In an interview with The New York Times published on Friday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the QAnon movement.
Some of the most controversial conspiracy theories associated with QAnon concern Clinton and members of her family, who the far-right movement portrays as part of the global Satan-worshiping elite former President Donald Trump spent four years fighting against.
As researcher Mike Rothschild explained, the central narrative of QAnon is based on Clinton and the belief that she will eventually be prosecuted and imprisoned by Trump and his allies.
Clinton told reporter Michelle Goldberg that QAnon followers’ insistence that she is a criminal who needs to be put in jail did not come as a surprise to her, given that far-right activists have spread similar claims about her and members of her family for decades.
“For me, it does go back to my earliest days in national politics, when it became clear to me that there was a bit of a market in trafficking in the most outlandish accusations and wild stories concerning me, my family, people that we knew, people close to us.”
According to Clinton, claims that she belongs to a satanic cult are “rooted in ancient scapegoating of women” because QAnon theorists and others have a problem with “independent, outspoken, pushy women.”
Once a fringe phenomenon, QAnon has become part of the conservative mainstream, with Republican politicians across the nation expressing support for it.
It was recently revealed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was elected this November, was a follower of QAnon. Greene spent years amplifying similar theories, threatened Democratic politicians — including Clinton — with violence and harassed school shooting survivors.
Earlier this week, after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to strip her of her committee assignments, Greene apologized for pushing QAnon talking points, saying that she was “allowed to believe things that weren’t true.”
“I don’t have one iota of sympathy for someone like her,” Clinton said of Greene, noting that social media algorithms promote false and misleading information, radicalizing millions.
Addictive tech platforms and algorithms, Clinton concluded, make people “go down those rabbit holes, and begin to inhabit this alternative reality, they are, in effect, made to believe.”
Clinton first addressed the controversies involving Greene last month, saying that the Georgia Republican should be “on a watch list” and not in Congress.
As CNN reported, nearly 70 House Democrats have openly called for Greene’s expulsion, claiming that she poses a threat to other lawmakers.
