Why QAnon supporters are winning congressional primaries
So what’s up with two congressional candidates who have embraced this relatively new conspiracy theory winning their primaries in 2020? One even has a good shot of going to Congress.
In May, Jo Rae Perkins won a Republican Senate primary in Oregon after saying she supports the conspiracy theory. And on Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene made it to an August runoff in a competitive Republican congressional primary in northwest Georgia. Greene is now a pretty sure bet to make it to Congress: She beat her runoff opponent by 20 points in the primary, and the district is a safe Republican one.
Experts on conspiracy theories and political psychology warned about reading too much into these wins. “Two is not a trend,†said Joseph Uscinski at the University of Miami, who has written a book about why people believe in conspiracy theories.
He said there is probably more we can take away from the roughly 50 QAnon supporters who are running for Congress this year. Their campaigns suggest adherents of a fringe theory feel emboldened to come out of the shadows under Trump.
QAnon believers tend to support other conspiracy theories about government, experts said. And Trump has tacitly breathed life into these ideas. The central theme around QAnon fits his argument that he’s an outsider being dragged down by (mostly Democratic) lawmakers who feel threatened by him and the change he brings to governing...….
https://ussanews.com/News1/2020/06/13/why-qanon-supporters-are-winning-congressional-primaries/
