QAnon Followers Explain What Drew Them In And Got Them Out

QAnon is a loosely connected system of conspiracy theories and unfounded beliefs spawned by Q, an anonymous on forums like 8chan (now 8kun) claiming to have high-end military clearance within the Trump administration.

Jitarth Jadeja is a hirsute man in his early thirties, charming and jovial, speaking with equal effusiveness about economics and his baby niece.

He’s an atheist, pro-choice and pro-drug decriminalization, who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be deeply invested in a dangerous far-right conspiracy theory involving baby-eating Democrats and Hollywood actors. But for two and a half years, he says, that’s exactly what he was.

“It’s almost like a drug,” he tells Rolling Stone from his parents’ house in Sydney, Australia. “You read a Q drop and he tells you something, and you’re like, ‘Whoa dude, that’s crazy’….a hit of dopamine goes off in your brain, and you have to go in deeper and deeper and deeper in order to get that feeling again. When Q first started posting I felt like, ‘Here is an explanation that, while it doesn’t make sense, if it were true explains the situation better than the current explanations I’m getting.'”

QAnon adherents believe, among other things, in the existence of a deep state cabal of pedophiles and child traffickers led by prominent liberals like the Clintons, and that President Trump is lying in wait to arrest and execute his enemies.

“Any time you dehumanize any part or segment of the population to such a low level, to the lowest level you can go, people are happy on the opposite side to do the worst against them,” he says of QAnon believers’ views of Trump’s enemies. “That’s the real danger here — not that [QAnon adherents] will get into the Senate. When you frame your opponents [as subhuman], you won’t just watch them burn. You’ll be happy about it.”