Can Cult Studies Offer Help With QAnon? The Science Is Thin.
Many families have become divided over online political conspiracy theories, but the science on “brainwashing” is weak.
MICHAEL SCHULSON
February 24, 2021
DAYS BEFORE THE inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would be “the most important since World War II.” Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, the man believed, and he was arresting enemies in the Vatican and other countries. Predicting turbulence ahead, the man urged his wife and two adult children to begin stockpiling essential goods.