S2E19 - The Crusaders: Casualties (QAnon, pt 4: friends, family, and ex-members)

0:02 Kayla: Yes. Recording. Chris: Now, did I write things? Kayla: Did you write a script? Chris: Is that how we do this? So we're recording? Kayla: Yes. Chris: All right, so my script says banter. Kayla: I I'm. Chris: What? Kayla: I don't want to banter me. Chris: Banter me, bro. Kayla: I don't know if we should banter. I think that maybe we should. Chris: We don't. We just talk. Literally every time. We just talk about bantering and we don't banter. Kayla: What I'm saying is maybe we should just get into it. Chris: Okay. Kayla: I don't know if people are listening to these episodes for us. Chris: Well, they probably listen to us talking. Kayla: So it's because we talk about good information, but I don't know if they're.

0:43 Chris: Here for the content, not just information disseminators. Kayla: Yeah, that makes sense, because I hate us. Chris: All I know is that when I've listened to you listen to my favorite murderer, they. They prattle on about what tv shows they like and what brunch they had for, like, 45 minutes. Kayla: They do. And also, like I said, prattle on purpose there. Yeah, I know you did. And you said brunch on purpose there, too. And a lot of the first episodes, they would talk about, like, the skippers. Oh, like, the skippers can just skip ahead. Like, they were very aware of ships that get away from me, that there were people who did not care about the banter. Chris: Oh, well. But then we should try to accommodate both folks, right?

1:23 Kayla: I don't know. Chris: People that like banter don't skip, and people that. Kayla: You know what? Chris: Don't like banter. Kayla: Here's what I'm gonna do. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put up a question on our free Patreon. Chris: Okay? Oh, we're gonna be talking more about our Patreon this episode, and the poll. Kayla: Is gonna be about the banter. So if you have a strong opinion. Chris: On pre show banter, we are happy to ignore it. Kayla: Head over to our Patreon. Chris: Yes. Kayla: I don't know what the address is. Cultures. Weirdatreon.com. Dot. Chris: No, it's patreon.com. Culturejustweird. Okay, so forget banter, then. I think that because we are doing QAnon still, and this is happening in the fourth quarter of 2020, so we're, like, right in the middle of all these q related events we should do, like we have done in the past few episodes during this series and talk a little bit about what's going on, a little bit about current events. Kayla, do you have anything for us.

2:18 Kayla: Should we not first go. Welcome. Oh, is that our podcast? Chris: We need a brand. It's called cult are just weird. Kayla: And I'm Kayla. Chris: And I'm Chris. Kayla: And we're the hosts. Chris: The hosts that you apparently don't want to hear banter. Kayla: Yeah, but that's okay, because we don't need to banter because, yes, I do have updates on the current state of affairs.

3:06 Chris: Yeah. So when are we recording? So we're recording December 6. Kayla: Today is the 6th. Chris: Today is the 6 December. Kayla: My calendar has said the fifth all day. Not this one. Chris: That's false. Kayla: My phone calendar has said the 6th, but my computer calendar has said the fifth. Chris: Fake news, Siri. Kayla: So I wrote, as of December 5, 2020 Q updates are as follows. So I'm already lying. I'm already the mainstream media lying to you guys. Chris: Well, that's. That's what we are. Kayla: So we're gonna stick to updates from, like, the last week because so much. Instead of, like, trying to go back to what are updates from the last time we recorded. No, this is just stuff that's happened in the last week. Chris: Just bullet point me.

3:46 Kayla: So much happens in this micro community, like, so quick, my head is starting to spin. So let's just go. So, Sidney Powell, update. Chris: Ooh. Kayla: As we stated at the end of our previous episode, attorney Sidney Powell has been distant, removed from the Trump legal team, but has continued to be a voice in the legal effort to expose supposed voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. And she has moved forward in the legal sphere to prove that Joe Biden stole all the votes. After claims that she was a nice. Chris: Little website going, do you talk about that? What's the website where she's just fleecing people? She has a whole site that's like, donate to my stuff. Kayla: Don't give money to Sidney Powell. Don't do it. After claims that she'd be releasing, quote, unquote, the Kraken, which is an eerily similar claim to the storm, that she's gonna release the Kraken and that some crazy lawsuit that she was gonna file, or unequivocal evidence, multiple tentacles, was just gonna, like. No, like, damning info that would prove that Joe Biden stole the election. Instead of the Kraken happening, she has filed several lawsuits that were riddled with typos to the point. Point of, like, basically being illegible as well as, like, citing witnesses.

5:06 Chris: Maybe the Kraken wrote them. Kayla: The Kraken did not write them. Like, there was one where a witness, quote unquote, cited a county. I think in Michigan, that doesn't exist. Chris: Oh, yeah, I remember that one. That feels like it was forever ago. That happened in the last week. Oh, my God. Kayla: Yeah. Since then, attorney Powell has ceded that some of the claims in her lawsuits, including one. This is a claim from the lawsuit trying to say Joe Biden stole the election. The claim was that a voting algorithm took votes for Biden and flipped them to trump in a scheme that somehow added votes to Biden's totals. Doesn't make sense. She has seeded that these claims are, quote, bass ackwards. And, like, basically, she's like, yeah, we fucked up. Many in the Q community still follow attorney Powell and believe that the Kraken is yet to be released, though there are many who are also becoming disillusioned with this particular thread of the story.

6:01 Chris: Like, maybe she's writing these statements using Kraken ink. Kayla: What's Kraken ink? Chris: I'm assuming that it's, like, squid ink, because that's how Krakens work. Kayla: I've seen, like, just some really heartbreaking tweets from, like, qanon people being like. Chris: Oh, we're about to get heartbreaking. Kayla: Oh, if the Kraken. So if there is no Kraken, then Donald Trump. That would mean Donald Trump is lying. Like, it's really interesting seeing in some of the how, like, for some people, I think that the spell is getting lifted, and it's like, it's painful to see. Chris: Well, we have some of that coming down the pipe. This episode. This is gonna be a long episode, by the way, folks. I don't know. The updates are gonna be this much. How much more do you still have to go here?

6:47 Kayla: A lot. A lot has happened. Chris: All right. So if you don't care about current events, you skip ahead, like, three or four minutes after that. It's gonna be a long episode anyway, just so you know. Kayla: So strap on in. Yes, still on. Sidney Powell. She has since teamed up with a local Georgia attorney named Lynn Wood, and they have continued their crusade, going so far as to prop up the notion that voting for GOP candidates in the January runoff election for the Georgia Senate is the wrong thing to do, and Trump supporters should withhold their votes or write in Trump or whatever. Since then, GOP establishment has made some effort to distance themselves from these claims. So there's now, like, a rift, really. Chris: The GOP establishment is saying, please don't boycott the election.

7:28 Kayla: Republicans. Yeah, there's, like, a little bit of a rift forming between, like, QAnon alt right MAGA Republicans and establishment Republicans over this particular thing. Chris: Right? Wow. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Okay. It finally took them saying, like, don't vote for them for that to happen. Okay. Kayla: Because if you vote in this election. Chris: You'Re validating the fraudulent election that just took away the presidency from our dear leader. Kayla: And, like, you know, I know how I want that election to shake out, and yet I am still not down with the, like, voter suppression attempts. Chris: But they're, like, suppressing their own votes.

8:09 Kayla: I know, but we don't. We should not live in a country where votes are suppressed. Chris: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Kayla: Okay. Still on the legal team. Update. Rudy Giuliani and Trump's official legal team also continues to argue their cases in court, most recently appearing in Georgia and Michigan to claim the election was stolen. Rudy Giuliani has often flouted mask wearing during these court proceedings. One time, he also possibly audibly farted during the hearing. And it was amazing. Chris: That was the best. Kayla: It's like, I don't even care your political affiliation. It was fucking hilarious. One of his witnesses was also. It was just like that. One of his witnesses was also audibly laughed at during proceedings because it was so ridiculous. And as of today, he has just been hospitalized for Covid-19 oh, my God.

8:58 Chris: I knew that. But, yeah, it was like, what? Like an hour before we started recording this. Kayla: He probably gave a bunch of people Covid during these court hearings. Chris: Yeah. So fantastic. Kayla: While Q followers still were. The election was stolen and Trump will be inaugurated again in 2020. That path is looking less and less possible. More and more republicans are seeding that Joe Biden won the election, including figures like Kellyanne Conway. Chris: I mean, that the Washington Post survey found that. Kayla: I was just about to cite that. Yeah, no, the Wapo survey. Chris: Whopping. What was it? Kayla: 22, 27 out of all 249 surveyed republican congressional Republicans, 27 say, 27 acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election over Donald Trump.

9:44 Chris: And it's December 6, by the way, just to reiterate, just for a little. Kayla: More clarity, two believe that Donald Trump won and 220 refused to say who won. So it's not that there's 222 going, like, no, Donald Trump won, it's that the vast majority are going. Jitarth Jadeja: I don't. Chris: Who knows? I mean, who can really tell, right? Who can tell what's reality? Kayla: Kind of still on the Trump legal situation, Ron Watkins, who, if you listen to the reply all episode country of Liars, and I think we've talked about him a little bit, but not that much. You'll remember that Ron Watkins is the son of eight Chan founder Jim Watkins. Chris: And maybe Q. Kayla: Maybe he's one of the few people who can authenticate post from Q as being like an eight Chan admin. Yeah. He could also potentially be one of the voices of Q. He has become increasingly and more a prominent voice outside of Q spheres and into mainstream republican discourse. His frequent appearances on. Is it Oann?

10:42 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: One action news network. Chris: One America News Network. Kayla: One America news network, yeah. So his frequent appearances one american news network as an election fraud expert have been tweeted by the president himself. And our old pal Sidney Powell filed an affidavit from him that alleged dominion voting system machines were compromised as part of a wide reaching conspiracy to steal the election. Ron Watkins, hn administrator that's. Chris: Is he the craticon? Kayla: He is the kraken. Chris: I promise eventually I'll stop referencing the kraken. Kayla: He won't. Chris: Nah, maybe not. Kayla: No. He was also recently behind a doxxing incident of a low level Dominion employee in which Ron whipped his q community followers up into a froth that culminated in the employee being identified and sent numerous death threats. Don't do that, guys.

11:32 Chris: Yay, doxing. Kayla: He also recently responded to a journalist asking for an interview by saying he would only answer questions if she sent him nude photos. Chris: I saw that one. Oh God. Yeah. And then did you see all the replies from the Qu folks that were like, yeah, you tell her. Kayla: All the women. Chris: Yeah, all the women. Kayla: So funny. Chris: Ha ha. Okay, got em. Kayla: Also, guys, listeners, followers, we've had another gate since the last episode. Chris: Oh, gates are my favorite. Kayla: There's been another gate. This one is called suitcase gate. Chris: What? I have not heard of suitcase gate. Kayla: Suitcase gate. It is a hashtag and discussion topic that popped up on Twitter the other day in which an innocuous video of an election worker in Georgia taking a box of ballots out from underneath the table became a clear sign of voter fraud amongst Q followers. The video, which is from, I think, November 3, shows a quote unquote, suitcase of votes being pulled out from under a table after poll workers were told to go home. So clearly this is evidence of voter fraud. Like somebody stashed this suitcase under a table and took out. And there's all these thousands of votes now suddenly illegal votes for Biden. Except that video has been solid plan. Yeah, it's such a good plan. That video has been fact checked by the Georgia secretary of state. Turns out it was not a suitcase. It was a regular ballot container.

12:52 Kayla: And he also confirmed that republican observers were in the room the whole time. Chris: Well, yeah, but he's like a bleeding libtard leftist, right? Kayla: I don't know. Chris: No, he's a Republican. Kayla: So suitcase gate. That's what suitcase gate is. Chris: Okay, cool. Anything else? This is all in the past week, right? Kayla: We have two more bullet points. Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla. Kayla: One fun thing is that I don't think it's fun. Chris: It's probably not gonna be fun. Kayla: The Washington Post reported two days ago, actually, maybe three, given that I can't. I don't know what day it is. A short number of days ago. Donald Trump, the president, recently brought up and praised QAnon at a recent strategy meeting with Mitch McConnell and other aides present. During the meeting, which was about keeping the republican Senate majority, Donald Trump brought up Rep. Elect Argal Marjorie Taylor Greene, brought up her support for QAnon and stated that the community, quote, basically believes in good government. A statement which was met with silence.

13:54 Chris: Until what I'm meeting you with right now. Kayla: Yes. After the silence, chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly responded by stating he hadn't heard the group described as such good. Chris: Governance, you know, executing your political opponents. Kayla: Yeah. So, you know, sympathizing with QAnon is not just something reserved for Trump's twitter. It's reportedly alive and well in the real world. And finally, it is worth pointing out here that there have been no new Q drops in at least 17 days. Since election day. There have only been three confirmed Q drops. Like, very short Q drops of just. Chris: Q drops are posts that Q makes on eight kun. Eight chan. Eight kun.

