Election 2020: Conspiracy theory candidates become mainstream by politicizing fear
Reba Sherrill of Palm Beach wants to represent Florida in Congress.
The Republican candidate for the District 21 seat presently held by Democrat Lois Frankel said she supports term limits and calls for health care plans to include dental and eye coverage.
Pretty standard campaign stances for Republican candidates. Then, there are Sherrill’s more atypical beliefs.
Sherrill also believes that “pedivores” — or pedophile cannibals — eat babies to get high. And that children as young as six are taught about having sex with animals.
“There are so many things that are actually being taught to our children in the school system, I would categorize it as pure evil,” she said on a YouTube video. “They start educating children in kindergarten about bestiality, anal sex and all these different things that children should not be exposed to.”
Whoa, that’s out there, yes, but Sherrill is not alone among congressional candidates in some of her more eyebrow-raising beliefs.
Elizabeth Felton, also running for Frankel’s seat, promotes a debunked conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex-trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor.
Two candidates running for the GOP nomination in another Palm Beach County congressional district also espouse seemingly outlandish views. Jessi Melton asserts communists run Broward County and Darlene Swaffar claims the government confiscates children from families who refuse to immunize them.
Meanwhile, four other candidates vying for three other congressional seats across Florida have also advocated wild conspiracy theories. Those include allegations the “American Baseball League” is being taken over by Marxists and the implication that the “C” in the Chick-Fil-A logo is a symbol of sexual deviancy.
Political experts say the 2020 election has brought out candidates who are a standard deviation or two toward the margins of the spectrum.
“Normally, political parties would do things to suppress their fringes,” said political strategist Rick Wilson. “Now, they don't have the ability to stop these people from defining themselves as the core of the Republican Party.”
In Florida, a common denominator among the conspiracy theorists is they follow Q Anonymous — QAnon, or Q, for short.
Among other things, Q adherents posit that a “Deep State” cabal of pedophiles — run by political elites, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities — are plotting to take over the world. Q’s mission? “Enlighten” followers in an attempt to prevent that from happening.
Another commonality: They support President Donald Trump, whom many Q followers point to as the one who will lead believers “from darkness to light.”
To be sure, the Q candidates also make mainstream, conservative arguments.
Protecting unborn babies? Check. Cleaning Florida’s waterways? Check. Improving education, halting sex trafficking and fiercely defending second amendment rights? Check, check, check.
However, Q candidates often have other beliefs — beliefs that not long ago would only have been whispered in private with like-minded individuals. But no more.
One political analyst said the beliefs are heartfelt.
“When they say they believe something, they are not lying,” said Joseph Uscinski, Associate Professor of Political Science and specialist in public opinion and mass media at University of Miami. “Generally these beliefs are sincere, and this is what they think is true.”
Certainly, the QAnon crowd has become more visible and outspoken across Florida over the past few years.
At some of President Trump’s rallies, they stand out by wearing t-shirts or holding signs with codes identifying themselves as believers. On the internet, they use symbols like triangles, owls and lightning bolts; and hashtags like #GreatAwakening, #Q, #QAnon, #QAnonTruth, #OutOfTheShadows, #FallCabal and #WWG1WGA — “Where we go one, we go all.”
They have appeared at local government hearings, too. At a June 23 Palm Beach County Commission meeting to discuss mandating face masks, conspiracy theorists were front and center, ranting about the devil, the “Deep State,” pedophiles and 5G technology.
From political fringe to mainstream
Experts say the proliferation of conspiracy candidates his election cycle is unsurprising, particularly in blue states.
“You’ve got districts and states that tend to be strongly Democrat or Republican, and you are more likely to see them come up particularly in places that are solidly blue,” said Mark Fenster, law professor at the University of Florida. “Places where the Republican Party is fairly small, out of power, and very intensely motivated to believe the worst of the other side.”
No longer on the political fringe, QAnon candidates have drawn support, and raised money.
Case-in-point: Sherrill’s opponent Laura Loomer, arguably the highest-profile QAnon candidate in Palm Beach County, has raised a stunning $1 million, much of it in large donations.
“Big donors tend to give money to candidates that they believe are going to win, no matter their views,” said John Krosnick, professor of political science at Stanford University. “Then they will own them.”
