- We're now joined by Mike Rothschild, who is the author of "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, a Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything."

Mike, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Hey, Mike, I thought I knew what this QAnon thing was and is, and reading the book, I'm like, whoa.

It's deeper than I thought.

First of all, QAnon is what?

And then why is it so dangerous, please.

- Sure, so the what is QAnon question actually has a couple of answers as most of these things do.

The pre-Joe Biden answer is that QAnon is a cult-like conspiracy movement based around the image board 8chan which claims that Donald Trump is working with a military intelligence team to enact a purge of the deep state and the Democratic Party and the Hollywood and banking elite.

And that at the exact moment President Trump will take to Twitter, announce that the storm is upon us, there'll be hundreds of thousands of indictments unsealed.

There will be mass arrests.

All of the perpetrators will be found guilty.

They will all be executed, and then we will live in a utopia of peace and freedom and harmony.

- Now, that didn't happen, at least that I know of so- - No, at least that I know of either, but... - (laughs) So the- - But January 6th happened.

- Right, January 6th happened.

- And what's the connection between QAnon and January 6th and the violence?

- Sure.

- Of January 6th.

- So the QAnon movement was amping up a drumbeat over all of 2020 that the election was going to be stolen, that there would be mass fraud with mail-in ballots and all these other terrorist attacks and all of these things that would steal the election for Joe Biden.

And it was almost inconceivable that Trump wouldn't win.

So then when Trump didn't win, they came up with all of these justifications, all these things that had to happen for him to be propelled back into office, and none of that happened.

So January 6th was really seen as the last desperate attempt to right the wrong of 2020 and reinstate Trump back into office, and it would have to be done through violence.

It would have to be done through the military taking control or civil unrest, something that would propel Trump back to office, and that's really what these people thought they were doing.

They thought they were getting Trump back to his rightful place.

- You know, there's some people watching right now say, Steve, why are you talking about fringe elements of, it's not even a party, it's whatever it is.

But unless I have this wrong, and if I do, as an expert, you will tell us, Mike, but Marjorie Taylor Greene is a member of Congress, correct?

- Yes.

- She is a significant member of Congress as we speak at the end of 2022, fair?

- Yes.

- I believe she has quoted and tweeted on social media and other places about QAnon consistently or QAnon conspiracy theories, and recently said as we're taping this program, "If I had been involved in January 6th with Steve Bannon, we would have won and we would have been armed."

No connection, correct?

- Well, yeah- - Or total connection.

- Right, of course, it's- - There are members of Congress who are connected to what you described.

- Right, it's hugely connected.

And it's not so much about QAnon itself, the branding and the hashtags.

It's about the philosophy, this idea that there's a vast deep state that controls politics, that only through organizing together online can we unite and beat back this Babylonian cult.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a very public expression of this, but there are many, many people who believe in aspects of QAnon, particularly becoming radicalized through the pandemic.

- You include Trump in that, former President Donald Trump?

- You know, I never try to guess what Trump believes and what's just put in front of him, but he has absolutely no issue pandering to these people and has been doing it quite a bit on Truth Social.

He's been sharing hundreds of QAnon memes and posts and hashtags, some of them put by some of the biggest influencers in the Q movement.

He knows who these people are.

The people around him, his social media team, they know exactly who these people are and that these are his biggest fans.

- Again, not across the board, but as Mike Rothschild writes about this, it's not who says they're a member, or...

I don't even know how you're a member of QAnon, but ascribes to some of these theories or this thinking including that COVID was a hoax, that it was never really real until those who espoused some of those views got COVID and many of them died.

Do I have that wrong, Mike?

- No, you're exactly right.

They believed that COVID, and this is going to sort of contradict itself.

They believe that COVID was basically just a bad cold but it was also a bio-weapon engineered by the Chinese with the funding of George Soros and done in Ukrainian bio labs as a way to influence the 2020 election.

So it's simultaneously harmless and also the most harmful thing that could possibly be done.

- The rest of us who want to read and learn and try to understand the complex world we live in, what is our role, A, as citizens as it relates to QAnon and QAnon-related theories, but also as members of the media, what's our role?

First as citizens, what should most citizens who want to try to understand the complex world we're living in know about QAnon?

- Sure, and that's a great question.

I think as citizens, it's important not to try to consult some of the primary sources here.

Don't read the Q drops.

Don't read some of the really anti-Semitic and racist works that they push.

- And they are anti-Semitic.

- They want you to read it.

- And they are anti-Semitic.

- Absolutely.

- And racist consistently.

Go ahead, Mike.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

This is what they want you to do.

They want you to read this stuff.

They want you to, you know, watch these videos that they create and read these Twitter threads.

But what we can do is understand why this matters and how people get pulled into it, and that we can't just pretend it's not there, think, oh, if we don't feed the trolls, it'll go away.

Just don't give it oxygen.

We know that that doesn't work.

We have to confront these things head on.

We have to understand what they are, and we have to understand what appeals to people about these things.

It's very easy to look at Q believers or conspiracy believers as just, oh, they're just crazy.

They need help.

You know, they need medication.

Some of them might.

- But excuse me interrupting.

In my case, they're relatives, they're close friends, and they're people who I have a hard time even talking to anymore because I don't really know what they're talking about or can't understand it.

So they are in our lives.

- Right, right, they speak a language that is designed to be impenetrable, but what they will do is they will broadcast to the world on their social media that they've discovered these things.

They'll share these articles and these videos, and as people, we can look at them and say, hey, this is somebody who's fallen into something that is not good.

This could hurt them.

This could hurt other people.

And you privately reach out and say, hey, I noticed you posted this thing.

Did you know that that's not true?

Let's talk about this.

It's not about, you know, debunking or belittling.

It's about a conversation with someone who you may wanna just walk away from.

But, you know, I urge people to sort of bypass that and think, what is appealing about this to this person?

- And those of us in the media, we are not, in our production company, gonna put someone on the air who says dangerous, outrageous things that are unfounded because it's dangerous.

But you're saying not giving it oxygen is not the answer either so help me on this.

- Right.

- Should we have someone who believes these things and put them on the air and challenge them, what?

- No, that's not going to do anybody any good.

It's a question of how to focus your attention on these things in a productive way.

And I think by paying attention to it is by reading about it and understanding sort of the historical conspiracy theories that have gone into it.

It's not about platforming these people.

I strongly urge people not to platform Q believers or the works that they cite but to understand the psychological reasons behind this that are pulling in people who don't go on TV shows, who don't, you know, make videos, the sort of vast majority of people who are just looking for answers and have found them in the wrong place.

- Mike Rothschild is the author of the book, "The Storm Is Upon Us."

It's all about QAnon.

It's an important book, compelling book.

Hey, Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

We thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

Seton Hall University.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

MD Advantage Insurance Company.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by - Hello, I'’m Dr. Luke Eyerman, a family medicine specialist at Holy Name.

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