14:36 Kayla: Eight kun kun. I don't know. The new eight chan. Chris: That shitty ass message board. Kayla: So there's only these three short confirmed ones. And I saw a tweet from friend of the show Mike Rothschild in which he believes we won't have any further official Q drops until probably after inauguration day. Chris: Yeah, it seems that he's sort of theorizing along the lines that Q is sort of migrating off of that platform, and that's part of why Ron Watkins is doing stuff on OANN now. It's sort of like rebranding, like migrating post election day. Kayla: Well, it's interesting. And we should also point out here that Ron Watkins publicly resigned from eight Chan on election day on November 3.

15:19 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: So I don't know. Maybe there's a coincidence there, maybe not. But this has not stopped the cute community from continuing the work. Perhaps the work kind of feels a little chaotic and all over the place. And maybe part of that comes from the fact that there's no leadership from Q at the current moment, is it. Chris: Going to awaken itself? Kayla? Kayla: The Kraken's got a crack. Some other recent chaotic rumors from the Q community, again, not coming from official Q drops, but just from the community, are that Joe Biden is being forced to wear a secret ankle monitor, which has been covered up by a fake story about him spraining his ankle. Chris: Oh, yeah, the ankle monitor thing is a big deal. A rehashed plot line from 2016. Yeah. Kayla: So any, like, medical brace that he's had to wear from spraining his ankle while playing with his dog or whatever it was, that's just covering up ankle monitor he's wearing.

16:05 Chris: They also said the same thing about Hillary and. Kayla: Yeah, and John McCain. President Obama has been arrested for espionage. Chris: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Big news. Kayla: Didn't really look into that one. Just saw that it was a thing. Chris: Yeah, that's big news that. That, you know, former president has been arrested. Kayla: Perhaps bigger news, though, is that the CIA fought a civil war in Frankfurt, Germany, over the us election servers, which resulted in the murder of CIA chief Gina Haspel. Chris: So, yeah, shit's going be. Kayla: There's a lot going on, and I think there's probably a lot more to come, but that's kind of. Chris: I smell. I smell a storm. Kayla: Yeah, there's something brewing. Storm. Diarrhea. Chris: Maybe it's just another fart from Giuliani.

16:47 Kayla: It could just be a Giuliani fart. So good. So that is the current state of affairs of our. Chris: And that's our episode Q Community. I mean, that could be a whole episode. Kayla: Kayla, I talked pretty fast. Chris: This is. Surprisingly, everyone, this is actually my episode, not Kayla's. No. Kayla: You asked me to do an update. Chris: I said update. Kayla: I did. Chris: Earlier today. I was like, hey, could you maybe, like, say one or two words about current events before you need me to. Kayla: Pull up the text? Chris: What did. I did not. Kayla: You did not say one or two words. Chris: I said an update. Kayla: Well, you didn't say one or two words. You said, I'mma ask you about current event stuff and recording today. Chris: All right, maybe I should a little more specific, but I appreciate the level of detail.

17:29 Kayla: Also, I know that you sent that to me when you heard me playing video games. Chris: No, it was when I was in the middle of writing parts of the script, and I was like, you were playing video games? Kayla: And you were like, for shame. Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: You shamed me. Chris: That is absolutely you putting thoughts in my head. Motivated reasoning. Get the hell out of here. Kayla: Q would be on my side. Chris: You know, we have a lot of episodes to do without us having a marriage bat go in front of our list. Kayla: Go. Chris: So, yeah, thank you for that update. I also want to recap, just very briefly, that we are on our fourth QAnon episode. Now. We were going to only do four. The length of this one will indicate why we broke. Broke it up into fifth because this was supposed. We were supposed to do, like, this episode plus more content into this one. And no, that's not gonna happen. So this is fourth out of five, the first three episodes we talked about. The first one was Kayla introduced us to the idea of nocturnal ritual fantasy and how moral panics happen over time and are cyclical. And then in the second episode, we discussed sort of the mechanics of how QAnon got started on four chan and then moved over to eight chan, how it sort of birthed from that.

18:44 Kayla: That was also supposed to be one episode. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Didn't work. Chris: That's right. That's right. Yeah. You see now the sausage is made here. It's ugly. And then the third episode was when we talked about apophenia, the concept of how the human brain tends to find connections and things that may not otherwise be related. And we talked to Adrian Hahn, who enlightened us about how QAnon was similar to an arg. And we talked about game design and blah, blah. And that brings us today. Kayla: Here we are. So what. What are we talking about today? Chris: Yeah, so we've done a lot of big picture theory crafting about QAnon by now. A lot of analogizing and historical contextualizing and other big words. But the crucial thing we haven't done until today is talk to actual real people who have been affected by this. And it's a lot of people being affected right now. And when I say affected by, I mean both Q believers and folks who have, quote, lost friends and family to the Q cult. So a large chunk of this episode is going to be interview material. We talked to some folks. We reached out to on recorded audio, and we also have some. We also have some written responses that we got. We're gonna put some of this stuff on Patreon because there's so much of it. But.

20:05 Chris: But, yeah, this episode is really important to me because, like, you know, I don't know. I'm constantly getting freaked out about my own information bowl. Actually, we just had a chat about this today, right, where we're constantly going, like, what if I'm the one who's wrong? Kayla: You know? Chris: Like, we're just. I don't know, we just have this, like, tick about that. Kayla: Well, because I think it's a healthy. Chris: It's a healthy tick, but it's also disorienting a lot. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: And so with QAnon, that's kind of looked like, okay, well, this is what I've heard about it from newspapers and experts, but I really kind of want to hear about it from a primary source, someone that's in it. So that's what we set out to do. Now, there's some slightly bad news and then some very good news. The slightly bad news is that weren't able to connect with any current QAnon community members. We got a few leads, but ultimately, they didn't turn into interviews because understandably and expectedly, folks in the Q community are extremely paranoid of outsiders and don't trust media of any kind, including two dumbasses podcasting from the spare room in their apartment.

21:05 Kayla: There's not a lot of faith that they're going to get a fair shake, which I understand. I don't. I am fully aware that I'm very biased, and I don't know if I could give a fair shake. Chris: Right, right. And were clear about that. We were like, hey, when we reached out, we said, this is what our podcast is about. This is the take that we're doing on QAnon. But we do want to talk to somebody that's in it just to hear their perspective. So were upfront about, like, saying, like, we're not going to be, you know, this isn't going to be like a fluff piece. Kayla: Right. Chris: For you. And, you know, we got some folks that were interested in maybe communicating, and it just kind of didn't get anywhere. And that's, like I said, understandable. Kayla: If you're listening now and you are currently a follower of Q, we would still love to talk to you if you're.

21:49 Chris: Yeah, shoot us an email, please, talking to us. Kayla: We will do our best. Chris: Culterjustweirdmail.com. Okay, that's the slightly bad news. The very good news, though, is that we did find a bunch of people that we could talk to. So here is who they are. First, we're going to hear a few audio snippets and a summary from me from some folks I talked to from the subreddit known as QAnon casualties. These are not ex Q folks. These are people who have lost friends and family down the black hole of Q. If you want to go check out the subreddit, it is r qanoncasualties. But be warned and let this also serve as sort of a content warning for a chunk of this episode. Posts on the subreddit can be very difficult to read. Take it from me.

22:34 Chris: Now, I'm going to read you some of the headlines and snippets from the subreddit here in a minute, but, yeah, content warning, family trauma. Kayla: Yay. Chris: Good time. Kayla: Merry Christmas, happy holidays. Chris: After that, we have a fantastic interview with someone who was a dyed in the wool QAnon believer themselves and has since exited the community and has a story to tell. His name is Jatarth Jadeja, and were very fortunate that he wanted to share that story with us because he's been sharing it around quite a bit. You want to know the top three hits you get when you google his name now? Kayla: Yes, please. Chris: CNN, Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. Kayla: Oh, shit.

23:14 Chris: He's done interviews for all number four. Kayla: Culture just weird. Chris: Yeah, add culture just weird to the list, my boy. Kayla: Thank you. Chris: Actually, I really think it's more like Wapo and Rolling Stone should be excited that they're on the same list as us. Kayla: And then what about CNN? Chris: Am I right? Fuck CNN cable news bullshit. Anyway, self congratulation aside, he was not only interesting, but also fun and even soothing to talk to. And we chatted for quite a while. And crucially for me, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, it was good to be able to talk to someone who had actual first hand experience with this thing. Anyway, like we said earlier, this is going to be a bit of a long episode, my friends. So hopefully you have a long way to drive or, like, a lot of dishes to wash or something.

24:01 Kayla: So on all of those drives that you're definitely not taking to definitely not gather with your family over the holiday. Chris: We'Ve just driven around for, like, just. Kayla: To drive sometimes we'll just drive. Chris: We'll just drive. We won't go anywhere. We'll just be like, I just want to drive. All right, so let's dive in. Qanon casualties. This is a subreddit dedicated to mutual support for folks that have had or are having the devastating experience of losing someone they care about to the Q cult. Or as the daily Dot put it, Reddit's QAnon Casualties is a home for survivors of the conspiracy. Yep, you heard that right. QAnon has become so big and is such a problem that the Reddit group dedicated to people affected by it is getting reported on by major news outlets.

24:47 Kayla: Oh, jeez. Chris: It doesn't end with Daily Dot. There are also articles on Newsbreak, the Guardian, and more all we'll link in the show notes. So how exactly are friends and family being torn apart by QAnon? Kayla: Please explain. I want to really get into this, just really open that wound. Chris: Don't listen to me. Listen to some of these post headlines from the subreddit. And remember, as I mentioned a minute ago, some of these are not easy. Kayla: To hear, especially if you're planning on getting together with your family this holiday season. Chris: So user beckyh posts I think I'm losing my boyfriend to QAnon. User misallocated racism posted cultist and that's with a Q. That's like a way that they speak of q folks. Cultist dad passed up holding his newborn granddaughter. Now this wasn't just cause he was like, she's a liberal, this was a mask related thing, right? This was like they had a rule that was can't be around my daughter, newborn daughter unless you're wearing a mask. And the dad was like, that's bullshit, masks are bullshit. Blah blah. And he was like, I would rather die on that hill than hold my newborn granddaughter. User mraf seven posts. I lost my family years ago and I didn't even know it. Advanced carrot simply says I want my mom back promoted says download shadow legends now and get oh wait, sorry, that seems to be an ad.

26:17 Kayla: Ugh, the Reddit ads are so insidious. Chris: Sorry, I had to do something to lighten the mood here. I like, went and knocked back three fingers of whiskey. Back to the real posts. User ice to see you. Kayla: Has a wait, there's more. Yeah, please don't read anymore. Chris: User ice to see you. No, that was a palate cleanser. Man has a post lamenting about how his entire family started out in conspiracyland years ago and now after the election is all about readying for civil war and discussing how much they want to go kill some democrats. Kayla: What do you even do in that situation? Chris: I don't know. I didn't read the rest of that post. Like I said, these posts are hard to read. I've done enough reading on this subreddit to last meds. 148 posts. My cousin has fallen deep and my aunt doesn't know what to do. End quote. Okay, here's another nice one. User Jesse ventures asks about holiday gift ideas for qanonners and then in his post he says, any gift ideas for the QAnonor in my life? My mom, something that doesn't encourage them and also possibly semi passive aggressive. End quote. I thought that was pretty funny. Pandapower 63 warns us, please. Exclamation points. Keep an eye on your finances. Exclamation points, which we've seen this before with cults that just like, drain families of all the financial worth that they have. Cough amway. Cough.

27:44 Kayla: All of them. Chris: All of them. Kayla: Romtha, teal, tfU. All of them. Chris: In his post, panda power starts by saying cults are famous for getting their members to sign over everything they and their spouses own. And we've all heard of Trump's beg for money rallies. And then I was also going to add, and we already talked about this a minute ago with the current events. Sidney Powell has also been doing a massive fundraising outreach off of her own lunatic conspiracy push. And the list goes further on various wish has a post simply entitled losing my parents to QAnon. I'll stop there because I can only read so many of these, even just the headlines, before I need to take a long break. And I love our listeners and I don't want to depress you guys.

28:25 Kayla: What about me? Do you love me? I'm depressed now. Chris: I love my listeners. I don't love you. Now we can all wallow in the same depression. Kayla: I'm really sad. I. Chris: But for context, this is just a sampling of posts on this subreddit, and it's just from the last three days. Kayla: What? Chris: No, yeah, sampling. That's like, over the last three days. That's maybe, I don't know, like 10% of the posts. Jitarth Jadeja: God. Kayla: And it's just. It's only going to get worse as the. I mean, as just particularly. I just keep thinking, again, we're in the holiday season. Like, the major holiday season of the year. Families are, like, getting together and not getting together. Like, it's just. This is a shitty time of year for this.

