Being wrong stings. And, as we may soon discover in the wake of the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, people often cope with that sting by insisting that they're still right. It's a popular path, but one that often leads down into the rabbit hole of reality-avoidant conspiracy theory.
Since the Mueller report is yet to be released, it's unclear whether it will reveal substantial information that hasn't already been laid out in the indictments, convictions and guilty pleas of 34 people and three companies. And the ultimate consequences of the Mueller investigation are unknown. But, per Attorney General William Barr's summary of the report, "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." The report also made no conclusion on the question of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.
For a certain group of commentators who built massive online audiences by making bold unsubstantiated claims about the Mueller investigation, that's direct disconfirmation of some dearly held speculation about the investigation's ultimate findings and consequences. They may choose to react to the news in weird ways. There is already evidence that the frustrating experience of dashed expectations will lead at least some of them down a strange road, one that might find them sharing more with the adherents of conspiracy theories such as QAnon than with the prosecutor whose rigor and discipline they supposedly admired.
For example, Barr's summary of the Mueller report contradicts many claims made by Claude Taylor, a former low-level staff member in the Clinton White House, who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter by tweeting shocking claims about Trump, which Taylor attributes to unknown "sources."
One of his January 2018 tweets states, "Source: Mueller has Trump dead to rights on obstruction of justice." Recent news also disconfirms the already legally confused 2017 claim from Seth Abramson, author of the book Proof of Collusion, that "Bob Mueller will hunt both Trump and Pence to the ends of the earth to secure impeachment and conviction."
Barr's summary of the Mueller report also contradicts several claims made by Louise Mensch, who gained notoriety for making several kooky claims about Trump and the Mueller investigation. Last month, Mensch claimed on Twitter that "Mueller will demonstrate collusion, and that will be the least of it."
They were all wrong. And being wrong marks a crucial moment for these personalities and the left-leaning people who follow their dramatic claims about Mueller, gleaned from unnamed inside sources and their own supposed expertise. Will they adjust their claims to better accord with the reported facts, or will they detach even further from reality?
As someone who closely follows the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, I'm familiar with what happens when an online political community that is highly invested in a particular result faces failed predictions. Dedicated true believers usually double down and work even harder to convince others that they were right all along.
The QAnon conspiracy theory, which absurdly posits that people who work in military intelligence are releasing high-level government information on the controversial imageboard website 8chan, has persisted despite its adherents making claims that run contrary to reality countless times. To cite just one example, many in the QAnon community baselessly believe Hillary Clinton will be arrested for colluding with Russia, among many other supposed wrongdoings. Many even asserted that this would be revealed in the Nunes memo, a four-page memorandum by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), which alleges that the FBI "may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources" to obtain a FISA order on Trump adviser Carter Page.
Before the memo's Feb. 2, 2018, release, the 8chan poster known as Q claimed, "Memo factually demonstrates collusion at highest levels." In reality, nothing substantial happened as a consequence of the public release of the Nunes memo. The memo did not accuse the FBI or DOJ of violating any particular law. It did, however, create temporary drama for the news media. The Nunes memo proved so inconsequential, it isn't referenced by Q or even Nunes himself any more.
Since then, the QAnon community has invested its hopes in several dates and events they baselessly thought would lead to mass arrests or public validation of QAnon, only to be let down over and over again. Many in the QAnon community thought that the DOJ Inspector General report, which was released in June, would bring down James Comey and Barack Obama. Obviously it did not.
Inspired by Q's cryptic reference to a Red October, some Q followers thought the long-promised arrests would happen in the month before the 2018 midterm elections. Obviously this too would fail to come to pass. Q followers thought a "parade that would never be forgotten" would march Nov. 11, 2018, that QAnon would be publicly validated Dec. 5, 2018, and that military tribunals for "deep state" enemies would begin in January 2019. None of that happened.
