal
of internationalists, greedy bankers, and
corrupt politicians” wanted America to be
run by a socialist United Nations. It also
shares some characteristics of the “satanic
panic” of the 1980s, when rumours sug-
gested devil-worshippers ran kindergar-
tens and abused children.
The new conspiracy spread first in half-
hidden corners online, then moved tomainstream social-media platforms and
beyond. (Amazon now offers piles of mum-
bo-jumbo-filled QAnon screeds for sale.)
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others re-
cently removed QAnon-affiliated groups
and pages from their sites. Yet the move-
ment surges, partly because the president
prods it on. Last week he cheered Q-adher-
ents as “people that love our country”. Me-
dia Matters, a left-leaning think-tank,
counted 216 times by late August when he
had retweeted messages of QAnon folk. Q-
fans are ubiquitous at his rallies.
By one count 72 Republicans who have
sought office this year are sympathetic to
QAnon, including two Senate candidates
and 17 candidates for the House who will
appear on the ballot in November. Mr
Trump recently praised Marjorie Taylor
Greene, a House candidate who expects to
win in Georgia, as a “future Republican
star”. She has accused Mr Soros of helping
Nazis and published dozens of articles
lauding QAnon’s barmy ideas.
The president may welcome QAnon as a
distraction from the pandemic. Its adher-
ents also align with his supporters. Many
use language familiar to evangelical Chris-
tians, eager to see a rapture or a cleansing
“storm”, when their enemies will vanish. A
review last year of academic research into
who believes in conspiracies all but de-
scribed Mr Trump’s most loyal fans—peo-
ple who are typically poorer, less educated,
outsiders and distrustful of institutions.
One hint of QAnon’s potential reach was of-
fered in a poll by Pew Research in June. It
found that a quarter of adults believe a
claim that nefarious plotters may have
spread the coronavirus deliberately.
Mr Trump also indulges QAnon for a
simple reason: because it lauds him. “It is
very reciprocal, it’s about fealty to him,”
says Ethan Porter, a researcher into the
spread of misinformation, at George Wash-
ington University. He notes how the move-
ment draws hangers-on, notably older peo-
ple who lose themselves in “online rabbit
holes” trying to grasp the conspiracy. Oth-
ers joined recent QAnon-affiliated “save
the children” marches in various cities.
Moderate Republicans are aghast. Some
observe that the fbilast year identified Q-
Anonners as potential terrorists. Denver
Riggleman, an exiting congressman from
Virginia, this week co-sponsored a resolu-
tion condemning QAnon, which he likens
to “mental gonorrhoea”. The vice-presi-
dent, Mike Pence, dismisses it “out of
hand”. Kevin McCarthy, the House minor-
ity leader, says it has no place in the party.
His colleague Liz Cheney calls it a “danger-
ous lunacy”. Ben Sasse, a senator, warns
that “garbage like this” will deter swing vot-
ers and let Democrats take the Senate.
None of this deters Mr Trump. He has
asked Ms Taylor Greene to hear him speak
at the White House on August 27th. 7CHICAGO
A hateful conspiracy theory could
prove awkward for RepublicansQAnonOn and on
18 United States The EconomistAugust 29th 2020
2 Goss of Stanford University and others
found that climate change had doubled the
number of days of extreme risk for wild-
fires in the state during autumn.
There is some evidence that climate
change is also increasing the danger of
lightning strikes, which (rather than burst
tyres) lit the inferno this season. Northern
California’s fires began after a massive
electrical storm passed over the Bay Area in
mid-August, producing, said cal fire,
11,000 strikes in three days. According to a
study published in 2014 in Science by David
Romps of the University of California,
Berkeley, climate models suggest the num-
ber of lightning strikes across the conti-
nental United States could rise by about
12% for every degree of global warming
(though another study, in Nature, ques-
tions the link with climate change).
Such change has not worked its destruc-
tion unaided. Mistaken policies have made
the forests more vulnerable, especially the
decades-long suppression of wildfires.
Fires thin out the dense, flammable under-
growth. Preventing them—as a study in Sci-
ence pointed out as long ago as 2006—in-
creases what is called fuel loading and
turns forests into tinder boxes. Frank Lake
of the usForest Service talks of a tipping-
point: “There is too much fuel loading; it is
too warm and the probability of ignition is
greater.” That summarises what has hap-
pened this season.
Considering the vastness of the fires
and their position—on the edge of the Bay
Area, home to more than 7m people—the
cost in human life could have been far
greater. Seven people had died by August
25th. Californians have learned the lessons
of previous fires, such as the one in 2018
which destroyed the town of Paradise and
killed 85 people: evacuate early. Southern-
ers fleeing Laura, a mighty hurricane that
hit the Gulf coast on August 27th, will fol-
low the same guidance.
So far, the responses of state and federal
governments have held up fairly well in
California, despite ritual hazing by the
Democratic governor and Republican pres-
ident. Donald Trump declared a major di-
saster, speeding federal funds to those who
had lost their homes. And this week fire-
fighters seemed to be making progress.
Still, California’s many crises—co-
vid-19, fires and rolling blackouts—are
overlapping, which hampers a long-term
response. Early this year, the governor pro-
posed spending $100m to make existing
houses more fire-resistant (replacing
wooden shingles with tiles, for example).
He had to suspend the programme because
of a state budget crisis caused by covid-19.
In 2008 another condor chick was
caught in a fire and miraculously survived.
She was, inevitably, renamed Phoenix. In-
iko, alas, need not be renamed. Her name
means “born in troubled times”. 7