And Loomer isn’t the only one cashing in. Melton has raised over $156,000, including 22 donations from WinRed, a GOP fundraising platform created by Trump, Jared Kushner and Republican congressional leaders, among others.
Melton has also snagged high-profile endorsements from Kentucky GOP U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and political adviser and Trump insider Roger Stone, who recently had his prison sentence commuted after being convicted of seven felonies. Stone also endorsed Loomer.
Like Loomer, Melton has had her share of troubles with social media. Twitter suspended Melton on several occasions after she posted doctored photos, fake quotes, and medical misinformation.
Down, but far from out, Loomer and Melton found acceptance on Parler — an alternative social media site where conspiracy theories run rampant and facts, falsified quotes, doctored videos and misinformation can be shared without fear of censorship.
It is a place where subscribers can learn about how FEMA is planning a mass slaughter of Christians with the use of guillotines. And how Trump saved thousands of kidnapped babies hidden in cages under Central Park and in San Francisco. And how Bill Gates plans to implant microchips in people through the coronavirus vaccine, as well as how those in power plan to confiscate everyone’s money and turn them into slaves.
While the subject of conspiracy theories runs the gamut from how 5G radiation causes coronavirus to why Dr. Anthony Fauci is behind the “Plandemic,” child sex trafficking rings seem to be the conspiracy theory of choice among QAnon followers.
These rings are omnipresent, they say, run by Satan-worshiping demons such as Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Oprah Winfrey. One widely shared video accused online furniture retailer Wayfair of being part of a sex trafficking ring.
In July, TikTok joined Twitter in blocking Q-related hashtags and banning thousands of accounts after reports of Q members stalking other subscribers and not adhering to posted guidelines. Days later, Trump threatened to shut TikTok down.
Bipartisan conspiracy politics
Pam Wohlschlegel, committee member of the Republican Executive Committee of Palm Beach County, said the focus on conspiracy theorists in this year’s primary elections is overplayed. She doubts they will get much traction at the ballot box.
“I would think that most people won't support it,” Wohlschlegel said.
Either way, Wohlschlegel said, the Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, does not prohibit anyone from running on its ticket and is not responsible for what individual candidates espouse. It’s up to the voters to decide.
“Make intelligent decisions when you vote,” she recommended. “The only way to do that is to study the candidates and take every advantage you can to meet them in person.”
Wilson, a member of the Lincoln Project that opposes Trump, said the damage to the GOP’s brand will be long-lasting.
“It’s going to make the Republican Party much less sellable as an entity in suburbs among educated voters and those who are not mentally amenable to the absurdity it represents,” he said.
Political affiliation does not dictate one’s propensity for believing conspiracy theories, said Uscinski, who has written three books on the subject.
“It's not based on left-right politics,” he said. “It’s an absolute rejection of left-right politics. QAnon wants to kill the Clintons and Obamas, but they also want to kill the Bushes, Mike Pence, Oprah, Tom Hanks.”
He also points out that, in the current election cycle, the right has not been the only side to fall victim to conspiracy theories.
“He ran against his own party and said everything is corrupt,” Uscinski said of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “He just sticks with one conspiracy — that the 1% control everything. But because Democrats don’t have their own version of QAnon, you don’t really hear about it that much.”
But on a path paved by the highest-ranking government official in the nation, every QAnon candidate in Florida is running on a Republican ticket, save for one Independent. Trump opened the door, Uscinski said, and believers walked through it.
“Trump ran as a Republican but he didn’t run as a traditional Republican or a conservative,” he said. “He ran as his own thing, which was against the establishment at large.”
QAnon in a nutshell
QAnon is an unorganized faction bound by shared beliefs. It’s roots trace back to 18th century Germany, but it did not garner mainstream media attention in the U.S. until the summer of 2018, when QAnon supporters wore distinguishing T-shirts to a Trump rally in Tampa.
There is no identified leader of QAnon, but some followers believe it to be a government insider with access to secret intelligence information. The leader then disseminates to QAnon followers the “truth” that the cabal — the secret political operatives who run the country behind the scenes— is attempting to hide.
