February 18, 2021
Some experts say U.S. mental health community is woefully unprepared to help conspiracy cult followers break free.
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It was easy enough to fall for QAnon in 2020 political leaders from former President Trump on down gave a gloss of credibility. Easy to get into much harder to get out of. I didn t want people to think I was stupid.
Nineteen-year-old Leila Hay says she was scared of being judged for believing the lies which start with liberal, Satan-worshipping pedophiles running the world and end with a fantasy that Trump would swoop in to save the day and stay in power. So even when she realized QAnon had isolated her from family and friends, she hesitated to get help.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
From deprogramming to reprogramming to “national reconciliation commissions,” the left, along with some who falsely claim to be objective, cannot get enough of the notion that millions of supporters of Donald Trump if not tens of millions are a direct threat to society as we know it, national security, and God knows what else.
Simply put, these “dangerous” people must be “made right.”
So left-leaning Axios (regardless of protestations to the contrary), became the latest to climb aboard the deprogramming train earlier this week. In an “interesting” piece titled
“It will take an all-out national effort to dismantle the radicalization pipeline that has planted conspiracy theories in the heads of millions of Americans and inspired last month’s attack on the Capitol, experts tell Axios.”
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Rubin: What US can learn from Germany’s response to far-right infiltration of their military By Trudy Rubin
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There was the Air Force veteran inside the Senate Chamber during the Capitol riot wearing tactical gear, and the New Jersey reservist who works at a naval weapons station. There was the Air Force veteran shot and killed by beleaguered Capitol police as she shoved through a shattered window.
The presence of service members and vets at the Capitol riot should have come as no surprise to a Pentagon that has long downplayed the problem of white nationalism and far-right activism in the ranks despite warnings for decades. The number of service members involved on Jan. 6 is still unclear, but National Public Radio reported Jan. 21 that of more than 140 rioters charged to date, nearly 20 percent were serving or former military.