Experts on extremism are warning about a troubling shift in the right-wing QAnon movement toward a new vein of conspiracy that blends anti-Chinese and anti-Jewish tropes with fears of vaccines and a global plot to take over the world.
Broadly collected under the idea of a “new world order,” it’s a QAnon rebranding, said researcher Joel Finkelstein, director of Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute, allowing conspiracy theorists to pivot after a year of political upheaval, scrutiny and disappointing predictions.
It marks a shift from the wild lies the movement spread before the election and in subsequent efforts to keep former President Trump in office, even after he lost to Joe Biden. Finkelstein and others said the switch, and the emphasis on suspicion toward Asians and Jews, could lead to more violence.
“That is what I worry about,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., who runs the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab. “Individuals who are either unstable or have been really radicalized during a long pandemic.”
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