29:06 Chris: It's not great. So these posts really help paint the picture that QAnon isn't just weird and annoying, it's also dangerous and tragic. It would be dangerous and tragic even if it didn't result in people bringing guns to pizza parlors and blocking traffic on the Hoover Dam. And as sad as these posts are, I'm really glad and grateful that the community exists. It's so difficult when someone you love is being affected by something that changes their very personality and demeanor, and it feels like you just have zero control over it. Because honestly, you kind of do have zero control. So sometimes commiserating with other victims is kind of one of the only options that you have in this situation to self care. So it's with this in mind that I want to introduce you to a few folks that wanted to tell us their stories.

29:55 Chris: We got a bunch of responses from folks when we reached out to QAnon casualties, Reddit community. But again, because this episode is already going to run long, I'll be summarizing what the two folks I recorded audio with told me, not playing the full interview. But don't worry, though, we are going to make the full audio, unedited, raw, uncut, available on our Patreon, which is still free because the pandemic is still upon us. So go check it out, guys. Kayla: It's going to be free for the rest of our lives. Chris: This is, the pandemic is over. It's 2027, and it's still going. Kayla: Vaccine's coming. Yeah, right. Oh, wait. Chris: At some point, we do have to, like, make a cutoff of, like, when is the pandemic over? Cause it's not gonna be like, hey, it's over. It's gonna be, like, this gradual come down from that.

30:38 Kayla: I think the pandemic is over when you can go to a concert without having to provide proof that you had a vaccine. Chris: All right, well, we got to charge for our Patreon before that, but that's. Kayla: When the pandemic started. Chris: Well, you and I need to decide, like, when we're gonna start charging for our Patreon again. That's what we need to do. Anyway. We also, I think I mentioned this before, but we got a couple written responses that I will share the transcript with also on Patreon. Kayla: So similar to the Tulpa episode, where there's just lots of responses, so much responses, and so grateful for those responses, and we want to give those responses the space that they deserve. Chris: Yes. So, without further ado, the first person I spoke with called herself Violet. The QAnoner in her life is her sister in law, whom she calls crystal as a pseudonym. She says that Crystal started as, like, a chill, non political Democrat with family. That was pretty. She used the word spicy, right? So, like, that was basically her word for saying, like, that they were on the right and they were kind of extreme. Not like quite QAnon extreme right, but more extreme than, like, your run of.

31:44 Kayla: The mill, like a Tucker Carlson extremely. Chris: Yeah, maybe like 0.5% over Tucker Carlson type thing. Then this person, Crystal, sister in law, got involved with Q and, like, way overshot them. So again, like, chill, non political Democrat got involved with Q and now is, like, way more extreme right than her semi extreme right family right. She said it started when Covid started. Kayla: Yep. Chris: And she blamed, basically, social media. She basically said, like, hey, if she was gonna go right, she would have before from her family. If she was gonna go right from her family's influence, it would have happened before. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: But it happened when Covid started and when she started getting on social media.

32:25 Kayla: Which goes along with kind of like, Mike Roth's child theory that there was a huge uptick in all of this because of the isolation and craziness of COVID Yep. Chris: So this definitely confirms that. I guess the mechanics of how it happened had to do with her networking for her new business that she wants to start. It was a medical cannabis business. It was funny on the interview, if you listen to it, I predicted MLM. I was like, yeah. Kayla: I was like, is this a business? Chris: Is it an MLM? Kayla: Is this an MLM? Chris: No, it's not an MLM. Kayla: Are you sure? Chris: No. Well, because she wants to. She literally wants to start it. She's not. Kayla: Okay, okay. You want to start an MLM, then it's a valid business. Chris: Yeah. Then it's fine, because then you're at the top of the pyramid, and you'll actually get money. So that got her involved in sort of, like, alt medicine circles, which open the door to all the other things and conspiratorial mindset that come with that. You know how it goes.

33:16 Kayla: So it's like anti vaxx and colloidal silver, right? Chris: It goes from one to the next. So here's a quick clip about that. Violet: And it's talking about how big pharma is, you know, using five g to control our minds. She started inheriting this stuff. The 5g thing was actually. Chris: She started talking about the 5g thing itself. Violet: Okay, bad. She called me up, and because I have recently moved to an area where there's five g, and she called me up, freaking out, and she was like, violet, be careful. The 5g. Jitarth Jadeja: Just. Violet: Just monitor yourself. Drink a lot of water. If you feel burning on your skin, document it. We need boots on the ground, people who are going to whistleblow about five g and what it's going to do to your body. And I was like, crystal, I'm fine. Who told you this?

34:10 Chris: And she. Violet: Oh, you know, my. My medical marijuana group. Chris: So that's just sort of an example of that, unfortunately. Kayla: I told you the one time I saw a real, like, 5g protest in person. Chris: Oh, you did? Kayla: It was before this. I don't remember if I talked about on the podcast. I was driving through Venice in the morning, and I see all these people marching down the street with, like, signs. And I was like, ooh, what's this? Can I join? Chris: And then it was, I want to protest things. Kayla: It was 5g. Anti 5g, right? Chris: Yeah. I don't know if people are well pro 5g protests. Yeah. Unfortunately, this person, crystal Violet, went on to tell me has had a pretty shitty past, substance abuse. But that was really sad to hear. But, you know, it also kind of makes sense. Like, you know, she went basically from substance abuse to these alt med groups to the conspiracy stuff to having, you know, to the. To the virus, making her sit at home and go on social media, right? To Qanon. She apparently had been an atheist, but went quickly to God is speaking to me, actually. Well, listen for yourself.

35:20 Violet: My husband's Christian. You know, I'm fine with Christianity. I'm absolutely fine with it. But the way that it just suddenly, you know, she started saying it was God speaking to her through memes on Facebook. Chris: Oh, yeah. Violet: Mama didn't like, yeah, something smelled funky there. I didn't like the smell of that one memes. Chris: So that's. Yeah, that's memes. Don't get me wrong. I like a good meme, and they can be holy in some ways, but it's like, yes, that's really shitty.

36:01 Kayla: If a family member comes to you and says, God is speaking to me through memes on Facebook, what do you do? What is your recourse? There's not a whole hell of a lot. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And I also, like, I just want to say, I. I also understand somebody who's dealt with addiction issues in their past getting into alt medicine, because not every person who's dealt with addiction has had a great experience with traditional western medicine. Chris: Yeah, I say this. I don't have this in the script here, but I do tell Viola at some point, I was just like, man, it sounds like she really just didn't ever have a chance. You should definitely go check out the full interview. I want to mention real quick here, just to tie it a little bit to that episode we did about Gaia. That's why something like Gaia tv is so dangerous is because it can be a slippery slope when you start with something as simple as, like, alt medicine, ayurveda, blah, blah. And before you know it, you're, like, frothing at the mouth, queuing on separating from your family.

37:03 Kayla: Right. Chris: So that's why the guy, I think, is not just like, ha, that's neat. Crystal also sounded like she embodied a common theme that we haven't really talked about that much yet. Maybe self evident, but human honors have, like, a very loose relationship with consistency. I think Mike Rothschild might have said something about this, but. So, with crystal, for example, sometimes the virus is a democratic hoax, or sometimes it's been created by democrats, or sometimes it's like a china weapon. So there's no consistency as to whether it's a hoax and it's not real or whether it's definitely real and it's a pandemic. Kayla: Right. Right. It's. It's. It's both not real. You're not going to catch anything. And also, if you do catch it, here's the alt medicine ways to, like, be safe from it.

37:52 Chris: She mentioned, actually, interestingly, that the George Floyd thing over the summer was sort of the final full push into QAnon. Like, I mean, she was already in QAnon. Kayla: Reaction. Chris: Kind of. Kind of both. This. It was the thing that finally triggered them to cut off their relationship. Relationship. And this is a new one I hadn't heard yet. So the conspiracy goes that George Floyd and the officer that murdered him knew each other from before. This was, like, a premeditated murder, that they had both worked in a nightclub together as security. Now, there is just my side is that there is evidence that they worked as security together in a nightclub. Kayla: Right. Chris: It's unclear whether they knew each other at all. There's, like, some randos that have said, like, yeah, I know those guys. They knew each other, but, like, they.

38:36 Kayla: Knew each other, and they bumped heads. But then that guy changed his story in the press. As far as I know, it's unclear the nature of their relationship and the extent that we know is that they happened to work at the same place. Chris: Right. But according to Q and honors, Floyd, you see, was. Wait for it, trafficking underage girls to prominent Democrats, and he was gonna expose them. So his killing was actually an assassination. So, you see Derek Chalvin, totally a bad dude for killing him, but he was just doing the bidding of the Clinton mafia so that George Floyd wouldn't expose the child trafficking that he was involved in. Kayla: Okay, that's not true. But it's stupid to say that's not true, because obviously it's not true.

39:25 Chris: Apparently, Crystal then, like, went further and further after this. George Clark, how did you go further after that and started into stuff about, like, black people are genetically more likely to be criminals and pedophiles, and that's kind of what ended up triggering the cutoff. But you know what's funny? Kayla: I don't think there's anything funny. Chris: Crystal actually blocked Violet, not the other way around, because she felt like Violet wasn't being supportive enough, like she was the victim. Kayla: Well, I mean, literally, just at a rally the other day, Mister Trump said that all of his voters are victims, so take it from his mouth.

40:06 Chris: In general, Violet said that they cared about each other before all this, but Q now is, like, her whole life and identity. Violet spent some time relating to me, like, Crystal's personal trauma and chaotic upbringing and how that sort of led her to QAnon. Let's listen to another clip about that. Violet: You know, her formative years were chaotic, and she's used to it. So this constant narrative from QAnon about you being persecuted, this big, evil father figure watching you, waiting to hurt you, it really fits in with her personal trauma and the things that she's gone through. It fits in her mindset. There is somebody after me. There is somebody watching me. That is why I think that QAnon is especially dangerous to people who have had an abusive past or an abusive relationship, abusive childhood. It fits for them. It's just another manifestation of the chaos in her life. She's been clean from drugs for, like, seven years. She needed something chaotic and crazy in her life. I'm not saying she's an evil person for feeling that way. Nobody's evil for having a coping mechanism.

41:25 Violet: It's our responsibility to change and grow, of course, but she's taking this in a really bad direction because she needs this chaos. Chris: So. Yeah, like, shitty as she is, like, she's a victim too. And we've talked about this with a bunch of other groups that we've talked about on the show. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: You know, you get. You find yourself in a vulnerable state, and that's how cults prey on you. And then next thing you know, it, your balls deep in QAnon saying really racist stuff. Kayla: I mean, like, very minor. But, like, even just myself going through, like, taking better care of my mental health, I still replace some of those, like, chaotic behaviors with relationships, with chaotic people and things like that. Like, that's a very human thing to do.

42:18 Chris: Yeah. So Violet goes on to talk a little bit about some of her own personal cult experiences and her upbringing. So that's all I'll say about it. Kayla: Oh, man. Chris: Definitely check it out. She doesn't see herself rebuilding the relationship with her sister in law, unfortunately. Kayla: Really sad and very understandable. Chris: Yeah, she said she can't have the constant paranoia in her house. Kayla: Right. Chris: And she's even put her at physical risk with COVID denialism because her husband has some issues where he's vulnerable. And Covid denialism means that they physically can't hang out because Crystal's not wearing masks. Whatever. So I want to play you one more clip from my conversation with violet content warning again for racism here, but I just couldn't not share this clip. I really apologize for how heartbreaking this is in advance. I'm sorry, skip ahead like a minute in advance if you're not interested.

43:17 Violet: You know, they have a daughter who's about twelve and their daughter said, you guys can't be racist anymore. Everybody online says racism isn't cool and you have to stop saying racist stuff. And Crystal said to my husband, she goes, well, when I heard her say that, I knew the liberals had gotten to her. So I started saying the n word around the house just to show her that nothing bad is gonna happen. And then she says, you know, I'm not a racist person. You know, I'm not a racist, but I'm not gonna stop using that word because some Democrat tells me to. So now she's walking around the house saying the n word in front of her children. And the twelve year old's the oldest, she's two younger, and she's teaching them to use the n word because they will not be controlled.

