September 24, 2020

How Big a Deal Is QAnon, Anyway?

Brian Cahn/ZUMA

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I was mulling over QAnon recently, wondering just how many people actually take the crackpot conspiracy theory seriously and approve of it. So I went looking for polls and found two, both conducted during the first half of September. They agree that only about half of Americans have even heard about QAnon, but they differ wildly in their assessment of how many fans it has:

  • NBC News says that 3 percent of respondents are “very or somewhat positive” towards QAnon.
  • Pew Research says that 9.4 percent of respondents think QAnon is “very or somewhat good for the country.”

That’s a big difference. If it’s really 9.4 percent, we have a serious problem. That’s a tenth of the population believing the country is under attack by a deep-state child sex trafficking ring. But if it’s 3 percent—well, that’s just business as usual. You can probably find 3 percent of Americans to support just about any wackadoodle conspiracy theory.

It seems like it might be important to get a firmer grip on this, especially since President Trump has recently praised QAnon and at least two Republican candidates for Congress have endorsed it, even as the FBI has identified it as a domestic terrorism threat. If QAnon is truly going mainstream, as Ali Breland wrote for us recently, it deserves some serious attention. On the other hand, if it’s still a fringe theory that’s just having its 15 minutes in the sun, maybe it’s not worth worrying about so much.

But which is it?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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