One of the best theme parties I’ve ever attended was on May 21, 2011. The evangelical Christian broadcaster Harold Camping had garnered considerable publicity with a prediction that The Rapture would occur on that date and that approximately 3 percent of the world’s population would be swept up to heaven to meet their maker. The rest us would be goners. May 21 happened to be a Saturday, so a neighborhood couple organized a “Rapture Party,” designed a special Rapture cocktail, and invited people in. We all had a wonderful time celebrating an event we knew had no chance of happening.

Naturally, the next day was a bit of an embarrassment for Camping, who, despite having a BS in civil engineering from the University of California, appeared to have made an error in his calculations. After a period of contemplation, he recalculated and set a new Rapture date for October 11, which soon came and went. This was Camping’s fourth incorrect end-of-the-world prophecy, and in May 2012, he announced that he was quitting the doomsday prediction game. He died in 2013.

 

QAnon Prophecies

In recent months, we’ve heard about another momentous prophecy that did not come to fruition. The shadowy internet conspiracy group QAnon has been thrust into the American consciousness due to its prominent role in the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as the controversy surrounding Marjorie Taylor Greene, the newly elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives, well-known for her support for the group (Greenspan 2021). Of all the many photos we have seen of the marauders who stormed the Capitol, the “QAnon Shaman” (aka Jake Angeli) is perhaps the most memorable. Bare-chested and heavily tattooed, he wore red, white, and blue face paint and a fur headdress complete with horns. Several other rioters carried or wore QAnon symbols. 

QAnon is a loose but surprisingly large group of people who believe a collection of conspiracy theories, most notably that Democrats—including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros, as well as media figures Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and Ellen DeGeneres—

operate a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles (Roose 2020). That last sentence sounds crazy, but an NPR/Ipsos poll conducted in December 2020 found that 17 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “A group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” (Newell 2020). Yes, 17 percent. Another central tenet of QAnon doctrine is a commitment to Donald Trump, who is seen almost as a god. As Stephanie Kemmerer, author of the March/April 2021 Skeptical Inquirercover story on QAnon put it to me in an email, “Not all MAGA are QAnon, but all QAnon are MAGA.” According to QAnon lore, Trump was recruited to run for office in 2016 by military generals so that he could break up and arrest all the members of the pedophile conspiracy (Roose 2020).

So where do the prophecies come in? Stay with me. QAnon is thought to have its roots in the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory of the 2016 campaign cycle that suggested that Hillary Clinton was operating a sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a popular Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (in fact the building didn’t have a basement [Wendling 2016]). In October 2017, a mysterious character known as “Q clearance patriot” began posting on the 4chan message board, home to a variety of illegal and offensive content. “Q,” as he is known, was purported to be someone who had security clearance and access to secret information. He began posting cryptic messages, called “Q Drops” (archived at https://qanon.pub/), many written in the kind of ambiguous language found in psychic readings but filled with right-wing political content. Often these communications employed old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, promoted false claims, and made predictions—some tied to specific dates.

Many QAnon predictions have proven to be false (Rothschild 2021). For example, an early Q Drop said that the arrest of Hillary Clinton was underway and was being coordinated with the National Guard in the event she tried to escape abroad. Despite the many false leads, QAnon appears to have gained rather than lost followers. However, all this happened while the movement’s spiritual leader, Donald Trump, was still in power. Perhaps the most important QAnon prediction was that Trump would be inaugurated for his second term on January 20, 2021. When that day came and Joseph Biden took the oath of office on national television, the most important of all prophecies failed. There have been some reports of disaffected QAnon proponents leaving the movement (Collins and Zadrozny 2021), but social psychology suggests confronting a failed prophecy may actually strengthen belief rather than weaken it.