44:10 Violet: You know. Kayla: If you use the n. Chris: Word, you're being controlled by Democrats. Kayla: You are racist. Chris: Oh wait, sorry, it's the other way around. Kayla: Sorry. Chris: Well, she's totally not racist, but she wants to go around the house. I mean, look, I don't know this person. I don't want to like, shit on somebody who's just. The whole thing sucks. Kayla: Yeah, it absolutely sucks. This person is clearly racist. Racist. Not even. I mean, they're walking around the house saying the n word to be reactionary and defiant and also their beliefs about the George Floyd murder and black people in general.

44:53 Chris: Right. Kayla: There are racist beliefs. And I can understand from Violet's perspective, not being able to repair this relationship. Chris: And it's, you know, even if you could repair it's like at a certain point you do have to sort of take your own this. I was talking to a couple of the different folks I spoke with about this. And you have to protect your own mental health, right? At a certain point, like, even if it's repairable, you gotta take care of yourself first. Kayla: Right. Chris: I also asked Violet about what Crystal's reaction was to the election. And pretty similar to other q believers, somewhere between distraught. Identity crisis and denial. That is, Trump is still going to win, certain that the election was a fraud. And it kind of goes back and forth between being distraught and it's totally a fraud, and he's going to win after they release the kraken type stuff.

45:44 Kayla: Right. Chris: And finally, when I asked Violet if she wished she could tell her past self anything, she said that she regrets not confronting it more when it was starting. Not so much as to come off as persecuting, because obviously. Cause Q and honors thrive on that. Kayla: Right. Chris: But at least not saying, like, oh, okay, that's interesting. With an eye roll. So she kind of, like, wishes she'd push back. Wishes she had pushed back a little more. Kayla: Right. Chris: Which was interesting. Kayla: Which. I'll just say that, like, it's totally understandable. Chris: Yeah, that's super handoff. Kayla: You know, we can't predict how that would have gone. Chris: Right. Right. Kayla: It might have helped. It might have not. Chris: Right. So that was Violet and her Q casualty experience. Thank you, sister in law.

46:24 Kayla: Thank you, Violet, for talking about all of that. I'm sure it was not easy to discuss. Chris: Yeah, it was. Yeah. My second chat was with someone who identified herself as K. K is another young woman, lives in Arizona, and she dj's for a radio station, audio buddy. Kayla: Audio buddy. Chris: Which is so weird, because, like, why am I into audio nat, I was just saying this to you. How the hell do we have a podcast? It's so bizarre. Anyway, let's talk about K. Interestingly, she still self identifies as a conservative, but her Q addled family members think that she's, like, a libtard because she isn't into lunatic Q stuff.

47:05 Kayla: That's, like, something that's so distressing to me. It's just like. Chris: Yeah, I don't mean to laugh. It's just like, you're not the. Kayla: The particular Maga Qanon brand of the. Right, then you're not the right, then you're a libtard. Chris: Yeah. You're a rhino. Yeah. So the main person in her life is her mom, who, unfortunately for this relationship, she still lives with. Kayla: Oh, God, that's so hard. Chris: Yeah. And then the other person is her aunt. Her aunt is actually the one that was like, I heard you're a liberal now. Just because she's, like, not. Doesn't think that we're sucking adrenochrome from babies or whatever. Kayla: You know what? Welcome. I will embrace you personally.

47:48 Chris: Yeah. But again, but that's, like, it's hard for her because she doesn't identify that, but she's like, you know, I still think of myself as a conservative. I just hate all this garbage, right? Which I super get, right. I don't wanna make this about me, but I get that, right. I used to be a conservative, too. And anyway, well, it just makes me. Kayla: So, like, bummed for people that are perhaps more reasonable on the right. Chris: Like, yeah, it's like they don't have. Kayla: Your party has left you in a lot of ways, and yet what do you do? Because you're not necessarily. Your home is not necessarily on the left, and your home is not necessarily on the right. Chris: Right. And if you disagree with the left's policies, but, I mean, I have a few friends like this, actually. They disagree with some of the policies on the left, but they're like, I can't possibly vote for Trump. So I'm like, I don't have anybody to vote for, and everything's gonna suck no matter what. That really sucks anyway, because she lives with her mom. She has to hear this QAnon shit every day. Evidently, her dad doesn't believe in the crazy shit, so he's just like a regular run of the mill Republican. He doesn't, like. She said he doesn't like Biden, but also doesn't think that he consumes babies.

48:58 Kayla: Okay, you know what? Chris: That's pretty normal. Kayla: Same, like, hash same. Chris: Right. Same. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff about Biden. Like, I also don't think he consumes babies. Kayla: Yeah, that's the common ground. That is called bipartisanship. Chris: Right. We can do this together. The aunt, interestingly, like, Violet's sister in law, used to be a hardcore liberal at that point. Apparently she, like, didn't get along with Kay's mom, so they, like, didn't really talk. But now that they're both into QAnon, they talk all the time. So her mom's entry point. Kayla: I wonder if there's, like, something to that, just, like the being able to, like, bridge that gap of, like, of a somewhat broken strain relationship.

49:42 Chris: Absolutely. Kayla: I mean, like, Qanon, like, mended that fence. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: That's brutal. Chris: Yeah, absolutely. It's. I mean, even if even in a less extreme version of that, of just, like, you know, being when you're around a bunch of people who are of a different persuasion than you. Kayla: Right. Chris: And then you, like, switch to that. It's just things do become easier. Kayla: Yeah. Like, that's what happened to you when you moved to California. Chris: Yeah, California liberalized me. It totally turned me into a libtard. Yep. But her mom's entry point was infowars. And then two. Kayla: Wait, what was that thing we saw? Chris: Infowars is Alex Jones, by the way. Kayla: What was that Alex Jones thing we saw the other day? Chris: Oh, it was like some. It was some clip of him.

50:24 Kayla: A dog is a meal. Chris: He was, like, looking at a little dog, like a little Chihuahua or something, and calling it a meal. And I don't know if he was, like, wanting to eat the dog or if he was just joking. Kayla: Alex Jones eats dogs. You heard it here first. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: Actually, if we want to be like Alex Jones, our hero, then we should say, I saw Alex Jones trying to eat a dog. He's a dog eater. Did you know all the republicans are dog eaters? Kayla: He sucks if he eat a promo out of chihuahuas. Sorry. Infowars. Alex Jones and then to YouTube. Chris: And most of her exposure was there on YouTube because apparently, like, the mom doesn't really do the Facebook and Twitter. I don't think she has a Facebook or Twitter. Kayla: Oh, man, I can't even blame Facebook and Twitter here. Chris: I know, but you can blame YouTube, okay?

51:06 Kayla: At least I can. As long as I can blame big tech in some way. Chris: As long as you can blame an algorithm. It's the algorithm's fault, which it is. Her mom is also a pizzagate believer. Believed it at the time. Still does. Kay talked to me about changes in her mom, how she grew more angry and irritated, even verbally abusive, and how she now can't really talk about anything other than Q. She used to watch movies with the family and enjoy other things, but now is consumed fully with QAnon. Here's an interesting clip that illustrates some of these changes. Kay: Trump rally that was happening in Phoenix. And yeah, she was bound and determined to go with her sister. And basically she threatened to kill me if I didn't let her go. So she's very, she. I've tend to notice a lot of people have said on Reddit that their Q family members or friends have been more violent lately.

52:12 Kayla: So I don't think I can do this episode. Chris: This is a hard one. That's why content warning at the beginning, we should do another. Let's do like a mid roll content warning. Guys, this episode sucks. Kayla: I literally was talking to some friends earlier today who, you know, mentioned while they're loving the QAnon episodes, they're difficult to listen to. And I was like, well, you know, I think the most recent one will be a little easier. Chris: This one? Kayla: Yeah. No, no, I was wrong. Chris: So it gets better. Kayla: It does get better. I do know that. Chris: And next episode, we will address this. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Okay. So very specifically, when I was. When were talking about the structure for this series and sort of the vision for it, I don't know if you remember this conversation, but we talked about wanting to make sure that we don't leave on a low note. Like, leave with some hope. We don't do that because I really hate articles that I've read in the past four years where they're like, here's how everything's collapsing and sucks to bye. Fuck you.

53:11 Kayla: Yep. Chris: And don't have some sort of call to action or something at the end that says, like, but here's what we can do. Yeah, you know what? Even if it's fucking fake, just give me the hope. Kayla: The placebo effect is still in effect. Chris: I don't care. So anyway, yeah, this. This episode is rough. It's better. It's better. Stick with it anyway. Death threats from your own mother aside, it was also becoming increasingly physically dangerous for Kay and her family for similar reasons to Violet because of COVID Have a listen. Kay: About my aunt. She's pretty radicalized, even more so, I would say, than my mom. And she's out there with no mask, and she believes that the pandemic is fake. My mom kind of believes the same thing. She's like, yeah, people are fine, but, you know, it was a plan. It was all a plan. So, yeah, my. My cousin totally switched years and now believes that it was the plan. Demic.

54:21 Chris: Right. Kay: And, you know, he's putting all of his family at risk and his mom and, you know, not wearing a mask going out into these rallies. Chris: Speaking of similarities to Violet, Kay also talks about some of the mental health issues with her Q follower family member. She believes, for example, that her mother has undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Kayla: So that makes sense. Chris: You know, it's tough to, like, do an at home diagnosis, right? But I get that, you know, I've done the armchair diagnosis stuff myself, right, with people. And, you know, the way she described it to me, whatever it is, whatever you want to call whatever diagnosis is, it sounds like that, you know, she's had some struggles.

55:03 Kayla: There's something untreated. Chris: Yeah. Kay has actually tried to block websites from her mother. But then the mom thought it was a government conspiracy blocking her website, so that backfired. So she also, quote, flipped out when some of the YouTube bannings were happening. So, like, when all that banning was happening a couple months ago, the word is flipped out. Speaking of bannings, a lot of Q followers have masks migrated over to Parler, which is the. How to put this, let's call it self styled uncensored free speech Twitter, where.

55:44 Kayla: You have to put in your Social Security number if you want to be a verified account. Chris: And then it gets hacked and your real names. Yeah, it's a quarantine. I think it's a mind disease quarantine. Kayla: Sure, sure. Go over there. Chris: I am not super anti Pollard because of that. If that keeps all the crazy people circle jerking. Kayla: Except all of them also still have twitters. They don't delete their twitters. They just put on their Twitter what their parlor name is. Then you follow them on Twitter and Parler. Looking at you, Gina Carano. Chris: Anyway, this is not really about her mom or her aunt, but Kay did see an interesting post there.

56:31 Kay: Supposedly. I saw that also on a parlor post, apparently. Yeah, people can see all these good things supposedly that he did, and maybe believe that maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. Chris: Right. Kay: Yeah. So they can sneak little things here and there and you start to believe these things, you know, because I've noticed some things she didn't believe at the start, and now she totally believes them. Chris: Oh, I left out the part where, you know, remember when she was saying, like, the parlor post is talking about, oh, he did some good things. He's like, maybe not such a bad guy after all. Right, I left out the part who that was referencing intentionally. Do you want to take a stab at who they're talking about in that post?

57:24 Kayla: Okay, well, when I was listening to it, I assumed it was talking about Donald Trump, but the way you're talking about it makes me go Satan. I don't know. Chris: Adolf Hitler. So she saw a post where somebody was talking about how he did all these good things. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy. Oh, is it Candace Owens on parlor? I know. Kayla: Probably, you know, the only reason why Hitler, like, why he did anything bad was when he tried to go outside of his own country. Chris: Right. If he just done all the stuff he did, but, like, only in Germany. Kayla: It would be darn totally cool, according to Candace Owens. Chris: Right. Not an official position of call to just weird, the podcast. Kayla: No. Chris: Anyway, another interesting thing is that both she and her mom. So both Kay and her mom think that the other one has been brainwashed by the computer.

58:14 Kayla: Okay. But we also know here on the show that brainwashing, a is. Chris: Yeah, a, brainwashing isn't real. B, it's like the age of gaslighting. Kayla: You know, did we talk about this on in the first episode of the season of, like, how brainwashing is being called something else by a lot of, like, cult experts. Chris: Oh, no. Kayla: Minds. Being called mind control. Chris: Undue influence. Oh, mind control. Kayla: Mind control. And the only reason I bring this up is because I was listening to an interview today with a cult expert and the phrase mind control is used. I was like, ooh, what's that? And then I looked it up and it's brainwashing. Chris: Yeah, I don't think we did talk. Kayla: About that, but, yeah, if you hear somebody use the phrase mind control, also not real. Maybe just look into it a little more.

59:00 Chris: As for how to make things better, Kay's advice was not to be argumentative with these people and to try to not express to them that they're crazy by, like, you know, being sarcastic or whatever, even. It's hard to hold that back. And then she mentioned that for her part, her mom kind of feels like her family has abandoned her. Kayla: That's. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Chris: Yeah. Well, I get the feeling. But, like, it's so insidious, it's just awful. As for post election, same exact story as every other cure, blah, fraud, blah, Trump will still be president. Just you wait until the kraken or whatever happens. Actually, do you want to hear just how much they think Trump was defrauded out of winning?

