“Everyone said QAnon was crazy, but in light of all the Epstein stuff, we need to give credit where credit is due.”
Y’all, QAnon was not the originator of the idea that there’s a shadowy cabal of elites that run an underground child abuse ring. In fact, when one of my friends started inserting QAnon stuff into conversation way back in like 2021, my initial thought was, “Wait, you’ve never heard theories like this before?” because my father (a devout conspiracy theorist) has been telling me about secret ritual abuse rings since the mid-90s (for those attempting to do the math: yes, I was in elementary school and no, this was not age-appropriate information in the slightest). It was just a new flavor of Satanic Panic, which occurred in the ‘80s. The particulars about the perpetrators shift with time, but the overall idea of a child abuse ring (whether ritual abuse, sexual abuse, or both) has not changed.
Also, as a society, we are aware that sex trafficking is a thing. We are also aware that child sex trafficking is a thing. We know that CSAM is produced somehow. We know that there are people out there abusing children in horrendous ways.
Jeffrey Epstein was first convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in 2008. In 2009, one of his victims came forward and said that she had been abused by some of his associates as well as the man himself. Epstein was given a slap on the wrist in 2008. He had lots of powerful associates. It’s not difficult to think that he might have received help from one or more of those associates when it came to actually serving crime.
So, what QAnon got “right” was information that was available to the general public. But what about all the stuff that makes QAnon unique? What about the stuff that separates it from every other vague conspiracy theory about a nebulous Them performing despicable deeds in secret? Adrenachrome? Pizzagate? “Drain the swamp”? Any and every date on which Q said something big would occur? The idea that it’s Democrats specifically who have been harming children? None of that is indicated in the information that’s been released.
What y’all have to understand is that conspiracy theorists will often have half a dozen half-baked theories about any given topic, and if one of those theories ends up being even a quarter accurate, they will point to all the times they talked about that theory and say, “See! I’ve been saying this for years!” while ignoring the five alternative theories they’ve also had for years. They also never seem to address whether the logic they used to arrive at their conclusions is sound.
Like, to me, saying that anything we know about Epstein proves QAnon was right would be like me hearing that the sky is blue, and developing a theory that the sky gets its color from blueberries that are flown up to the glass dome that encases the Earth and keeps us safe from the Dangers of Space by birds who smush the berries against that dome, and you saying, “Well, you’re right about the sky being blue, so I need to give credit where credit is due.” No, you don’t! Because I didn’t come up with the concept of the sky being blue and the logic I used to arrive at that conclusion is cuckoo-bananas!
