So, Jeffery Epstein is, finally, where he belongs. Obviously, everyone is talking about the arrest and it’s implications. That’s good, but I doubt I can add anything to that conversation. Instead, what I want to do is take a step sideways and talk about something I’ve always felt a little conflicted about: The Q thing.
Understandably, perhaps, the Q people have been filling up everyone’s Twitter feed over the last few days in order to indulge in some ‘We-told-you-so’ crowing. Well. Fine. Who can really blame them? For the past 18 months, they’ve been hammering away at the idea of elite paedophile-rings. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has, mostly, been hammering away at Q for being a Boomer Conspiracy Theory. So, yes, I can well understand why they’re taking a victory lap right now — It must feel like Alex Jones discovering a gay bar filled with nothing but frogs.
What I think about Q is … Complicated. I want to deal with the ‘bad’ first. Think of this as a sort of ideological stress-test. What are the worst things we can throw at the Q movement? Do they fatally damage it?
On the surface it’s easy for me to find stuff like this irritating. Q-folks keep urging that we ‘Trust the plan’. As someone whose instincts have always tended toward never trusting a word that comes out of a politician’s mouth, this is really big ask. Sure, I like Trump. I think he’s the best decision the US (or any other Western) electorate have made in my lifetime. But asking me to trust anyone in power unquestioningly is something that stretches my already-frayed cynicism to near breaking point.
Alongside this, Q have also alienated people like the excellent Cassandra Fairbanks. For those who don’t know, she’s a journalist at Gateway Pundit and a personal friend of Julian Assange. Q assures her that everything’s fine. No need to worry. When he’s eventually extradited to the US, it’ll be because he, like Q, Trusts the Plan. The fact that Fairbanks, having actually spoken at length to Julian, insists he’s less inclined to visit the US than he is to castrate himself with a cheese-grater, does not appear to have deterred Q from informing her she’s wrong. Imagine how that would irritate you. A person you care about, and know well, tells you X. Then, daily, hundreds of random strangers fill your Twitter feed to inform you that, nope, your friend has been lying to you. He really thinks Y. You’re being made a fool of. By your friend. No wonder she’s taken to blocking Q-types on sight.
There is also, it has to be said, quite a bit of Q-stuff that is so bizarre even Q ‘himself’ has been forced to deny the truth of it. For instance, JFK Junior is very definitely dead. He is not, as some were suggesting, about to pop up alongside Trump for the July 4th celebrations. Bluffer’s tip: this kind of stuff doesn’t help pull people over to your cause. Instead, it has the same effect as those posters (and Tweets) of dismembered babies. We pro-lifers don’t need to see them — We’re already sold on the idea that abortion is murder. The important question is: do they persuade anyone over to our cause? Maybe a few, but mostly they upset, alienate and make us look like fanatics. Likewise, maybe JFK Junior was done in by Hilary. Or maybe not. Who knows? My point is that if you’re trying to attract people to a political movement, optics matter. If non-believers think you’re nuts, it won’t be so easy to win them over.
So that’s the bad side to Q. If you hadn’t worked this out already, I’m trying to be as critical of the movement as I can be. I want to subject them to the harshest criticism that I can … And, really, this amounts to nothing more than complaints about strategy and a couple of political shots that go wide of the mark. That’s it.
So what about the good side of Q?
Well, first and foremost, Q devotees are patriots. You can have as many back and forths as you like over the stuff they get wrong, but the big, central issue of Q-dom is love of country. This matters. If you’re going to lock horns with a ruling elite who really don’t care about country at all, then patriotism is essential. The people we’re up against are sitting on giant piles of money and status — They’ll fight with passion to keep those. Consequently, we need to have something that puts steel in our spines and fire in our hearts equal to the brutality ranged against us. Love of one’s country isn’t just the morally correct position to take — It’s also a strength. In a fight like this one, we’re going to need all the strength we can muster.
The second thing that appears to define Q is their hatred of people who hurt kids. This is where Q and the whole Epstein debacle intersect.
Most of the column inches devoted to this story revolve around attempts to tie everyone’s least favourite billionaire to the political enemy of their choice: The right are gunning for Clinton over his flights on the Lolita Express, the left for Trump because he knew Epstein at Mar-A-Lago. Sure, this looks far worse for Clinton, but, still, it’s hard not to feel as though most of the people salivating over Epstein’s fate are doing so because of the scandal they imagine is about to drop on others.
Q-dom, rightly, are more focussed on the fact that children are the victims here, that children were being raped, and that children need to be protected. Sure, most people agree with this in passing, but, really, the little ones aren’t so much their focus as they are props to be pressed into the service of a political agenda. It seems to me that Q is different; that their focus is on protecting kids.
This matters for the same reason that patriotism matters — To win this fight, we’re all going to need strong spines and strong hearts … Which might sound strange at first blush. After all, doesn’t everyone hate child rapists? Well, yes. But consider what happened inside the Catholic Church. Sure, it was horrifying that up to 10% of priests were raping kids while the other 90% covered up for the swine. But. Still. Most Catholics were willing to look the other way. See, Father O’Malley was so kind when mum died, so gentle and understanding. Squaring that with the mental image of O’Malley burying himself balls-deep in screaming, terrified children was just too much of an ask. The idea that we can be completely deceived by monsters who wear human skins unnerves most people. Simpler to keep the idea of easily-discernible evil alive than admit that, no, it isn’t usually possible to tell who the monsters walking among us actually are.
I’m not pointing this out to dunk on Catholics in particular. Everyone should rest assured this will play out the same way when beloved figures from the worlds of entertainment and politics are exposed.
To my mind this is why Q matters. Twenty years ago, there was no mass-movement of Catholics yelling about how their leaders were a bunch of child-rapey perverts. Instead, the revelations of child abuse fell on the faithful like bolts out of a clear, blue sky. If, and hopefully when, Epstein starts rolling on his fellow perverts, this won’t come as so much of shock.
So, sure, people can mock Q for the stuff they get wrong. But. We should also praise them for what they get right. Patriotism matters. Protecting children matters. If you’re reading this and still sneering at Q, please bear in mind that at least these people are trying to help abused kids.
Also bear in mind that the victims of child abuse will take all the help they can get.