59:44 Kayla: Sure. Kay: You know, I thought she would be like, screaming and crying, but like, she basically believes that he wants and won all 50 states, apparently. All 50? Yes. Kayla: He did not. Chris: You don't think he won all 50 states and he's just being defrauded. Kayla: No. Chris: I mean, California and New York are liberal or conservative strongholds. Kayla: That is not the liberal bastion that a lot of the rest of the country thinks that it is. But it did not go red for in the presidential election. Chris: Just because it's never happen before or even come close in the history of the United States of America doesn't mean that Trump can't do it.

1:00:28 Kayla: It did not happen. Chris: He is. He is like a Jesus. Kayla: No. Well, then California definitely didn't vote for him because we're all like heathens out here. Chris: Oh, yeah, that's right. Anyway, BTW, she talks a bit about QAnon's relationship to Christianity and how some churches are, like, trying to fight it. Some churches are, like, embracing it and incorporating it into sermons. And she even talked really briefly about how there's a Q church now, which I think you guys might know. We haven't talked about it on the show, but there's a church for Q. Kayla: What? Chris: Yeah, there's a Q. There's, like, a Q religion. There's, like, a cute church. Kayla: So why are we even talking about this on this show? Chris: I don't know. This is what we said up front. This is what we said way back in the first episode, that were like, we shouldn't do QAnon because this is definitely a cult. But then we're like, well, maybe we should because it's important, like, if your.

1:01:19 Kayla: Political affiliation has a church. Chris: Okay, but, like, how different is that from evangelical Republican, right? Kayla: Well, I think that we could also do a multi part series on the far right. On far right evangelicals. I think that they are proto Q in a lot of ways. Like, and I'm talking about very not. Not christians who are Republicans. I'm talking about the far right evangelical shit. Chris: Right. Anyway, there's more in the full audio, but it was good because it allowed, like, a segue into an early beat on who exactly the charismatic leader of QAnon is, which we will need to know when we do the criteria.

1:02:07 Kay: Trump obsession. And you literally say, hey, he's going to save us from all this stuff. So he is your sort of savior. Chris: Would you say he's the cult leader or Q is the cult leader, or is it both? Because that's something we talk about on the show is like, who's the cult leader? Kay: Well, I would say. I would say Trump is the cult leader, but it's also. Well, I mean, it's. Chris: It's weird. He's, like, the object of worship, but the leader feels like you almost, you know. Yeah, yeah. Kay: Like, I guess, like, I want to make that comparison. Trump is the God figure and, like.

1:02:56 Chris: The father, son and the holy spirit type deal. Kay: Yeah, I don't know, blasphemy or something. Chris: Probably. Yeah. Well, the whole thing we're talking about is a little bit blasphemous, as you just mentioned. So what do you think? It's probably not Trump. It's probably Q. Q has got to be the charismatic leader, right? We don't have to decide until next episode. Kayla: Q is the charismatic leader. Donald Trump is not leading the cult. He's just part of, like, the mythology. Chris: Yeah. He's. He's the God, and Q is the prophet. Kayla: He's Jesus. And whoever wrote the Bible is QD. Chris: Yeah. Matthew, Mark, Luke and Q. Kayla: Well, there's probably multiple people behind Q. Chris: So that's true. Kayla: Q is the twelve apostles. You heard it here first.

1:03:38 Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: Except for Judas. Judas is Jake Tapper. I don't even know who that is. That's a CNN guy, right? Chris: I think so. Anyway, there's a lot more to this interview. We talked for, like, nearly an hour and 20 minutes, but for now, it's time to move on before we make, like, a hardcore history length show here, I. I just want to play you one more clip from K because it will make you sad. Kayla: I'm already sad. Chris: Well, it's time for a little bit more sad. This is just, like, a really powerful, personal thing that she said. Kayla: That's fine. Chris: I wanted to make sure we played it on the show. Kayla: K's story deserves to be heard. Kay: It makes me angrier more than others because she really knows how to push the buttons if she wants to, basically, on certain things. So, like, maybe it's an outburst about you, but then it escalates into something, you know, personal.

1:04:31 Chris: And she'll do that. She'll push those buttons sometimes. Kay: Yeah, definitely. Chris: I'm sorry. That that sucks. Kay: Yeah. But basically, you know, I just want, hopefully, I can suggest something for my mom and my dad to go away together or one of them go away so we can just hold our house and our home together, our family together, because this isn't normal. You shouldn't have to deal with this every day.

1:05:18 Chris: Any thoughts? Kayla: I like how I started this with, like, maybe this is just a way for the mom and the aunt to bridge that gap. And I'm like, maybe this is just a way for this mom to, like, be a jerk. And obviously, K is not that reductionist, but it. It does not surprise me to hear that somebody is using this difference in belief systems to get personal and get into personal stuff. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And use it as a weapon in that way. Chris: Yeah. And then just that last bit was just, like, so heartbreaking, like, about wanting to keep her family together. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So, yeah, fortunately, that wraps up at least the portion of the episode where we're talking to QAnon casualty, folks. Okay, so any further thoughts before we move on about Violet and Kay?

1:06:14 Kayla: I'm just really appreciative that they were both willing to share their stories, because these are. These are tough stories, and they're not necessarily the stories that are being reported on the majority of the time. Like, it's often about the belief system or, like, what crazy thing got tweeted or who did what or who's QD. It's not. Chris: No offense for play all. It was a great episode. Kayla: No, of course. But we're not often giving space to the people that are being affected by it. And it's brutal in this way. Chris: And it's brutal. Kayla: Yeah. It's hard and it's brutal to watch a family member sink into something like this. It's brutal to be affected by that dissent, and it's brutal to feel like there's nothing you can do about it. So I hope that being able to talk about it helps in some way.

1:07:07 Chris: Yeah. That's why I said at the top. I'm glad they at least have this, like, community to talk to each other, even if it's really tough for an outsider to read those posts. Kayla: Right. Chris: Anyway, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but full uncut audio on those on Patreon, along with the transcripts from the written answers. I'm sorry, I'm sounding salesy. It's Patreon's free right now. I'm really just that we didn't have time to put it all here. Kayla: It's not about Patreon. It's that we want these interviews to be heard. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Kayla: And that's where they live. Chris: Once we start charging for Patreon again, we'll probably make those free elsewhere somehow. Kayla: They can be free on Patreon still. Chris: Oh, it goes to show what I know about Patreon. All right, I'm a noob. So that brings us to, if you remember, all the way back to the top of the episode, my interview with ex queue Jatarth Jadeja. There is a lot of content in it, so. And we've already spent enough time talking, so I don't. I won't spend too much time setting it up here, but I do want to mention that we'll probably do some cut ins while we listen, mainly because of the length. Like, I don't want to respond to some of his discussion points, like, you know, an hour and a half later.

1:08:17 Kayla: Right. Chris: I want to do it, like, while they're fresh. So any questions about that? Kayla: Just to remind our listeners, this is the interview with Jatarth Jadeja is the interview with the person who was once in QAnon and has since left and. Chris: Is now sort of telling his story to a bunch of people, including Washington Post and Rolling Stone and cultig is weird. Kayla: I know cultures weird, you know? Chris: All right, without further ado, cultur, just weird's exclusive interview with Jatarthejithe. First, I just want to say thanks, of course, for taking the time to talk with us. I know things are absolutely crazy right now, so thank you. And I also. I'm just going to record. I don't know where I'll put this, but I just want to record for our listeners that this interview is happening the Thursday after the US election. And this episode, I think, is going to air probably next month, probably the beginning of December. So I don't know, things might be wildly different by then.

1:09:26 Jitarth Jadeja: So, ironically, like, we still might not know. Chris: Right, right. Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: What's the. What's the date to cut off date for the electoral college? It's like December 10 or something. Chris: Yeah, I forget the exact date. Yes, it's around there. It's like 10th or 12th or something. Yeah. So if this is, like, super outdated, I'm just going to record myself apologizing. So first things first, just if you could tell us who you are and what, like, what your name is and your background. Anything you want to share with our audience about yourself? Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, sure. My name is Jatath Jadeja. I'm 32. I'm of indian origin. I live in Sydney, Australia. I just finished my degree with a Bachelor of arts majoring in economics and mathematics. I also used to be a QAnon follower as well. And I guess, yeah, there's a lot I can talk about myself, but that's essentially the long and short of it. Also, I hate tomatoes. I think that.

1:10:24 Chris: Oh, no. All right, this interview is over. Jitarth Jadeja: It's. It's. I like tomato puree, I like tomato sauce, I like tomato paste. I don't like actual tomatoes because it's the. It's the texture, man. They're too squishy. Chris: Where do you stand on sun dried tomatoes? Because that's. That's a point of contention between me and my co host. Jitarth Jadeja: I know. No, no. Because even when you grill them, it's still squishy inside. Chris: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. That's a very controversial topic, so we'll stick with something less controversial. Like. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, and it's like, I think economics. That's kind of how I got into politics in the first place, because I always really, like, I love. I loved economics since I was in high school. I got 48 and a half out of 50 in my first economics subject, mid SEM ever. And that was the highest mark I've ever gotten in high school for any subject. And I was in love basically, since then. And it's pretty easy to go from economics to politics, as you can imagine. As a result, I started following australian politics for a long time. But when I went to the states, it was like, I was there during. I was there during Sandy Hook. I was there during Hurricane Sandy. You know, I was there during Obama's reelection against Mitt Romney. And I remember.

1:11:40 Jitarth Jadeja: So I kind of got, like, the whole breadth and depth of the US experience. I also, like, I went to so many places, you know, from Miami to LA to San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, like, just, like, there's so many places I'm forgetting. I was really taking a in by, like, just the majesty and pomp of Obama giving his victory speech in front of, like, this half semicircle arc of, like, american flags. And the lighting and the decor, it was just so glorious. And australian politics is so dry by comparison. Chris: I didn't realize that. Interesting. Jitarth Jadeja: It's very dry. We're essentially the small country town of the west, and it's not a bad thing. Right. But we don't have the Hollywood aspect. We don't have the glamour and, you know. Exactly. And, like, I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. So I, when I went back to Australia, I kept an eye on us politics and news, mainly through Reddit, because that was when I got introduced to Reddit in the first time as well, and during. So I kept the, you know, casual eye on it. And then I'm biased, obviously, because I'm an economist. I think that the biggest. So much social instability at the moment, and the biggest cause of social instability is economic and wealth inequality. Now, objectively, absolute poverty has actually never been lower.

1:13:08 Jitarth Jadeja: The poor, now, relative to the rich, are much better off than they've ever been in history. However, because humans are social creatures, and there's no getting around that, right? You compare yourselves to the people around you and everyone else in society, because we live in a society. So as a result, economic inequality is a problem, whether it's objectively a problem or not. If you think it's a problem. That's how it works in economics. People act on what they think, and they feel they're not rational agents. Chris: So this is the first. We're gonna interject a couple times here. Kayla: We like to interrupt because we're going. Chris: To interrupt, like, four or five times. We're good at it. Sorry, Jatar, but, you know, you're on our platform now, so we can just editorialize to our hearts anyway.

1:13:55 Kayla: And what better way to interact with somebody who was kind enough to come to a podcast than for me to, after the fact, when it cannot be responded to, just interject my thoughts and. Chris: Feelings unilaterally, say, I disagree with that bit. I mean, dude, we could totally have him back on the show. I would not mind having him back on the show. It was a great interview. We're only, like, 1% of the way through it. But I wanted to react to just real quick to the stuff he just said about inequality, because I think he's right in a lot of ways, but there's a few ways that I'm not so sure. Kayla: I think he's right, that inequality is like the problem of our lifetime. Chris: Right. So I think that is true. Right. It feels to me like I was just saying this to you the other day, a lot of the ills that. Cause there's a lot of ills going on right now, right. And I told you that I thought that, like, it's kind of like being in a pressure cooker, and the inequality is the pressure cooker, and then you're jostling into a bunch of stuff that normally wouldn't be a problem, but because of this crazy inequality, it is. And I think he's also right in saying that, you know, we've had more wealth. We have more wealth now overall, on average, than we ever have in the past. You know, we have. We are the poorest person now has more, you know, GDP, blah, blah, than a king in the middle ages.