But failed predictions and misplaced expectations don't damage the size or enthusiasm of the QAnon community. Its members persisted in their faith that high-level Democrats would be arrested at any moment, weathering several more disconfirmations of Q's legitimacy and trustworthiness. Some QAnon followers even claim that failed predictions are irrelevant, because dates that pass without incident serve the purpose of tricking the evil "cabal" they imagine they're fighting.
"Don't be hard on yourself if you push a date that doesn't yield," explains Joe M, a QAnon follower who created the popular Q--the Plan To Save The World video. "We are playing our role. Those dates are meant to throw [them] off the trail and use up their ammunition. When we are tricked, they are tricked, and the latter is what counts the most."
This is an irrational reaction to being proved wrong. But it's also a natural, human and well-known reaction for journalists and academics who study fringe communities. This quirk of human psychology was most famously documented in the 1956 study "When Prophecy Fails." It examined a religious group who had predicted that the world would end on a specific date. When the date passed without incident, they rationalized away the failed prophecy by concluding that their good nature had saved the rest of humanity. Far from abandoning their beliefs, members of the group redoubled their recruiting and public relations efforts.
So in the wake of Mueller completing his work without the fireworks many were hoping for, there is a risk that people who held unrealistic expectations will choose to dig deep into conspiracy theorizing rather than adjust their beliefs according to the new facts. That goes double for people who built an online audience with sensational speculations about the Mueller investigation. After all, there are egos, reputations and book sales on the line.
Eric Garland is already deploying a strategy used by the QAnon community to convince themselves that high-profile arrests are around the corner: using PACER to look up "sealed court cases." In a Monday tweet, Garland wrote, "Whole lot of cases sealed in March alone in DC and EDVA." What he was implying here--that there are still sealed indictments in the Muller investigation and hence more revelations of criminality to come--directly contradicts Barr's letter, which states that the special counsel did not "obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public."
Seth Abramson, meanwhile, seemed to insist last week that Mueller's conclusions about "collusion" are irrelevant because, confusingly, "Mueller never investigated the collusion allegation Trump was facing." Louise Mensch attempted to square recent news with her prior claims by spinning a highly creative interpretation of Barr's letter in a blog post published March 25. "All that is happening here is Barr is telling Americans what categories of crimes the probe is going to charge these domestic traitors with," she writes.
Regardless of what may be found in the full Mueller report, and even if it is more damaging than Barr's letter lets on, the spin of these Twitter-famous pundits smacks of a QAnon-like rejection of reality. For example, Q claimed, before the release of the DOJ Inspector General report in June 2018, "When the info is released no more Russia investigation." That was false, and the investigation didn't conclude because of information contained in the inspector general report.
But after the IG report was released and failed to deliver on Q's promise, Q brushed off that disappointment by claiming that Trump was in possession of the "Original IG unredacted report," which supposedly contained the real dirt. In QAnon's world, the genuinely damning information is perpetually hidden and the promised punishment of Q's enemies is eternally in the near future. That's a frustrating way to process news. But it's what happens when personal hopes take priority over facts. For every disconfirmation, there is an equal and opposite rationalization.
I don't wish to draw a false equivalence between QAnon and fans of people such as Garland, Mensch, Taylor and Abramson. QAnon is far more elaborate and ludicrous than even its most outlandish claims. QAnon is also more fanatical and concerning, as evidenced by the recent revelation that the suspected killer of the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family may have been influenced by QAnon.
But QAnon should serve as a warning about what happens when people lack the humility to recognize that their assumptions were wrong. When people decide that their private beliefs are more important than the reality outside their head, those beliefs tend to mutate, getting progressively complex in the process. If things go far enough, that belief system eventually becomes an absurdly byzantine, Occam's-razor defying mess that can barely be understood by its own supporters. The deeper they dig in to disconfirmed beliefs, the harder, and more painful, it is to get out.
There's no shame in being mistaken. But there is in continuing to insist that your mistaken beliefs were right the whole time.
Editorial on 04/07/2019