The conspiracy theory QAnon and the TV prankster Sacha Baron Cohen traffic in the same tropes.Photograph by Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg / Getty
Is there a way to explain what’s happening to us? Is there a theory, a secret, or a person capable of forcing our undulating reality to come into focus? Is there a way to feel stable on this careening ship of a country?
But of course there is: two compelling options have emerged into the mainstream in the last few weeks, both after more than a year in gestation. One is brought to us by Sacha Baron Cohen, the other by a person, or persons, known as Q. One claims to show that the people in charge are actually idiots; the other claims to know that the idiot-in-chief is actually in charge.
Baron Cohen’s targets in his Showtime series, “Who Is America?,” are the élites, in the broadest sense of the word: nice upper-middle-class Southern conservatives, a contemporary-art curator, Senator Bernie Sanders. He has filmed N.R.A. hacks voicing support for giving guns to kindergarteners, Republican politicians reading utter gibberish off a teleprompter and making asses of themselves in ways imaginable and not, and the art curator earnestly discussing fake art made of apparently real excrement by a fake ex-convict. (She even cut off some of her own pubes to aid his work.) Every segment of every episode is designed to leave the viewer feeling not so much appalled—something a sentient being in today’s America experiences many times a day—as finally enlightened: the ultimate explanation for what’s happened to us is that everyone is a moron.
Q, the mysterious online conspiracy theorist, also purports to reveal the deepest secrets of the political universe, though Q’s approach is, in a sense, more traditional. Q doesn’t show; Q tells. Q’s theories are convoluted and often appear incoherent, but Q’s followers find that they create a clear picture. Good attempts at explaining Q’s theories have been published by Vox and BuzzFeed. The theories feature criminal conspiracies and a lot of pedophilia, but, probably most important, Q claims that Donald Trump is running everything, including the Mueller investigation, which is a decoy for a prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
Most recently, a hypothesis has emerged, laid out by Ryan Broderick at BuzzFeed, that Q is, in fact, an elaborate lefty prank intent on duping conservatives into following cockamamie theories. If this is true, Q is a cousin, rather than a mirror, of Baron Cohen. Many QAnon followers will surely think that the notion of Q as a hoax is but a disinformation campaign on the part of the all-powerful and all-knowing leader. That will land us right back where we started, or at least where we were before the prankster theory emerged.
Conspiracy-mongering and laughter—especially angry, resentful laughter—are two common responses to the unimaginable. September 11th gave rise to truthers, the election of Barack Obama brought forth the birthers, and school shootings enabled Alex Jones. The experience of living in a country governed by a deranged Twitter addict who may or may not be reined in by a group of variously flailing adults has brought us Q. The QAnon message to its followers is that someone is in charge, that reality is knowable even if it is convoluted—and that someone, reassuringly, knows much more than you do. The Q theories acknowledge that the state of the country is awful, but they promise that the insanity is temporary because the great leader is conjuring order from chaos.
Baron Cohen’s message is equally clarifying. He demystifies power to an unprecedented extent. He shows that idiocy and incompetence are all there is. Here, the person who knows everything is Baron Cohen himself—and because we viewers are in on the secret, it makes us feel competent. The state of the country is, as in Q’s theories, horrifying, but also temporary, because these buffoons can’t possibly stay in power. We, the more intelligent people, will somehow prevail.
Q and Baron Cohen even traffic in the same tropes. The Clinton Foundation, according to Q, is at the center of a giant criminal conspiracy. According to one of Baron Cohen’s characters, the Clinton Foundation funds incendiary projects, such as the construction of the largest mosque outside the Middle East, in a depressed white American town, or the use of an American flag in place of a menstrual pad. Both Q and Baron Cohen deploy accusations of pedophilia against their targets, for effect as well as for laughs. The difference is that, in Q’s case, the accusations have no basis in fact, while, in Baron Cohen’s skit with the former senatorial candidate Roy Moore, they are grounded in credible allegations.
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