1:15:15 Chris: However, I think part of the problem is not just. It's not just the keeping up the Joneses thing. Kayla: It's not just the problem with the inequality isn't just that we're looking at Jeff Bezos and being upset or feeling lacking because he has 17 yachts and we don't. Chris: Right. It's also that. And, like, for us. For us, maybe that's what it is, because, you know, we're middle class and we're fine. Like, we have key thing here. We have insurance. We have health insurance. Right, right. But I think the. Where it becomes an issue. Where it becomes a problem where the pressure cooker starts really cooking is when you have people that are. One sprained ankle from being bankrupt. Kayla: Right. Chris: One, you know, bad. One bad thing happening to them away from being homeless or having that.

1:16:01 Kayla: We don't have that thing happening and then actually being homeless or being bankrupt. Chris: Right. That's the thing. And that's what I was gonna say. Once. Once you're homeless here, you're screwed. Jitarth Jadeja: Right? Chris: Like, there's very little in the way of services here. So I just wanted to, like, add that little caveat that here in the States, it's not just, you know, I'm jealous of my neighbor. It's also. Kayla: Or I don't feel like I have the same quality of life as my. Chris: Neighbor, or, yeah, there's a large chunk of folks that are literally worried for their livelihood if something bad happened. I think most people that are upset about this just want it to be not punishable by death if you fall off the job wagon for 2 seconds.

1:16:44 Jitarth Jadeja: So as a result, Bernie Sanders was the only candidate who was talking about economic inequality at all. I still think, and I thought at the time, it was the social, the underlying cause, because you've got millennials now who are worse off than the first generation to be worse off than the previous generation. They're nowhere near in the same state of life in terms of social, like, for example, marriage and children, in terms of income and wealth and whatnot. So as a result, there's a dissatisfaction with the system. The system in America is, and in the west is thought of as a capitalist system. Let's not go into nearly great details of what it is and what it is.

1:17:27 Jitarth Jadeja: And however, as a result of this lack of progress within a system, there's obviously going to be a lot of issue, there's going to be a lot of distrust in the system itself. People who are doing better think the system's fine. People who are not doing good think the system is broken. If there's more people not doing good, they're going to have bigger an issue with the system. Bernie Sanders was the only person I saw addressing this point. I also really did not like Hillary Clinton. I really like Hillary Clinton. Just the Clinton foundation and, you know, her Persona, it's not very warm. Right. Unfortunately. So as a result, I was a big Bernie bro then when the whole. Yeah, I was like far left, right. Then as the WikiLeaks released that information about the DCCC and their favoring of Hillary Clinton. Right.

1:18:19 Jitarth Jadeja: Whether it came from Russia or not, that's not particularly the issue. The fact that it was there and it didn't seem to being covered as much as I thought it should be by the mainstream media, because it was. I just thought that, look, I mean, that's, isn't that a big scandal? Like, you know, we love to talk about stupid things politicians do all the time. Why wouldn't we talk about this? So I was very disillusioned with the mainstream media then. Chris: And so specifically, you're talking just to make sure for our listeners. So the scandal you're talking about would be the way that the DNC handled the primary runoff between Hillary and Bernie, correct? Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, it was the DCCC, I think, specifically, which was the arbitrary, like, it's a technicality, but yeah, correct. The democratic establishment, how they handled the primary between Hillary and Bernie, and they're supposed to be neutral, but they clearly, they were not neutral, and there was evidence to that fact. Now, that's all of what Russiagate is about, right? That's why Russiagate existed, that Russia interfered in the election through Julian Assange to get WikiLeaks to release these documents that caused people to turn against Hillary after the primary against Bernie and vote for Donald Trump.

1:19:37 Chris: So I just want to. I know we just interjected here, we. Kayla: Love to interject on this show. Chris: I know, but it's important to talk about, like, the technicalities of some of this stuff. Kayla: Oh, and also, you and I cannot go very long without hearing the sound of our own voices. Chris: Yeah, it's really important. I just love hearing my own voice. But, yeah. So just, I want to address two things. One is the favor, the bias that the DNC showed in 2016 towards Hillary in the primaries, but it's also slightly more complex than we're talking about in the interview. And of course, in an interview format, you can't get into all the nitty gritty details, but there's a lot of details about what a joint fundraising committee is. I did some research on this, which I'll link in the show notes.

1:20:20 Kayla: Thank you for doing that research, because we lived through that, and I'm still confusing. Jitarth Jadeja: It's confusing. Chris: Yeah, exactly. So I think there's definitely some evidence that there was bias shown. But you have some people that think that it's like there's a big conspiracy rigged, you know, they route to get him. And then you have some people that are like, nothing happened. What? Nothing happened? I think the truth is much more in the middle. Kayla: Right. Chris: That's just something I want to say. Yeah. And then with the Russiagate stuff, I do want to contend with. That was all what Russiagate was about, because Russiagate, there's a large and long Wikipedia article that is, that details all of there are books. Russian interference. Right. There's a lot of material. And so that's another multifaceted thing. So when we talk about russian interference in the election, there's the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks thing, which Jatarth brings up, but there's also social media influence. There's russian bots on Facebook, russian bot farms, russian content farms. There's also the question of, did the Trump campaign specifically collude with Russia, which is what the Mueller report was about. So there's just. And then there's, you know, like ten other things. Right? So I just want to mention that, too, that Russiagate is about, like a bunch of stuff.

1:21:37 Jitarth Jadeja: It's a very. Yeah, it's a rich tapestry. Right. As a result of that, when Trump won, I lost all faith in mainstream media because every single. We're all there, everyone was saying, he's gonna lose. Right. There's montage of it. Chris: It was quite a shock. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, you know, people look back and they say, oh, look, the polls were in the margin of error. I'm like, dude, I was there. Right? What are you talking about? I was there. If the polls are with all. With the error within the margin of error, they cannot be within the margin of error all in one direction. Like, this is how math works, right? They should have been even split. So don't even get started. Look at what happened with the polls in this election. Even if Joe Biden wins, this is a terrible result for the Democrats. They should have smashed Donald Trump. The polls were more off this time than last time. That's insanity. Right, right.

1:22:36 Chris: And the fact that it's like, it's, you know, more than just a single instance now. Jitarth Jadeja: Correct. And it's more now. Chris: It happened twice. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. And it's like we are. We can talk all day about that. But just wrote, so when Donald Trump one. I lost all faith in the mainstream media. It was the crux of a long process, because I had been a journalist for a newspaper, I was really into watching the media, listening to the media, like, devouring everything I could. I also, I'm also old enough, as I'm sure a lot of us are, to remember weapons of mass destruction and how that was perpetuated. It was first mentioned in the New York Times. Right, the paper of record. And I just completely lost faith. I said, I can't trust these guys. They don't know what they're talking about. I need to find alternative media.

1:23:28 Jitarth Jadeja: So I went searching for alternative media, and the alternative media that I found, which probably won't surprise you, was Mister Alex Jones. So as a result of that, I was looking for someone who at least wasn't necessarily didn't predict Trump, but at least was not at least with pro Trump or not anti Trump, because I was getting a lot of that from the mainstream media. And the insinuation that everyone was anti Trump when he didn't, he then won was objectively wrong. So I was trying to find alternative media. That's how I found Alex. That's how I first started falling down into a general conspiracy kind of wormhole. Alex does this thing where he'll say, like, he'll give you something. That's true, right? Like, for example, he'll talk about human embryo human animal hybrids, and he'll.

1:24:16 Jitarth Jadeja: And you'll link and you'll google that, and you'll see. Find some MIT research literature talking about, you know, the combination and genomes of humans and animals. But then what Alex will do is he will take that and he will stretch it to the wildest, craziest possible explanation that it's, you know, some crazy conspiratorial reason. Chris: Right. And the problem is he has chimeras in their basement or something. Exactly. Jitarth Jadeja: And it's like, dude, look, this is science. This is how science works. They're always trying to do some stuff in science and pushing the boundaries. All universities do this. Like, that does not mean they're actively trying to create animal human hybrids for. To serve Satan and the illuminati. Right? Like. Like, I. I mean that.

1:25:01 Kayla: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Anyway, but also another issue is that, like, Alex has been right about a few times. Like, he. When he was talking about the bohemian grove, so he looked this up. So he actually was talking around all about all these rich politicians and business people do this weird thing where they burn an owl while they're wearing robes. Right. No one believed him that he took a video of it, and now it's like, yeah, it's there. People are just like, yeah, that's something that happens. That's weird. But it's like, dude, it's just probably just like, a hazing ritual, dude, like, you have fraternities in America that do stuff like that. Chris: Rich people are weird. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Like, it's just. It's definitely weird, but it's like, rich.

1:25:41 Chris: People are also weird. Hi, we're back. Kayla: Hi. Chris: I wanted to provide a little bit of color since I have the analytics background myself on what he was saying about the polls. So the reason that the polls might have been, or at least the discussed reason that they were off in 2016 in one direction. The reason that might happen is if there is a systematic bias, if there's something that all of the polling services do that was off in the same direction, that would create a bias in the same direction. And that's what they believe happened in 2016. That, and I won't, again, won't get into the technical details, but there were some polling errors that had to do with the propensity for college or non college educated folks to answer polls, to reply to polls.

1:26:33 Chris: That was something that was true about all the polls, which is, I believe, why they were biased in the same direction. Kayla: So you're saying that it's not necessarily a conspiracy. It could be chalked up to the fact that there is systemic bias in the way the polls are conducted. Chris: Yes. However, he's right in the fact that it eroded trust. It eroded trust for me, too. And that's. That's more the point. The point is not necessarily, like, whether there was a conspiracy. The point is that by eroding the trust, you create these opportunities for conspiracy theories to flourish. Kayla: I mean, even just in myself, like, the way I looked at polls in 2016 versus the way I looked at polls in 2020. In 2016, it was like eyes glued to them. In 2020, I don't think I looked at polls. Chris: See, for me, it was the other way. For me, it was like, at the beginning of 2020, I was like, they're probably wrong again. And then after a while, I was like, well, I guess it's more reasonable to assume that the industry as a whole figured out what they were doing. And that's when I was reading about these systemic biases.

1:27:28 Kayla: So, basically, fool me once. Chris: Yeah, they fooled me twice. And I felt really angry almost about that when the polls were off again, I should. Well, yes and no. Kayla: You fooled me twice. Chris: Fool me twice, I won't get fooled again. No, but seriously, I felt like I get where he's coming from, because especially after the results of 2020, when all the polls were like, Biden's up by 16% in Pennsylvania. Kayla: See, I didn't know any of that. Chris: Well, I just. I had assumed that, based on the stuff I was reading, that they had. And I've since read some more stuff, like, oh, well, we corrected this thing, but it looks like were off about something else that happened in those four years. I'm sure there's reasons, but it was very disorienting to have them be wrong.

1:28:14 Kayla: I will never. Chris: That much. Kayla: I will never trust Nate Silver. Chris: I know. Well, Nate Silver's an aggregator, like us. The other thing I wanted to talk. Well, actually, maybe you should talk about this more up your alley. But the bohemian. Kayla: You got it. Chris: The bohemian grove stuff. Kayla: I'm shocked that we haven't covered bohemian grove. I don't think we've even mentioned it on this show yet, because, yeah, it's real. First of all, there really is a club, a location where just the global elites go and do weird ass rituals. Chris: It's like eyes wide shut. Or the second season, there's a 30. Kayla: Year long waiting list. And you have to be super rich. And, yeah, it's been like. It's definitely been true.

1:28:58 Chris: Detective season two. True. Kayla: Tractor season two had it. There's other shows that have parodied Bohemian Grove. And yes, shockingly, Alex Jones, he did some investigations in the early two thousands where he was able to infiltrate and record. I think the general consensus is that while his footage is real and accurate, the various claims he was making based upon what he was seeing are still not accurate. Like, in true Alex Jones fashion, I don't know exactly what the claims he was making were, but one can assume that he was going a little crazy with it. Chris: That's like Jatar was saying. He'll take something that has this grain of truth, which in this case was already fairly crazy, right? And then he'll stretch it as far as he can. So you can imagine how far somebody like Alex can stretch something like bohemian girls.

1:29:48 Kayla: Especially when, like. Yeah, he was filming a ritual where, like, a 40 foot owl effigy was being burned. I will say, however, that he is not the first, quote, unquote, investigative journalist to infiltrate Bohemian Grove. Folks, investigative journalists have been infiltrating and, like, getting in there undercover at least since the eighties. Chris: I want to do that. Kayla: I know, because it can. Chris: I want to quit this podcast and do that. Kayla: It's such a weird place. And it's really hard to get in because, again, like, 30 year waiting list, you have to be a fucking president. This is like a club for the president. Chris: I wonder why people. People believe in QAnon. Kayla: Yeah, I know. Chris: All right, back to the interview. Kayla: Bohemian Grove is Qanon. Chris: And, I mean, the best conspiracies do have, you know, a kernel of truth behind them, right? You can't. You can't get anyone to believe you by making stuff up, but you can get somebody to believe you by taking some kernel of truth. And then, like you said, stretching it.

