QAnon? – what it is and why it matters
JVL Introduction
The rise of antisemitism on the right in the US is now cause for grave concern. It is being amplified by the casual support given to it by Donald Trump.
In this article, first published in Forward on 28 July and recently updated, Michael Janofsky explores the antisemitic conspiracy theories put out by QAnon.
QAnon is a conspiracy theorist whose postings concoct a mishmash of conspiracy theories about government fraud, evil Satanists and more. But most worrying is QAnon’s followers who, as Janofsky puts it gently, “do not like Jews”.
We also publish an extract from David Livingstone Smith’s “The anti-Semitic backstory of QAnon”, subsequently published by Forward, about conspiracy theories and antisemitism from mediaeval times in Europe.
This article was originally published by Forward on Tue 25 Aug 2020. Read the original here.
Just how anti-Semitic is QAnon?
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Thank you JVL a really useful article for understanding the history and reincarnation of the anti Jewish myths. Some parallels with anti Gypsy and Traveller myths about child kidnapping and hidden wealth, only on a much larger scale. Hard to know where to start to counteract it or understand the spread.
There is also significant overlap with the anti-vaxxer/anti-Bill Gates/Covid is a hoax loons around Icke and Piers Corbyn (who said recently that trade unions are ‘evil’). You can see some (but so far not many, it’s mostly those without strong labour movement history and links) of the Corbyn left being pulled into this crap, attracted by it’s superficial anti-establishment/anti-MSM lines. At some point the centrists will pick up on this and the AS around it and it will be yet another stick to beat the left as a whole with.
Why not start with the anti-Gypsy/Roma/Travellers myths, which are regularly repeated by the Daily Mail and by John Lord Mann as well as other LP members? Provision for GRT people is grossly inferior to that provided for the ‘settled community’; they are frequently traduced, regularly persecuted and occasionally firebombed. Now Patel is threatening GRT people with confiscating their homes if they trespass – ie try to find pitches which it used to be a legal duty for local authorities to make available. Ealing Council boasts of its unwelcoming environment vis a vis GRT people.
As far as I know only one LP member has even been suspended for vicious anti-GRT incitement; Lord Mann by contrast was rewarded with a peerage and the accolade of ‘AS Czar’ – what grotesque irony.