TRI-CORNER DEEP STATE
QANON IS JUST THE LATEST IN AMERICA’S LONG LOVE AFFAIR WITH CONSPIRACY THEORIES
BY DAVID KLEPPER
A brutal conflict in Europe dragged on as political tensions ran high at home.
The race for the White House turned ugly as talk of secret societies and dark plots roiled the nation.
The year was 1800, and conspiracy theories were rife. Partisan newspapers spread tales of a secret league of European elites seeking to control the young country. Preachers in New England warned of conspiracies to abolish Christianity in favor of godlessness and depravity.
This organization was known as the Illuminati, and it soon came to dominate political debates in the young republic. Conspiracy theoriests saw the group's influences everywhere and blamed it for the atrocities of the French Revolution, which had descended into persecutions and executions. Now, many believed, this evil European society had set its sights on America, and wanted to shape the its destiny for its own twisted ends.
Add in a pizza parlor and online furniture retailers and the hysteria surrounding the Illuminati sound a lot like QAnon, that contemporary conspiracy theory that claims a powerful cabal of child-sacrificing Satanists secretly controls the U.S. and world events. Like the Illuminati craze two centuries ago, QAnon also emerged at a time of uncertainty, polarization and mounting distrust.
“The more things change, the more things seem to come back,” said Jon Graham, a writer and translator based in Vermont who is an expert on the Illuminati and the claims that have surrounded them for centuries. “There’s the mainstream narrative of history. And then there’s the other narrative - the alternative expalantions for history — that never really goes away.”
Widespread belief in conspiracy theories may seem like a product of the internet age but popular imaginings of sinister plots have a long history throughout the world and in the U.S., dating back to before the nation’s founding. These unproven and sometimes bizarre stories often reveal the anxieties of the day, whether focused on racial or religious strife or technological or economic change.
From the Salem witch trials to fears of the Illuminati to the Red Scare to QAnon, conspiracy theories have always served as a dark undercurrent to the American story taught in history books. If a healthy democracy relies on the trust of its citizens — trust in institutions, in tolerance and in democracy itself — then conspiracy theories show what happens when that trust fails, and citizens begin to suspect the worst motivations in their fellows.
The most persistent conspiracy theories will survive on the fringes for years, even decades, before suddenly reappearing with new details, new villians and new heroes for a new generation. Usually these theories resurface at times of social, religious, racial or economic upheaval, when confidence in institutions breaks down, when the bonds of unity are frayed by polarization and distrust, and when people aren’t sure what to believe.
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“My dad never trusted the government. He always figured he knew better than anyone about anything,” said Skyler Manley, a Montana woman whose father Cliff became obsessed with conspiracy theories in the 1990s. Skyler was one of several people whose families were disrupted by conspiracy theories who agreed to tell her story to the AP. “He never believed the official story. He was always convinced someone was out to get him, and that he alone knew the secret. I imagine we've always had conspiracy theories, and people who believed them."
In America's early days, there was no bogeyman as feared as the Illuminati. Created in 1776 in Bavaria as a cheaper alternative to joining the Freemasons, the group were part of a fad of supposedly secret societies that became fashionable in Europe at the time. The group was defunct by 1800 and had no ties to the U.S., yet according to the claims spreading in the U.S., Illuminati agents were working undercover to take over the U.S. government, eliminate Christianity and promote sexual promiscuity, devil worship and atheism among the young.
The theory found fertile ground in the Federalist Party and played a key part of 1800 presidential race between President John Adams, a Federalist, and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican. Rumors began circulating among Federalists that Jefferson was an atheist who would hand America over to France if elected president. Jefferson’s supporters, meanwhile, suggested that Adams was too cozy with the British monarchy.
Jefferson won, in part to voter discontent over taxes and the economy, and the Federalists never fully recovered. Tales of the illuminati receded to the background, but soon, another secret society became the target of a new generation of conspiracy theories: The Freemasons.
This powerful group counted many of the nation's founders as members — including George Washington. But rather than allay concerns about its influence, the Freemasons' influence and popularity only fueled whispers that suggested the fraternal organization was a Satanic conspiracy dedicated to ruling the world.
It’s easy to look back at the years after the Revolution and forget the anxiety and uncertainty of the time, said Jonathan Den Hartog, a historian at Samford University who has studied the role conspiracy theories played in America’s early history. But many people were unsure whether the country would last or whether it would be plunged into war or depression or taken over by a foreign power.
