The anti-Semitic backstory of QAnon [View all]

[Behind the Aegis]

QAnon is one of the strangest developments on the current political scene. Originating in 2017 on the often racist imageboard website 4chan, its members believe that the world is really being run by a secret cabal of devil-worshiping pedophiles, who include billionaires like Bill Gates, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, and high-profile Democratic politicians like Hilary Clinton, who traffic children, and rape, torture and murder them, to satisfy their depraved appetites. These monsters drain children of their blood and drink it during Satanic rituals — and President Trump is their arch-nemesis.

There is a strong current of anti-Semitism in the QAnon worldview, ranging from dog-whistle rants about George Soros to explicit and overt claims, like when “angel mom” Mary Ann Mendoza endorsed a Twitter thread about a Jewish plot to take over the United States.

The anti-Semitic components are not incidental. QAnon may have started in 2017, but its ideology resonates with much older anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the modern American face of an age-old and very dangerous ideology.

The story begins at the tail end of the twelfth century, when Jewish communities in the Rhineland were slaughtered by marauding crusaders. Their position worsened during the 13th century, and then took a catastrophic turn during the 14th century when the Bubonic plague pandemic raged across Europe.

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You might respond that that although it certainly contains some anti-Semitic elements, it is not an anti-Semitic movement per se. But that would miss the point. It’s close enough.

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