Next, a look at the Conspiracy Theory which alleges the secret plot against president trump. From the atlantic magazine, this is 40 minutes. Big im julian white, deputy of atlanta. Thank you for joining us of this weeks edition of the big story. In case you have not joined us before, the big story of Digital Events areas where we go behind scenes with alleged reporters, to talk about some of the latest work. This week, im really excited. We are going to talk about conspiracy theories. We recently watched an entire project on conspiracy theories called shadow land. On our website, the atlantic. Com slash shadow and. On the cover of the magazine, executive adrian le france raises the subjective qanon which almost resembles in your religion. Be before we dive into the subjective qanon i want to remind you of some housekeeping items. You can type your question in the queue in a box. Please continue to do that if youve made use that throughout the entire session. I will incorporate those through the next 40 or so minutes but if you can, keep your questions as short as possible. Be sure to tell us where you are watching from. We would really love to know where everyone is tuning in from. Now, let us bring adrian to walk us through high. Thank you for having me. How are you . Im good. Im in washington d. C. Same. Let us start off with an really easy question. Who is qanon. This is not an easy question, julian. I wanted to find out my hope was that i might be able to find out i will start with the basic premise of qanon. The idea is that queue is some sort of highlevel military intelligence person who posts anonymously on image port. It is sort of a secret intelligence about a group of evil operating in secret. There is someone actually in the world are some of the people who are posting ask you, but do not know what q is. Do you have are there any favorite theories that you have or things that you think oh there is some credence behind that. There are definitely compelling figures. I would say, i did ask the administrator where q post. I asked directly if he knew what q was. His dad owns the site also said he doesnt know. As you say there are sort of an off manner theories about who it might be. Theres questions about whether q influencers know who q is. Whether the person who runs the account has changed names over time. If i had i simply dont know for sure. I think a question that a lot of people have is, why was this the right time to take a deep dive into conspiracies more generally and why did qanon feel like the group or the organization, or the theory to center this piece around . We know that this is a sort of golden age for conspiracy theories and conspiracies them. The president of the United States is a conspiracy theorist, which isnt in itself is remarkable. We want to look at this in an overarching way, not just politically focused, and really figure out what are the mechanisms for why this moment seems that gets into questions of the way that they spread. Obviously the internet and really speeding up the spread of different conspiracy theories. What is helping culturally and getting away from just a political aspect and looking at what is so deeply broken in america that is broken right now that has led to the rise of conspiracy theories and to your questions as regard to q there seems to be something different. I have written about conspiracy theories for a long time but this one is different and it was evident to me even before i started recording, because it is sort of a participatory Conspiracy Theory unfolding in realtime. I have a sense of, maybe, maybe its really popular because people are just kind of engaged in it and it is kind of a science fiction. Who is actually believing this versus, are most people engaging with it as a game . Then through my recording it, it ended up being surprising to me to find that there were quite a few people that were true believers, and that the nature of their belief in q seems to go further than a conspiracy and is almost religious in nature. Thats what led me to anticipate going in. I actually want you to begin a little bit on the religious angle. When i was reading your piece i found it to be one of the most compelling parts of it, and kind of the most compelling reasons that qanon in particular feels different an interesting in this moment. I thought that when people were talking to you about why they followed qanon and why theyre so interested in that, its that this is maybe weird, occasionally theres violence associated. You start your piece talking about pizzagate. People seem to find some level of hope or promise, or something it, which almost seems at odds with the fat the fascination with the apocalypse. Can you delve a little deeper into this idea, what are the religious aspects and how do you think they ended up getting tied back to qanon and how does that make it special . I found the same contradictions in a sense that, where a person might just kind of casually and counter qanon online. You see angry people defending q or stories where you hear a violent event coming to the place, and the perpetrator maybe had expressed sentiment. There is that aspect. But when i talk to individuals about why they were so drawn to q, i found again and again, the sense of serenity, almost, in a sense that as you said, people are saying that q its giving them hope and they find communities among other q supporters. They come together and steady and interpret these q drops as they are called, messages that q posts. And the more i talk to people, the more it became clear that this was not just a political it is a pro trump Conspiracy Theory. The people who believe in it tend to be supporters of the president , but it was not an expression of political beliefs, but more sort of looking for people who share an existing world view that q really uniquely made sense to them from the beginning. You have people studying sort of a foundational text. You have people forging a Community Around it. This really sort of complete faith in q is the other thing. I asked everyone i interviewed. I referred to as a true believer. They are demonstrably false things, predictions that havent come true. Things that are just absurd. People are just willing to reject, reason and rationality and say, it does