1:30:39 Jitarth Jadeja: Correct. And the thing is, the way it works is that they tell you something first, right? That's true. But it sounds absurd, right? It sounds crazy. The human atom, high bros, bohemian Grove, right? The CIA mockingbird thing. Like the whole issue with the Bay of Pigs, right? And false flags, right? These are all things that were true. But because they're so crazy, the next thing that they tell you and the next hundred things that they tell you, which build upon this, because they also sound crazy. But the first thing was true. You're more inclined to believe them, right? You have that emotional thing where you're like, dude, I didn't think that was true. And that was true. This could also be true. Right.

1:31:24 Chris: We open our first episode in this series talking about Project Sunshine, which I don't know if you recall or have. Jitarth Jadeja: You read about Project Sunshine reading some vague bell. Can you remind me? Chris: It was some. It was research that, like, secret research the US was doing in the, like, fifties and sixties on effects of nuclear radiation. And they were like, basically like stealing body parts from other countries. Kayla: Yeah, yeah. Chris: Like stealing dead, like, infant fetuses. It was. It's bad stuff, but it's that type of thing where. And then, like, at the time, it's like, no, that's not happening. Come on. And then the truth came out that it was. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: And then it's like you said, you. Now that you hear that, you're like that crazy things. True.

1:32:09 Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: I'm more primed to believe other crazy things, correct? Jitarth Jadeja: Absolutely. It's like my. The barrier to entry has been. Has been removed. And that's kind of like how it starts. So I was when. Chris: Q. Jitarth Jadeja: So that was around December 2016, November December 2016, and started listening to Alex Jones for the period of the next year. I got really deep into conspiracies. Now, at the time, I had only just been diagnosed with ADHD in December 2016. I had always. I'd been diagnosed with epilepsy since high school. And if I'm honest, people always think that. People always shocked with epilepsy when I tell them that. But I'm very lucky with it. My medication manages it. There are kids who have 100 seizures a day, and they can't medicate it. It's actually the least of my mental afflictions. Ironically, however, I had not been diagnosed with bipolar two, so there was definite, like, mental instability that was occurring at the same time. Further to that, I was also very socially isolated because of that mental instability.

1:33:16 Jitarth Jadeja: So I had a quite a large group of friends before that. We go out, we'd pack, like, 30 people every Friday night into a one bedroom apartment in North Sydney and then just go partying out. Right, like, every Friday. So there was a lot of. There was a lot of messages I had to respond to a lot of people to talk to things like that. And when you're not in a good mental state, it feels like a massive burden. So I kind of just cut everyone off, deleted WhatsApp. I removed myself from all social media, and my friends kind of understood to leave me alone because I needed some time almost by myself. That is the mentality and headspace I was in when I was falling down. Into this conspiracy black hole. As a result, I went so far that I believed.

1:34:04 Jitarth Jadeja: I came across a particular conspiracy theory called the blue avians. You can look it up. You can google it. Chris: I'm going to need to Google that one. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Blue avians, they are bipedal bird aliens who are from some extra dimension who are coming here to save us from some reptilian aliens who are trying to steal our energy. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Chris: You know, I've seen something like that on Gaia TV. We had an episode we did about Gaia TV. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Of course they were on there. Corey good was on there. Chris: Holy shit. Jitarth Jadeja: You know, that what I was following for a little while, right? And just. I hadn't believed in it, but I was just. I was looking at every single conspiracy theory I could find, because I did not believe that anyone could tell me the way the world was. Definitely not the media. So I was looking for alternative explanations, and I was sinking my team into everything, at least knowing about it, looking at it, researching it. Now, that is how I found out about Q. That's what I was in this space I was in. When I found out about Q, I initially saw on my. So, as you can imagine, I was looking at all these YouTube videos and more YouTube videos related to particular topics that you watch come up or recommended.

1:35:24 Jitarth Jadeja: In November, late November, I started seeing these things about someone called, like, a secret government insider and whatnot. And I never clicked on those videos. I'm like, dude, I don't care. Shut up. Whatever. I've seen this story before. That happens all the time. Then on Alex, when Alex Jones's show infowars in late December, he had two guys called Baruch describe and Patriot anon on to talk about QAnon. And it wasn't Alex. Chris: Infamous qanon. Alex Jones episode. Jitarth Jadeja: Correct? Correct. And it wasn't Alex that was interviewing them. He has a four hour show, and on the fourth hour, he lets a guest host take over. So it was a guy called Rob Dieu, and he was interviewing these two guys, and they were talking about a government guy who's, you know, he's dropping all this inside information about QAnon and I, you know, the plan to save the world and whatnot. And I immediately remembered the blue avian story. And I was like, these are. This is what I was thinking. Like, this is not. Well, whether it's definitely not right, but this is how I was thinking. I was like, these are two independent sources, right? They're unrelated. These are two parallel stories. That are happening at the same time.

1:36:33 Jitarth Jadeja: My conspiracy minded, like, headspace links them to and said, oh, maybe the blue avians are the ones behind Q. That's what I thought for a long time. Right. That is how I found. So that is why I found a Q. And I was a Q follower, a cultist, you know, whatever you want to call it. Like a cultist with a Q. I mean, and for from December 2017 to June 2019. So about one and a half years. Chris: Real quick, when you say the. You think the blue avians were behind queue, did you meet, like, did you think that there was a blue avian, like, people in the government? And like, one of those was this. Jitarth Jadeja: Q person, you know, like they were working with the. With Q and the military intelligence team and the white hats and the good guys to try and take down the cabal, right? And the cabal with the people behind the things behind Cabal were actually the reptilian extra dimensional alien. So, like, I weaved this fantastical narrative, right. It sounds. It's very interesting. You know, I might make a very interesting movie, right. But, yeah, it is very interesting. Right? And it's like. So I did that. And then I think there was also even those space force. Right. As well that Donald Trump announced. So you had the whole space for.

1:37:52 Chris: That kind of connects back to. Right, right, yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: And then you had the Pentagon releasing those videos of UFO's. Right. Like official from the Pentagon, Department of Defense. Right. Which, if I can divert a little bit, is a way more interesting conspiracy theory than fucking Q like this. Chris: I know, that's kind of mind blowing. Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: No one cares about it. Unlike a hundred years more hair. For a hundred years, everyone thought UFO's were not, were fake weather balloons and, you know, whatnot. And some probably were. And then the Pentagon says, oh, no, actually they're real. We call them unidentified aerial phenomenon. Here's some videos of them. And no one gives a shit. And I'm sorry.

1:38:38 Chris: No, we've actually been hiding stuff. We've been hiding stuff this whole time. Just like you said. Jitarth Jadeja: They were real. Chris: Because it's 2020, right? And it's like Covid and everybody's like, at home playing video games and we're just like, I don't, you know, aliens. Please come back next. This is not right. Jitarth Jadeja: You're exactly right. That's a 2020 man. Between Covid and economic collapse and QAnon being mainstream. And then now the election. Come back later. Come back later. Such a human thing to do. I love it. It's so funny. Chris: Yeah, it would be funny, too, if the opposite actually do end up being something like extraterrestrial. That was the, that was the response, you know? Like, that was so, because, like, this whole time, I'm like, man, if we ever make contact with, it would be the most transcendent experience of all human civilizational history. And if it actually turns out that, like, that was it, that's gonna be so funny that it was like, oh, yeah, whatever.

1:39:45 Jitarth Jadeja: Whatever, dude. Whatever, bro. Like, come on, I'm busy, dude. Leave me alone. I got a lot of stuff going on right now, so I, like, just another element of the thread, how crazy 2020 is. So those were like four different things that I had sort of interconnected, and I felt, yeah, I fell really deep into the Q rabbit hole. And, yeah, I'll talk about how I can get out. But, like, I'm sure you've got some questions in regards to. Chris: Yeah, actually, I mean, you kind of already answered, like, my first two or three. I was gonna ask you, like, how you got into it and what it was like. And so you've already answered those, but, yeah, I guess how then did you progress to the. So now you're in this, in the narrative, you're in it, right? And you're like, deep down the rabbit hole. These are the different things that you're thinking. What was the impetus? What started pushing you out of it, and what eventually got you out of it?

1:40:40 Jitarth Jadeja: So the first thing is that, so the crux of the whole cute on belief, people talk about the pedophiles and the satanic rituals, and it's fine. I get why people mention it, because AQ is very nebulous and hard to explain. The best explanation I can come up with, it's like the grand unified theory of conspiracy theories, where every single theory you've ever heard, from flat earth to mole children, to JFK, to whatever, finds a home in QAnon. And I'm like. And I mean, like, everyone, like, Donald Trump is Jesus time traveling every single. Chris: Thing, and lions and reptiles and everything. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, that's. That's some. That's real basic bitch queuing on, like, aliens. That's not me, dude. That's not JFK, Bruce, what do you mean, dude? He's. His nephew's coming back. He's going to run. Donald Trump's running mate in 2020 like that.

1:41:31 Chris: That was actually, if we could just aside on that just for real quick. Why do you. Why do you think that is? Like, what is it about QAnon? We've asked a other folks about this already interviews, but I want to hear your take. Like, what is it about QAnon that makes it this, like, glum onto every other conspiracy? That's like you said, the, er, conspiracy. What is it about it? Jitarth Jadeja: Because, Q, you can project onto. First Q tells you illuminati satanic rituals, and all of that is real, right? And you can project onto Q whatever you want. That is how people are able to still believe and follow Q, despite you saying objectively wrong things and being wrong all the time, using the whole mantra of, oh, disinformation is necessary. And fundamentally, it's not a logical transaction, it's an emotional transaction. So the irony is that while when I found Q, I was actually so. I'd gone from a Bernie bro to being anti. So then Trump won. I found it hilarious. Then I'd see the media, you know, criticize him rightly on a lot of things, but a lot of the time, they'd also, like, take him literally when he's clearly being figurative. You know, he'll talk about.

1:42:41 Jitarth Jadeja: It started just with his, you know, his speech and the crowd that was at his inauguration, and it was like, oh, you know, we had the most, biggest crowd ever. Most views ever. More people watched than anyone else. And it's like, dude, first of all, he's. He's talking about, like, the YouTube views and whatnot, right? He's not literally talking about the crowd, b. Dude, like, he's from Queens. This is how people from Queens talk. Okay? Like. Chris: Like, that's a really interesting take, actually. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Like, kids from queens, like, they're not rich like, the kids from Manhattan. They're not, like. Like, tough like the kids from the Bronx. So they have to, like, sort of weave their own little cultural, like, space and that. They exaggerate. They exaggerate all the time. This is what they do. Like, they'll talk about, like, yeah, my Uncle Jimmy's house worth $20 million, and it'll be worth, like, 200,000, right? And it's just like. It's just like. I swear any New York will understand it. It's just literally how they talk, right? So when Donald Trump's like, it's the greatest ever. And then, like, snopes would be like, well, actually, technically it was not. And it's like, shut up. Right? And the worst part is, you've got a literal meeting and a figurative meeting.

1:43:54 Jitarth Jadeja: And I remember eight or ten years ago, because people used literally to mean figurative, so often the dictionary changed the meaning so that literal and figurative mean the same thing. And I'm like, dude, first, like, what? It's not. I understand words change definitions and things can, like, sort of shift and whatnot. These are two bipolar. These on the opposite end of the spectrum. This is like saying black means white, right? Like the two completely different. And I'm like, dude, the dictionary. You guys had one job. You had one job. What you doing? But anyway, I digress. You can tell it's something that annoys me to this day.

1:44:36 Chris: Yeah, I've had that discussion with my wife. We get into that a little bit. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: So you're saying that, like, basically by engaging with these sort of, you know, obvious exaggerations that sort of, like, discredits even further. Like that, you know, like, why would the media even engage in this? Like, how big your crowd was debated when it's. Jitarth Jadeja: Do that. Like, that's the job, right? That's fine. But, like, don't, first of all, don't call it a lie. A lie. A lie is like intentionally trying to deceive the truth. If someone says something wrong, it doesn't mean they're lying. If I say the population of the earth is like, oh, dude, it's like 6 billion, right? When it's up to, like 7.2. Yeah. Well, am I a liar or am I just ignorant? Right? Or am I, like, there has to be an intent lying. So these kind of nuances are just, they're completely gone. They've been eroded. Everything's black and white. And the problem is some, while some people will take it literally and agree with the, you know, and I'm not saying they're doing this on purpose, right? It's as part of a conspiracy. That's not, that's not what I'm saying at all.

