The base is losing it
by digby
Michelle Goldberg hits on the essential truth about the ridiculous Q Anon conspiracy theory:
On Thursday, the usually even-keeled Mike Allen published a piece in Axios titled, “The case for extreme worry,” about how those close to Trump are panicked by his erraticism. The president’s whims and resentments have led to stock market convulsions and may soon result in painful tariffs that affect American farmers, an important part of his base. Mueller’s special counsel investigation continues to close in. Republicans have lost special election seats in red-leaning areas all over the country. But QAnon offers assurance that everything is under control.
You don’t create a wild fantasy about your leader being a covert genius unless you understand that to most people, he looks like something quite different. You don’t need an occult story about how your side is secretly winning if it’s actually winning. Publicly, many right-wing politicians and pundits disdain the Mueller investigation and pretend to believe that Trump’s ties to Russia are negligible. But among part of the Trump base, the effort to explain them away appears to be creating psychic strain.
“You cannot possibly imagine the size of this,” said a Q dispatch last month. “Trust the plan. Trust there are more good than bad.” Q almost certainly doesn’t know any state secrets, but he, she, or they understand that some fervent Trump supporters require more reassurance than they’re willing to admit. Their desperate conviction that they will be proven right about Trump betrays a secret fear that they will be proven wrong.
The length to which people have to go to convince themselves that Trump is the stable genius he says he is is getting more and more complicated every day. They can't just take it at face value because it's absurd on its face. So many of them are having to buy into a ludicrous conspiracy theory that says Trump and Robert Mueller and the military are secretly working together to prove that Clinton, Obama, Pelosi and all the other people they hate are really evil pedophiles.
And frankly, even the ones who aren't buying into this specific conspiracy theory are buying into a fantasy as well: they are convinced that this cretinous moron is actually competent at the job.
For the first time I'm feeling a little bit of pity for these folks. They have emotional, psychological and intellectual issues that are far more serious than I realized.
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