not matter, i believe in q. This is so much bigger. That really let me to the sort of spiritual aspect and spiritual satisfaction they are finding in this Conspiracy Theory. That is so interesting. I want to take a first question from our audience. This is brad. Hes from used. In brad says, isnt the q phenomenon a very small group . Why does the media give them so much airtime . Hi brad. This is so fun. Yeah. Its a really good question. It is something that i obsessed over, because i did worry about, you know, we talked about this called the shadow land, a larger Broad Spectrum of conspiracy theories as well. How do you find the line of exploring why conspiracies him has taken hold. It is more what are the stakes, which is quite high, versus do we risk further spreading them. Do we risk making them seem to entertaining . These are things we talked about a lot. In my approach to the story as well, first of all i say it is not just a small group. It is not just a rich group. It is very much in the mainstream. There are huge audiences of people going to youtube and facebook. It is no longer just read it. Read it has some spam from prominent q groups. But what i thought going in as journalists it is our obligation to not turn away from things just because they are absurd or dangerous. One of the comparisons i make in my story is i was living in honolulu during the rise of at the time i remember we debated. Should we even pay tension to this. It is so evident that it is absurd. Donald trump was only flirting with it was so clear that what he was trying to do. Yet i look back on that now and think, a lot of the reporters did not take it seriously enough. Hopefully that helps. It isnt just a small group, so. Another question from suzannah. Wondering if religious beliefs make people more vulnerable to conspiracy theories or maybe less vulnerable because theyve already got an approved unprovoked theory . Sorry i missed the first part of it. Wondering if literallys religious beliefs make people more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories . Such a good question. I certainly have not in my reporting, and countered research that binds a strong relationship between if you are already quite religious, your morning to conspiracy theories. I did talk to several people who study conspiracy theories we talk about the spectrum of rational rational isnt a conspiracy some. And recuse specifically, there is definitely a lot of borrowing of evangelical christian language and ideas. The sort of apocalyptic world view and this preoccupation with the end times. That is definitely part of some evangelical sense as well as q. There is certainly overlap but this is the question you are asking i do not know for sure whether there is a correlation. I have a question about, you wrote in your piece it started getting steam in 2017 right after the election. There were obviously some level of correlation, if not causation with trump and people who voted for trump, or who believed in his ideology. But looking forward, im wondering about two things. One, how you think qanon and true believers duck tail with and interact with this time of the coronavirus pandemic and a little bit stealing will jones from how conspiracy theories affect the 2020 election. The q crowd is all over Current Events and conspiracies already. It was really interesting to see this play out, right at the time i was finishing writing the story, was when we were entering the official pandemic status. I notice, it seemed that the q crowd is following Donald Trumps lead on this. At the time he was saying this is not a big deal. Theres nothing to rim nothing to worry about. He was not really weighing in on it. At that change, we started seeing the sort of rise of pandemic of conspiracy theories. One of the examples i gave in my story is there is a widely shared facebook post, that was sort of remixed and shared across the web, people were debating the q groups were saying, donald trump was wearing a yellow tie. Thats proof that the coronavirus is not real. Based on the maritime flag, when it is yellow, it means wild contortions of trying to say that coronavirus was fake. There was also a whole contingency that will say that coronavirus was unleashed by the deep state, working in china. Within the realm of qanon, there are endless other infinite rabbit holes. Some theories. The question of the election. Certainly, conspiracy theories will play a role in the election and so far as donald trump promotes them frequently. I can only imagine that will continue. Especially this week. It has been quite a week for conspiracies for the month of august. Just misinformation, more broadly, people have asked me before whether theres any evidence that russia is im certain that russia pays close attention to conspiracy theories and would absolutely leverage those. Without knowing who is behind them or driving them, we know that there are actors who are interested in explaining conspiracy theories here. That ties in nicely with a question that i know a bunch of our viewers had. How much of a global phenomenon is this where is it mostly u. S. Centric. Someone had a country someone had a question about russia. Carl in london said reading this piece alongside franklins peace in the magazine made them whether whether the i. R. A. Would be fanning the flames. And my reporting, i did not focus on foreign actors. There is a ton to look at their. Again, just looking at what happened to 2016, we know russians and beyond look to exploit this kind of chaos in america. I just did not look into it for this piece but you are right. The pieces brilliant and terrifying. What was the other part of your question . Basically, what is the nature of this global is it mainly just to u. S. Phenomenon . It is not just a u. S. Phenomenon. Q, specifically is global, for sure, despite the focus on trump who is american of course. But conspiracies him in general is a global phenomenon. One thing i did not write about in the story was that it is not as though you see certain regions be more prone to conspiracies and per se, in some cases you see a rise of populism cory lights with the rise of conspiracies him. Or moments with wealth disparity correlated with a rising conspiracy is a. But you look around the world and the