“Living through this period, a lot of people were very nervous. And when there’s uncertainty and fear, people are going to cast about for explanations,” Hartog said.
The middle of the 19th century also saw thousands of Americans join new religious movements during the Second Great Awakening. One of the most popular groups, the Millerites, was founded by William Miller, a veteran of the War of 1812 who used numeric clues in the Bible to calculate the precise ending of the world: Oct. 22, 1844.
Before the appointed day many of Miller’s followers sold or gave away their possessions, donned white clothing and headed for high land — in some parts of Massachusetts they climbed trees on the highest hills — so as to hasten their reunion with God. When Oct. 22 came and went, they came down from the hills; some returned to their old lives, while others insisted the End had come, only invisibly.
“It was called the ”Great Disappointment,” said J. Gordon Melton, a Baylor University historian who studies the Millerites and Seventh Day Adventists, a denomination that like Jehovah’s Witnesses sprang from Millerism. “A lot of people were very disappointed — Miller included. But others just said, well, they just got the date wrong.”
Millenialism — or a belief in the impending end of the world — has a long history in the U.S. dating back to the Puritans. It’s often a feature of conspiracy theories too, including QAnon, whose adherents have long predicted a “Great Awakening” that will occur, following “ten days of darkness,” when Donald Trump triumphs and his enemies — a diverse group that includes Hillary Clinton and actor Tom Hanks — are exposed and executed on television. Many dates have been suggested for this final victory, predictions that are later shrugged off when proven incorrect.
A newspaper by the Millerites group declares the end of the world in 1844. .
In 2021, thousands of QAnon adherents gathered in Dallas after one of their leaders predicted the return of John F. Kennedy Jr., who features prominently in QAnon lore despite his death in 1999. After Kennedy didn’t show, crestfallen believers later decided they had their dates wrong.
Something similar happened earlier this year, when many conspiracy theoriests claimed a long-planned cell phone test of the emergency broadcast system was cover for ... something. Some versions of the story claimed the cell phone test would activate chemicals contained within COVID-19 vaccines that would kill those who got the shot, others suggested it was an effort at mind-control.
QAnon borrows elements of several different conspiracy theories, some centuries old. In its dark imaginings of a plot by elites to sacrifice children, QAnon harkens back to “blood libel” claims and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 20th century book that popularized anti-Semitic claims that Jewish people sacrifice children.
The 20th century saw an explosion in conspiracy theories as new technologies like the radio and TV allowed them to spread in new and faster ways. During the 1920s, tensions over race and immigration spurred hoaxes about Catholics and Jews, or about foreign gangs that sold white women into sexual slavery. Thanks to an ever quickening news cycle, events like the abduction of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby quickly spun off their own conspiracy theories.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy, Watergate and America’s war in Vietnam later set the stage for our current era of “alternative facts” by convincing large groups of Americans they could no longer trust their own government. That led to claims second guessing the 1969 Moon Landing, government knowledge of UFOs or the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
That climate of skepticism and suspicion helped usher in our current era of conspiracy theorizing, which highlights the unease that many feel toward government, media and rapid changes in economics and technology. Fears about 5G wireless towers or vaccines containing microchips, for example, reflect questions about government surveillance or the pace of technology, while suggestions that COVID-19 was fake, or created as a bioweapon, express widespread anxieties about the pandemic, China’s status as a rising world power, as well as doubts about the government’s response to the virus. Claims that climate change is a lie offer an easy and guilty-free answer to a complicated, existential threat caused by our own behavior.
Then there’s the pandemic, which created the perfect conditions for conspiracy theories: widespread fear and economic uncertainty, a deadly threat and a controversial government response.
“COVID really cranked all the dials to 11,” said Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami political scientist who studies belief in conspiracy theories.
While research shows overall belief in conspiracy theories hasn’t changed, these beliefs may be more visible now thanks to the internet, which has allowed conspiracy theorists to organize, share information and recruit new adherents. Politicians like Donald Trump, meanwhile, have learned how to exploit belief in conspiracy theories for their own ends.
Still, America has been stricken with conspiracy theory fever before, and if history is any guide the nation will likely suffer additional relapses. Den Hartog, the historian of the early republic, said the nation’s ability to recover from conspiracy theories in the past makes him optimistic.
“This gives me some hope, to know that we’ve had problems and we weathered them,” Den Hartog said. “There is an American capacity to take a breath, to try harder on our civic life and to rebuild trust. Lincoln called that our ‘better angels.’ Let’s pay attention to the facts, and not ignore them just because of someone on Facebook and Twitter.”