Sunday Speaker: Candace Rondeaux presents “The Gospel According to Q”

Candace Rondeaux presents "The Gospel According to Q: How the New Right Came to Worship at the Altar of a Viral Conspiracy Theory".

QAnon followers shocked the world when they stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC on Jan. 6, but by then the FBI had been warning for months that the visceral power of the viral online movement posed a serious threat to stability in the United States.

A central tenet of the QAnon conspiracy theory is that former President Donald Trump is locked in a covert battle with bloodthirsty pedophiles who are part of a liberal "Deep State" cabal whose aim is to destroy the American republic. A key subtext of QAnon messages or "drops" is that followers who "do the research" will be "awakened" as they gain insights into "hidden" knowledge about the plot to subvert conservative values.

This message has deep roots in ancient Gnostic ideas about truth, light and and secret knowledge and it draws heavily from an early 20th Century occult movement known as theosophy that shaped the beliefs of many of the Nazi party's most prominent leaders in Austria and Germany.

So how did a 20th century movement that fostered the rise of the fascism and seeded the destruction of Europe in WWII propel a movement that almost saw the overthrow of the world's oldest republican democracy in the 21st Century? Research suggests the answer is complicated, but indicative of where QAnon may push the New Right and American politics next.

Candace Rondeaux directs Future Frontlines, a public intelligence service for next generation security and democratic resilience. A journalist and public policy analyst she is a professor of practice and fellow at the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies and the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University. She is a columnist for the World Politics Review and a contributing writer for the Daily Beast. Catalyzing the global human pursuit of dignity, justice, equity, transparency, and accountability is a through line in all her work.

Before joining New America, Rondeaux served as a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace where she launched the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on conflict and violent extremism and as a strategic advisor to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. She has documented and analyzed political violence in South Asia, and around the world for the Washington Post and the International Crisis Group. Before going abroad for the Post in 2009 , Rondeaux covered criminal justice in Maryland and Virginia, where she covered capital punishment and was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team of Post reporters who covered the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. In 2004, while on a reporting sabbatical from covering criminal justice in Florida for the St. Petersburg Times, she reported on energy security issues in the Caucasus as an International Reporting Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She holds a B.A. in Russian area studies from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.A. in journalism from New York University, and an M.P.P. in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Please join us on Zoom or YouTube:

1) Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/535462070?pwd=UGJBOXRYcTF2SXJMb01RNTdvM2Y2QT09

2) YOUTUBE: You can watch live (15 second delay), or you can watch later. Here is the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOw8Sl1yofrwRuGUYS_OOOA

Need help? Email ron.russell@hsgp.org before the day of this meeting.

The Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix presents its Sunday Speaker meetings twice a month on Sunday mornings. For now our meetings are on Zoom and YouTube. We look forward to seeing you at the Humanist Community Center when it's safe to meet in person!

Meetings are free and open to the public.

Go to our YouTube channel to see past meetings, presentations and and interviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOw8Sl1yofrwRuGUYS_OOOA

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Thank you!