QAnon writings tend to refer to people who should be feared in general terms by referring to them vaguely as “they,” “the bad people,” or the “Illuminati” — powerful players like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Beyoncé and Jay-Z who are hell-bent on world domination, they say.
Those who have been “redpilled’ are the enlightened ones. Those “bluepilled” are ignorant deniers of truth who choose darkness over light, ignorance over actuality.
Conspiracy theory culture can take hold, Krosnick said, when people have trouble accepting that a traumatic event can be caused by a lone individual or happenstance.
“You can understand why someone at home would wonder or say, ‘This doesn’t pass the smell test of plausibility,’” he said. “You can’t deny JFK was assassinated, but the explanation for many people doesn't feel right.”
In the past two decades, the rise of social media, combined with the proliferation of broadcasting, has helped propel conspiracy theorists out of the shadows. It was then cultivated by a president who has propagated doubt in mainstream media and government institutions, Krosnick said.
“The president shows up and says all the news you used to trust is now fake,” he said. “The country’s ability to be confident that we have trusted sources to go to to know the truth has disintegrated.”
So, in the perceived absence of reliable news sources, people gravitate to “conspiracy” theories to answer their questions, “alternative” facts to calm their fears.
“With a president that has promoted skepticism and is telling the public false information that is then widely discredited, now people’s imaginations are free to roam wherever they want to,” Krosnick said.
While Trump and the Republicans do not hold a monopoly on conspiracy theories, those espousing the lion's share of those beliefs this election cycle are almost exclusively Republicans, said Fenster.
Typically, he said, conspiracy theories flow at a faster rate from whichever political party is out of power at the time. That is why widespread conspiracy theories on the right are so unusual this election cycle.
“What is different about today is that we have someone who broadcasts conspiracy theories who is in the White House,” Fenster said. “It is now more on the right than on the left. And the alt-right community is defined by a conspiratorial view of how the world works.”
Trump has become a master at using conspiracy theories to deflect attention away from issues on which he does not want the public to focus, Fenster said. During a recent week of polling that showed the president losing support nationwide, Trump reached for a doozy that reportedly shocked even his inner circle.
“Like the ‘delay the election’ tweet,” Fenster said of Trump's July 31 tweet suggesting the general election be postponed due to unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. “Or really bad economic or COVID news. It distracts from that and will change the conversation once again.”
So, when a president pushes conspiracy theories and convinces the public that facts are not facts and the mainstream media cannot be trusted, what is a skeptic to believe? Enter the QAnon phenomenon.
“We’ll see if it's on the fringes or not,” Fenster said. “This could be a coming out party within Republican Party for QAnon believers, depending upon how they do in the elections.”
Establishment GOP support?
Whether establishment Republicans show up to vote for QAnon candidates remains to be seen, said political analyst Trimmel Gomes. So far, national and state parties have said little, if anything, to denounce QAnon candidates.
“You may have traditional Republicans who may be concerned [about QAnon ideology], but they’ve already been drowned out by everything else that's sort of invaded the party,” Gomes said. “You are seeing the party just unfurl even further. It’s getting so far right that anything goes. And now, QAnon has just latched on and become a melting pot for all the crazies.”
Krosnick said that while it may appear the QAnon phenomenon is spreading like wildfire, research shows that is not the case. Social media followers can be artificially inflated and posts of support for conspiracy theories, or anything else for that matter, can be perpetuated by bots.
Uscinski, who has for years conducted regular polling in Florida about conspiracy theories, agrees that the number of QAnon followers is not exploding.
“We put it in a feeling thermometer that goes from 0-100,” he said of a June 23 poll in Florida. “Q came out a few points better than Fidel Castro. And Florida hates Castro.”
Still, some experts are concerned.
“I worry deeply about how we're going to get out of this mess,” Krosnick said. “I don’t see a pathway forward to help people regain trust in facts. It’s going to take a really extraordinary set of leaders in the country to bring us back under control.”
Gomes agreed.
“This phenomenon, unfortunately, has picked up legs,” he said. “The test will be the upcoming election. It’s worrying that people are losing grips on facts and questioning facts ...They don't trust the media, so you can’t go back to them with rational arguments. And I don't know what the solution is to stop it.”