QAnon: Coming to a School Board Near You with Mike Rothschild

Battleground with Amanda Litman and Faiz Shakir

The Recount

Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

America’s lack of media literacy and historical affinity for conspiracy theories have allowed QAnon to move from the dark corners of the web to violence at the US Capitol. Now, much like the Tea Party efforts of last decade, the movement is attempting to take over local governments at a disconcerting pace.

Journalist Mike Rothschild (The Storm Is Upon Us) has spent his career investigating how internet culture impacts American politics, and he is one of the go-to resources regarding all things QAnon. Mike joins Amanda on Battleground to discuss how QAnon has been shedding its fringier messaging post-insurrection and organizing politically to capture school boards and easily winnable local seats across the country. If you’re tempted to dismiss the movement as a passing ‘Boomer fad,’ you might be surprised to learn that every age group and socioeconomic class is represented in QAnon. Mike calls it the “umbrella of conspiracy theories,” and it includes 2020 election results deniers, anti-vaxxers, anti-CRT diehards, and the forced-birth brigade. Mike points out (as Amanda does every week) that while many of us get distracted by the shimmer and drama of national politics, the real work of preserving a functional, multicultural democracy is at the unglamorous, hyper-local level. Conservatives are already putting up huge roadblocks to participating in state and national elections; adding a super-motivated band of conspiracy theorists running for school board and town mayor will not bode well for democracy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Amanda Littman and this is Battleground, a podcast from The Recount.
0:15.8	Our guest this week is Mike Rothschild, author of The Storm Is Upon Us, How Q&A became
0:21.2	of movement, cult, and conspiracy theory of everything.
0:25.6	Mike is a journalist who specializes in conspiracy theories and since 2018 he specifically focused
0:31.1	on the rise of Q&A and how it's been affecting politics.
0:35.3	I wanted to have Mike on the show to discuss how the movement has shifted away from their
0:39.2	forechan, wilder conspiracy theory roots and is now attempting to build real political
0:44.6	power by taking over school boards and local elections.
0:48.2	This is a really timely conversation because this weekend, capital police are expecting hundreds
0:53.4	of Q&A accolades, proud boys, oath keepers and other far right extremists to show up in
0:58.7	DC in protest.
1:00.9	They are seeking quote unquote justice for the folks who are being charged with participating
1:05.3	in the January 6th insurrection.
1:07.2	So as you see those folks in the news over the weekend and if you're in DC stay safe,
1:12.0	it's really worth keeping in mind this conversation and the roots of this far right extremism starts
1:17.0	and hopefully will end in some deep internet dark web.
1:21.7	Beyond this weekend's rally in DC, it's important to understand Q&A and the way that it is
1:26.4	changing because it has a direct impact on our national and local political ecosystem.
1:31.5	We're seeing the webs of their conspiracy theories and their ideologies make its way through
1:37.6	the Republican Party.
1:39.4	As I tell Mike, the venn diagram between Republican Party and Q&A ideology is at this point most
1:46.1	of a circle if not all of it.
	...

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