Cognitive Dissonance

Many professional psychics have learned the lesson of apocalyptic predictions: predict whatever you want; just don’t give a specific date. If you tell someone, for example, “You will meet a tall dark stranger” no matter who your victim is, they will eventually run into someone they can fit into the prediction. Or they will forget the prediction altogether. But when a prophecy is specific enough that clear failure is possible—and when there are people who have a stake in the prediction being correct—cognitive dissonance can result. As it was later described by psychologist Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance is a state of unease created by a conflict between your beliefs and your actions, which is often resolved by changing your beliefs (Festinger and Carlsmith 1959). But the kind of dissonance that many QAnon followers may now be experiencing was first described in one of the classic books of social psychology, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World (1956), coauthored by Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. The book recounts a rare participant observation study of a Chicago-area UFO doomsday group led by Dorothy Martin (called Marian Keech in the book), a follower of Scientology who claimed to communicate with higher beings—“guardians” from the planet “Clarion”—via automatic writing. Martin made a prediction that the world would end in flood on a specific day, December 21, 1954, but that her followers would be safely spirited away in a spaceship. When a news article about the doomsday prediction appeared, Leon Festinger and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota recognized that the case set up a rare opportunity to study people forced to deal with a major disconfirmation of their beliefs. As a result, the coauthors and some paid researchers infiltrated Martin’s group to observe how the members reacted.

The surprising result was that after the doomsday date passed, rather than giving up on Martin and her Clarion guardians, many group members actually strengthened their belief and accelerated their proselytizing. Given this outcome, what can we expect from QAnon, whose leader has now been deposed? Might they somehow strengthen their belief in QAnon conspiracy theories? As psychologist Chris French outlined in an article for Skeptic (U.K.), Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter identified five conditions that make this kind of redoubling of belief possible (Festinger et al. 1956, 216):

• There must be conviction.
• There must be commitment to this conviction.
• The conviction must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation.
• Such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur.
• Social support must be available subsequent to the disconfirmation.

In the case of Martin’s followers, they strongly believed they were going to be saved by a spaceship that would take them away before the flood waters rose. As an indication of their commitment, many quit their jobs and gave away their possessions as the date of deliverance approached. The prediction was very clearly disconfirmed when no spaceship appeared and the world did not end, and some members of the group began to express doubts and drifted away. But those who had sufficient social support from members of Martin’s group remained attached and, in some cases, actually increased their efforts at promotion and recruitment of new members.

All this leads us to the question: Now that the QAnon group’s most important prophecy has failed, will they become disillusioned, more committed, or neither? A quick look at the five conditions that Festinger and his colleagues identified shows that most, if not all, are present for the QAnon faithful. Many sincerely believe all these crazy theories and have made significant commitments to the cause. They have purchased QAnon paraphernalia and brought it to Trump rallies. In the case of the January 6 rally and siege, many traveled long distances during a pandemic to be there. Some have undoubtedly endured the ridicule and rejection of family members and friends. So, given that all the other factors are present, the presence or absence of social support is probably the most important factor. If QAnon enthusiasts have sufficient social support for their views, they will carry on, and it is quite likely that many do. Unlike Martin’s followers, the QAnon faithful have access to the internet. If they can find no support for their views in their immediate real-world social environment, they will always be able to find each other in the virtual world.

Q’s posts first appeared on the 4chan bulletin board, migrating to 8chan, and finally to 8kun (Paul et al. 2021). Since December 8, 2020, the day before the last state certified its 2020 election results, Q has been silent (Stark and Cohen 2020). Furthermore, all the usual bulletin boards Q has used have been shut down. Following the siege of the U.S. Capitol, these toxic websites—which have been connected to the deadly white nationalist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas, as well as the attack on the Capitol—lost their hosting services (Paul et al. 2021). However, despite the current absence of Q and Q Drops, at least for the moment, QAnon culture is sufficiently developed to sustain itself on the internet indefinitely. As a result, several commentators have suggested that the QAnon movement will not disappear (e.g., Bowman 2021; Edsall 2021). Similarly, Chris French concluded, “Those supporters for whom QAnon became central to their very identity will most likely double down and become even more committed to the cause” (French 2021). In the short term, at least, I agree. But there is one wild card that could have a powerful effect on the movement: Donald Trump.

The Trump Effect

QAnon was not the only fringe group in attendance on January 6, and it may not have even been the most important group with respect to the insurrection at the Capitol. The flags, uniforms, and emblems worn during the riot make it easy to identify some of the groups participating, and The New York Times provided a glossary of them a week after the attack (Rosenberg and Tiefenthäler 2021). In addition to QAnon followers, the groups who participated included several militia organizations, including the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters; racist and anti-Semitic groups, such as the The Proud Boys and The Boogaloos; and several other more esoteric right-wing factions. But by far the largest group was Trump supporters. Trump flags and MAGA hats were everywhere, and at the height of the violence, enormous Trump banners were draped from the exterior walls of the Capitol.