nature of conspiracy theories, one example that when researcher gave me is that if you ask people about the moon landing in america, it is a relatively low population of people that the moon landing was faith, whereas if you go to france, youll find in his research that the french were much more willing to say, no, the americans never made it to the moon. It is more about who is cast as the hero or not. That is one interesting finding. We have people who have asked questions that amount to, if i have a loved one who believes in q, for instance, cheryl says my son believes in q and considers himself a patriot. Should i be concerned . A few others said they have a mother or aunt or an older Family Member who believes in q, how would i even begin talking to them to try to get them to see maybe, that there are parts of it that certainly dont make sense. It is a good and difficult question. There is a lot of research into this question of how do you convince people to accept reality, which should be easy, but unfortunately it is not. If you look at a lot of the research on the internet movement, weve written about this. I should be dropping links into the chat. If you just try to go up to someone and you say, what do you believe is nonsense . That often is not persuasive, but trying to understand why someone believes something, presenting them the facts on their own terms, those kinds of things are tactics you hear about being more likely to work. Approaching i think it is really challenging and part of the problem is with q, it is concerning. It amounts to a mass rejection of reason. That is not only damaging on a personal level for someone to sort of calibrate with reality, but also certainly on a societal level. When of the peoples questions you mentioned earlier when they talked about identifying as being pro q and a patriot. It is really interesting the extent to which the q crowd has adopted the language of patriotism and talks about their mission as being ultimately patriotic, a battle between good and evil. Just saying you are a patriot may be fine, but when it is wrapped up into all of this fantasy, treated as real, that is when it is really concerning. Im trying to find the person who asked this, but someone asked a question that ive actually had as well, which is, why the focus on pedophilia specifically . Is it just because it is so universally abhorrence and everyone can get behind the idea that that is bad, and as you just mentioned, just morally corrupt, or is there Something Else there . I think this goes to the whole notion of the battle between good and evil. There is a couple it is really interesting. I think you are right that everyone can agree that the notion of child abuse and specifically, child sex abuse, is awful. You will hear lot of people say, and to be clear for those who might not be familiar with q, the basic premise is the idea that this powerful, global, global collective elites are secretly using children and deriving power from it and some way. A lot of people will say, if there is even a remote chance that one child is getting harmed, why would you not consider this to be real . This is understandable, but there are no facts to support any of it. My thought there is why would people focus on child abuse that is actually taking place and how they can support solving the actual problem that exists. I also think in talking to some people for my story, there was a sense of donald trump, does not fit into what a normal sort of christian model or moral would be. He lies frequently. He has been married multiple times. One person suggested to me is that this larger narrative about trump being a savior in a battle of good between evil. He is saving children and it makes him a moral figure that is more meaningful and therefore can excuse these other flaws that he demonstrates. These flaws of character that he demonstrates. I thought that was one interesting view of it, being a way to excuse trump for his other many flaws. Carol has a question. I think it comes up for me, what i remember some of the folks who talked about how many hours they spent, on these threats, following q. Is there a financial component to qanon . Is there a Financial Support . I was obsessed with that as well. I do not know i was not able to find anyone who is making a windfall. Certainly, there are people who are positioned to profit. It is like very american, of course. You have etsy etsy shops and bumper stickers and jewelry. There are people developing their own mass audiences and casting themselves as being q influencers and being people who can help you interpret q drops. They can make youtube revenue off of their videos. Otherwise, you see people with their own websites sending them to q who ask for donations to support their work. Again, im not sure if theyre making people rich, but certainly people are making money off of it. One of the things i found really interesting as i was reading through your piece is that a lot of people, if they havent really read into qanon or heard about it in the news, assume that it is very much a politically driven, party driven type of Conspiracy Theory. As you said, it seems that there is a correlation, but not necessarily a cause. From west virginia, is there a liberal equivalent to q . To your first point, gillian i, you often see q described as a Conspiracy Theory, thats not exactly right because what it is is an approach from Conspiracy Theory. Trump is not an ordinary republican. It is not accurate to just say it is a lot of Trump Supporters would identify as republicans. In terms of the equivalent, i dont know q scores really high in the right wing, but not super on the right. I had one researcher talking about the matrix of conspiracy some. You look at the dimension of left to right ideologically, you would find gmo related conspiracy theories more to the left. Qanon more to the right. But q being higher up in conspiracies and then off to the right. I would have to look. There is not when that comes to mind. There are examples that certainly, gmos, and im trying to think of others. If i think of them i will bring them up. Anyone who is watching and has not read the full piece yet, i think this is something that is really interesting. Especially with some of the people you are able to t