Q After Trump
Like much of America, I am morbidly fascinated by cults in general and the Nexium cult in particular. I watched The Vow first, whose attitude towards Keith Raniere’s cult seems to be, “Yes, of course it was a sex slave cult but we’re not going to get into that here.”
Then I watched Seduced, which instead took the approach, “Yes, Nexium was a sex slave cult so OF COURSE we are to get into that! Why wouldn’t we? Is there anything more appealing to audiences than sex cults?”
That was part of the reason Tiger King was such a pop culture event. It was a sex cult story on top of everything else.
I went into The Vow worried that I would have a hard time dealing emotionally with its revelations. I’m a bit of a sensitive soul, a “snowflake” as it were. I’m deeply affected by depictions of sexual abuse, child abuse and animal abuse. Yet throughout The Vow I found myself wondering where in the hell all the sex slave stuff was. The Vow alludes to sexual malfeasance throughout without ever going into it in any detail. They seem to think it’s enough to merely acknowledge that Nexium devolved inevitably into a sex slave ring, then let audiences put the pieces together.
To be honest, I would personally have a hard time rejecting a man who looked and dressed like this sexually.
The Vow is less arty and elliptical and way more focussed on the whole “sex slave ring” aspect of Nexium. The elevator pitch for Seduced is irresistible: glamorous actress Catherine Oxenberg’s love for her daughter India is strong and pure enough to get her out of an evil sex cult that threatened to destroy her after first driving her mad.
There is certainly an element of truth to that but what struck me about Seduced is that India was such a true believer that she stuck with Nexium, Keith Raniere and his lieutenant/literal slave-driver Allison Mack long after other members of its inner circle fled in horror. Oxenberg stayed pretty much until the bitter end, when Raniere was arrested and charged with what amounts to crimes against humanity.
Catherine Oxenberg didn’t get her daughter out of a cult through anything she said or did: she got her daughter out of a cult by playing a sizable role in the destruction of Nexium, in ensuring that Nexium would be seen as a criminal organization going forward.
India’s unwillingness to see Nexium for what it really was—an evil sex cult—made me think a lot about the true believers of QAnon, the cult/conspiracy theory that believes that Trump is fighting a secret war against an evil global cabal of Satan-worshipping, pedophile cannibals made up of top Democrats and the biggest names in show-business with the furtive help of Robert Mueller and John F. Kennedy Jr., who faked his death and would replace Mike Pence as Trump’s 2020 running mate.
Needless to say, none of the grand revelations of QAnon have come to pass. A massive sting did not take down a global ring of child-eating Satanists made up of Hollywood stars and Democratic power-brokers. JFK Jr. did not return to announce that he had faked his own death.
Donald Trump will leave office without being able to list “single-handedly destroyed massive cannibalistic Satanic child sex ring run by my enemies” as one of his achievements.
Yet I suspect that Q cultists will nevertheless find every reason in the world to keep believing in Trump, and keep believing in QAnon. That’s because Q isn’t rooted in reality or evidence or facts but rather blind faith.
Q cultists take their cues from Trump, who has done everything short of publicly asserting, “Everything Q cultists believe is 100 percent true and I am DEFINITELY taking down an evil cabal of satanic, cannibalistic cabal of top Democrats and Hollywood movers and shakers” to let Q know that he is on their side.
Trump has ridiculously professed to know nothing about Q, which is impossible to believe given his deep investment in conspiracy theories, particularly the ones that posit him not just as a good person but as an unstoppable force for good in the world. Trump has also said that all that he knows about Q is that they are VERY patriotic AND they HATE pedophilia, and, as someone who similarly loves his country and thinks that child-rape is wrong, agrees with them on those very important issues
All Q wants is to be seen as patriotic and anti-child molestation and as pro-Trump as humanly possible. So Trump’s words could not be more encouraging.
By portraying himself as the victim of an sinister conspiracy perpetrated by evil Democrats and Deep State turncoats in his own party and his own administration, Trump is signaling to Q that he really, really wanted to bring down that Satanic cannibalistic sex cabal but the Deep State conspiracy was just too goddamn strong even for a warrior for good like himself.
In a sense, Trump losing fits the Q narrative far more than willing would. If he’d won a second term Trump obviously would never have accomplished the super-human feats Q insisted he would. In defeat, the Q brigade could insist that of course no man, not even a hero like Trump, could defeat a force as all-powerful and evil as the Satanic cabal of pedophiles and cannibals that run the world.
Even death won’t dim the Q cult’s reverence for Trump. On the contrary, it’s liable to elevate Trump in the eyes of his cultists from a hero to a prophet. It will transform the most selfish, narcissistic man in the world into a selfless martyr who suffered and died for humanity’s sins.
Q is a cult now. In the years ahead, don’t be surprised if it morphs into something resembling a religion, with Trump as its Golden, infallible God.
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