Donald Trump is a unique phenomenon in American politics in at least three ways. First, he has become part of the identities of many of his followers. I live in a solidly blue area of New England, yet as I drive around the area, I run across private homes that seem to be permanently festooned with Trump iconography. Tall flag poles in front yards display blue Trump flags. Occasionally, I come across a pickup truck decorated like a parade float with Trump posters and flags. We all witnessed the emerging phenomenon of Trump boat parades. In my fifty years as an American voter, I have never seen anything like this. Of course, in the weeks before an election, many people put signs in their yards, bumper stickers on their cars, and advertise their political preferences in other ways. The Trump phenomenon is not like that. For many Americans, Trump is more than a Republican Party candidate. He is their leader and part of their identities.

Second, Trump has provided a home for the most racist, irrational, and anti-Semitic groups in the country. When asked to do so, he has assiduously avoided denouncing David Duke; the white supremacists at the Charlottesville, Virginia, “Unite the Right” protest; QAnon; and the Proud Boys. White nationalist groups have operated in the United States for a long time, but never have they been so welcomed under the flag of a mainstream politician as they were during the Trump period.

Third, Trump has embraced lying and sophistry like no other mainstream politician. One of the most disturbing aspects of extremist gun culture in the United States has been the proliferation of conspiracy theories to explain away many of the most horrific mass shootings of our history. Long before Trump was a candidate, pro-gun YouTubers would post videos purporting to prove that mass shootings were “false flag operations” staged by gun control advocates and that the victims of these attacks were actually “crisis actors” (Wilson 2018). Famously, the former InfoWars broadcaster Alex Jones denied that the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school massacre was real, and as a result, he is still engaged in a legal battle with the families of the victims (Axelrod 2021). Although Alex Jones has been banned from many platforms and most of the false flag videos have been removed from YouTube, the mental habit of embracing conspiracy theories and denying any damaging event has gone mainstream—encouraged by the former president. According to the Washington Post, during his time as president, Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading statements (Kessler 2021), and in a phone call with Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy five days after the attack on January 6, Trump blamed the violence at the Capitol on the left-wing group Antifa. McCarthy replied: “No, it’s not Antifa, it’s MAGA. I know. I was there” (Swan 2021). As of this writing, Trump has yet to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election.

When there is no solid grounding in truth, any inconvenient fact can be explained away. QAnon followers have endured numerous failed prophecies, but many believers will have no problem using motivated reasoning to rationalize these disappointments. The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that some members will endure and even become more committed to their cause—the question is, how many? Dorothy Martin was no Donald Trump. The fate of QAnon and many other far-right groups depends to a large degree on Trump’s next steps. If Trump reemerges on the national stage, QAnon will continue to thrive. As long has he remains their spiritual leader, past failures will be seen as anomalies or—better yet—successes. It was all part of the plan. Alternatively, if Trump is himself marginalized and no similarly demagogic leader emerges, I suspect the number of QAnon faithful will be much smaller. If we are to avoid more political violence, this last possibility must be our hope.

Acknowledgment

I want to thank Stephanie Kemmerer for her assistance with this column.

References

Axelrod, Tal. 2021. Texas Supreme Court rejects Alex Jones request to toss lawsuits from Sandy Hook parents. The Hill (January 22). Available online at https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/535447-texas-supreme-court-rejects-alex-jones-request-to-toss-lawsuits-from.

Bowman, Emma. 2021. Why QAnon survives after Trump. NPR (February 4). Available online at https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963861418/why-qanon-survives-after-trump.

Collins, Ben, and Brandy Zadrozny. 2021. Some QAnon followers lose hope after inauguration. NBCNews.com (January 21). Available online at https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/some-qanon-followers-struggle-inauguration-day-n1255002.

Edsall, Thomas B. 2021. The QAnon delusion has not loosened its grip. The New York Times (February 3). Available online at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/opinion/qanon-conspiracy-theories.html.

Festinger, Leon, and James M. Carlsmith. 1959. Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58(2): 203–210.

Festinger, Leon, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. 1956. When Prophecy Fails. New York: Harper & Row.

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