1:45:37 Jitarth Jadeja: I'm just saying that people are inclined to take things literally or figuratively, depending on the answer that they want to hear, right? If you don't like Donald Trump, you will say, dude, he's lying, right? Chris: That. Jitarth Jadeja: What are you talking about? If you like Donald Trump, you'd be like, oh, dude, look, that's just Trump. That's just what he says, right? And they're both correct. Neither. There's no objectively incorrect thing. This is all subjective. So it's only when snopes and stuff like NBC did this fact check, right? And Sean Hannity was talking about Hillary Clinton acid washing her hard drives, right? Everyone knows which did happen. They broke hard drives with hammers that had been subpoenaed her emails, right? This did happen, right? They didn't get charged. FBI dealted them out. Maybe that's fine, as they're prerogative. You might not agree with it, but that's like, that's what happened. However, NBC did a fact check. You can google this, too. And it says, no, Hillary Clinton did not literally drip, drop her hard drives into acid.

1:46:38 Jitarth Jadeja: And it's like, what are you talking about? That almost feels like an intentional deceptive. Like, that's so extreme that I'm more inclined to believe that was intentional, because a simple. That's the vernacular, dude. Acid words. That's what people say when they're talking about a raising hard drive. So. And the fact is, just don't do themselves any favors at all. Chris: And by being too literal, you mean then. Jitarth Jadeja: Well, they just got a. If you want. There's only two ways to go about this, right? A fact. What is a fact? Something that is objectively true. Right. As a result, you apply the same standard to everyone, which is what politifact and snopes used to do all the time. They were so good, right? They would say, okay, this is. Sorry, is it true or false? True or false? And then I'd be like, oh, false. This is actually the thing. True. This is actually the thing. Right. And there was no room. They didn't. They took everything literally right then. Now they have this rank. Mostly true, mostly falls pants on fire now it's like a spectrum. And it's like, I can make an argument for mostly true or mostly false. What does mostly mean? Are you. So you're.

1:47:48 Jitarth Jadeja: You're applying an objective scale to a fundamentally subjective interpretation. That's an oxymoron. How can you do that? That's like. Like, what's the matter? Like, it just. It's so. And it's very nuanced. And like I said, this is. Chris: Yeah. So are you saying that these. And I do want to tie this back to your sort of, like, your QAnon narrative, but are you saying that fact checking outlets. Yeah. These journalists are. Should be more black and white or less black and white? Jitarth Jadeja: I'm not sure they should. Chris: I'm not sure. Jitarth Jadeja: Black and absolute black and white. If you. If you're a. Chris: What about the. The acid washing thing? That seems like that was like being too. You said it was being too literal, right?

1:48:32 Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Correct. Correct. It was being too literal. Right. So as a result. But that's also vernacular. It's also. Man, it's like philosophy. When you. When you're writing a philosophical essay, you cannot. You have to present your opponent's argument in the best possible light, right? So if some. If Sean Hannity says, Donald Trump acid watches server, you can say, okay, this is what we are taking it to mean. So Hillary Clinton erased her hard drive using a particular encryption software, and then that would be true, right? That's it. You stay. Make your statement. Right. Or if you want to go the other way, we are taking this to mean that Hillary Clinton dipped her servers in acid. That is incorrect. But then you can also do both. Take the literal def. Take the literal meaning, the figurative meaning, literally.

1:49:24 Jitarth Jadeja: You can have false, true, simple, your figurative meaning. You explain what you mean. Then you can have a long, rambling essay about all the different interpretations and then what you think right, where all your opinions and meanings can come in. So at least do that or separate it. This whole distrust of mainstream media and fact checkers is kind of what played into the whole, like, conspiratorial kind of thinking. So the media doesn't do themselves any favors, right. In trying to get people to trust them again as a result of that. That's why QAnon is so big, because people just do not trust the mainstream media anymore.

1:50:07 Chris: So I think he brings up some interesting points here that I want to talk about. The first one is the whole, like, queen's exaggeration theory. I didn't know that about New Yorkers, but I kind of get that. I kind of get the whole, like, oh, you know, you're from a certain place, and it's an interesting theory. Like, I'll just. I'll take him at face value because I don't know anybody from Queens. Kayla: It is an interesting theory. Yeah. I also don't necessarily. I can't say one way or the other. That's like, this is what people from Queens are like. But I can say, like, this is what I'm like. You know how I talked? I talk in massive exaggerations like, that I'm not president all the time, but never. I do that.

1:50:47 Chris: Yeah, but you're not from Queens, Kayla. But you do have the biggest brain of all time. Kayla: I do. Chris: You're a very stable genius. Anyway, I just thought it was an interesting thing because I hadn't heard that about queens, the crowd sized story. Just want to fact check that a little bit. And it's funny because he was, like, just talking about fact checkers, not doing themselves favors. And I'm sitting here going, well, actually. Kayla: I'm a white man. Chris: So the crowd size thing was, how. Kayla: Did the mansplainer die? Chris: I don't want how he fell into a. Kayla: Well, actually. Chris: Good one. Good one. And you complain about me making dad jokes on the podcast. Whatever. So the crowd size thing. Yes. I think there is a narrative that you can spin there that focuses on, well, you know, he just says things.

1:51:39 Kayla: Right. Chris: But the problem is, when you're in the office of the president, it's not just saying things. It then turns into actions. Kayla: He wasn't the only person going. This was the size of the crowd. There were tangible steps taken by multiple people and presented with make that real. Chris: Fake photographs and things like that. Kayla: Remember how that was? Like, the whole thing with the national parks? Like, getting silenced like that? That was a whole thing. Chris: Right, I know. And let me tell you, like, you know, working. When I worked at Blizzard, when the CEO sent an email, it wasn't just an if I send an email, whatever. But if he sends an email, he can just say one offhanded comment, and it can generate, like, a month long project, which is, like, something that happened on our team multiple times. It's just the way. It's fine. Like, that's the way it should because, like, they're in charge, and so you should be saying, like, okay, how do we do the thing that he wants to do strategically?

1:52:31 Kayla: Right. Chris: Same thing when you're the president of the United States. Right. Maybe he just said in the Oval Office one day, like, I definitely had the biggest crowds, and then that just turned into a flurry of activity where they were generating fake photographs. I don't know. Either way, when you're in that position, it's different. It's not just exaggeration anymore. It's all that said. Kayla: You can also go back to something that was said earlier and apply that to George Bush in weapons of mass destruction. We're not making the argument that George Bush just said an offhand thing. Chris: It was a process. Kayla: It was a whole process. And even if that had only been set offhand, which I think we know now, that's not what happened, but even if he just went like, there's evidence of mass destruction, there would have been a waterfall effect because of the import of this person's words. You are the. Arguably the most important person in the United States. Your words carry more import than you or I. You or me.

1:53:28 Chris: Right. And we've. And we've said this before off the podcast, but either he's lying or we're giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying he's exaggerating and we shouldn't take him seriously. But then that makes the best case scenario don't listen to the president or. Kayla: Take him seriously, which was, we can't function like that. Chris: Which was very difficult to do well. Kayla: We just, you can't function. The society cannot function like that. We need to function based on this person in this position, with this level of power. Their words have the most meaningful impact. Yeah, and the most impact. Chris: All that being said, I do think that sometimes, or maybe a lot of the time, media will engage too much with stuff that he says and does. That is definitely a problem. And I think even that's even the case. We all do it because it generates clicks. Right. Everybody gets really enraged about Donald Trump, and then there's, like, some article that says, like, Donald Trump, did you hear the latest thing Donald Trump did today? And because it's him, it's something every day, and it's just a constant stream of food for these media outlets. And we're part of the problem in their part of the problem.

1:54:31 Kayla: That's why I had to, like, mute and block anything related to him on Twitter, because it's like, I can't be getting mad at whatever dumb thing is tweeted about every 30 seconds. Chris: You have to disconnect from the rage machine. Kayla: You have to disconnect from the rage machine. Chris: And I even think that's true about the crowd sized thing. Like, even at the time, I kind of was like, can we just not engage with this? Just let him say the crowds are big and who cares? Kayla: But then the problem became literally the, like, showing of the fake pictures and, I know, trying to prove it. And then the silencing. You get into a back, the national parks, like, you get into a back and forth. But also it's exposing the corruption of this administration, if. Chris: Right. Kayla: But if somebody says, I had this many people and the news media and like, the fact checkers go, actually, this is not correct, and then that person tries to bend reality to their will. That is something that's really important to know. And it's not just about getting in the back and forth. And the media is wrong for that. It is really important to know that this person in power will react in this way.

1:55:33 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Will react in this way. Chris: It feels like there's a lot of, and maybe it's, maybe not in this case. I don't know. But there's a lot of that whole thing where it's like, you know, don't fight a pig because they'll like, drag you down to the mud and they're better at fighting there type of thing. Kayla: Right. But if the pig is the president. Chris: Well, I know you can still ignore the present. Like, I think in some cases you have to. Well, yeah, you can't. Kayla: You literally can't. I have him muted and blocked on Twitter. I still know every fucking thing he tweets. You can't. Chris: So I don't want to go too far on this because this is, you know, I want to respect our listeners time. This is already a long episode. So then the other thing I wanted to mention is just, it was a little hard for me to understand what he meant by the whole taking things to black and white versus not black and white enough. I still don't feel like I have the best understanding of that. So I should probably follow up with Jatar on that. But I wanted to say that Snopes, I personally think that Snopes is one of the last bastions of actual objective reality out there, and I don't have a problem with their spectrum. I think it actually makes perfect sense given exactly what Jatarth was saying about good faith arguments. Right.

1:56:42 Chris: What he was saying about, like, wanting to present your opponents or, you know, things you disagree with in the best light, when they say mostly true or mostly false or whatever. Kayla: Right. Chris: It's because these things that we're talking about are not, like, is two plus two four? Sure. Okay. That would be true. Right. But this is not that. This is mostly true that Donald Trump said this about his crowd size because, well, he said it this way, not the way most people think he did, and then this is what his administration did. So there's, like, a lot of nuance that, like, that's, I think, why they do that. Kayla: Right. Chris: And if you read through it, you'll see why they say mostly true or. Kayla: Mostly false in those cases, especially, like, going back to the acid wash thing, it's like, that is a nuanced thing to fact check or to push back on, because there are some things that were said that are true. There's some things that are said that are false. There are some things that can be taken a certain way, taken another way. And, yeah, it's important to point out that nuance.

1:57:36 Chris: Yeah. And I think we've said this before, too, but having the ability to sort of, like, exit your. Your thoughts exist in that spectrum, in that gray area, I think helps combat conspiracy theory type stuff. Kayla: Right. Chris: Because it's when. It's when you have this reaction of, oh, my God, I can't trust this thing. I can't. Now that I heard this thing that's wrong, I can't trust anything. And then you kind of swing all the way to one side and then all the way back. I think that's some of the stuff that's kind of what can create that. So I think it's good to be able to. I don't mean I'm not saying any of this to take a shit on our guests, but I think that's part of the conspiracy mindset is that sort of like black and white thinking, right? Kayla: I mean, it's also very natural. Our brains.

1:58:18 Chris: Absolutely. Kayla: Our brains work like that. Jitarth Jadeja: Before, it was just sort of broken down into, you know, the left trust majority of the mainstream media, but they don't trust Fox News. The right trust Fox News, but they don't trust the majority of the mainstream media. That was it. It was like that for a long time, that little dichotomy. Now even, you know, you've got people on the left, so many people on the left, who are saying, dude, this is wrong. Look at. Look at Russiagate. That's a great example of how people fall into conspiracies. It's very, like, it's not crazy if someone told you, I think, Donald Trump colluded with Russia, right? You're not gonna think that guy's crazy. However, that turned out to be a conspiracy theory. Robert Mueller showed. He proved, he said objectively, no, they did not collude with Russia. That was it.

1:59:05 Jitarth Jadeja: There's no whether Julian Assange is a russian asset, whatever that was not what he was investigating, purely that Russiagate was about Donald Trump colluding with the russian government. Right. For years went on about that for years and years. That's not true. That's a conspiracy theory. That was a conspiracy theory that turned out not to be true. Now, I'm not trying to equate them in terms of magnitude, right. Because QAnon, there is no comparison. QAnon is a conspiracy theory of infinite proportions, of infinite magnitude, of infinite. If you have a whatever rating system or measurement or metric you want to, you can possibly use, it is infinitely worse than Russiagate. Russiagate spirometer. Exactly. It's like, it's off this chart. And Russiagate is about. It's about three, so. But that's just kind. And everyone believes in some kind of conspiracy, right?

2:00:00 Jitarth Jadeja: I'm sure we all believe in something, right? And the issue is, there is no way to tell, in general, what is no way to separate a true conspiracy theory from a fake conspiracy theory, because you've just got essentially correlation, different data points that correlate and every now and again, it'll because of one actual causation reason. More often than not, it won't be. That is kind of the whole way that people get into QAnon, and I think it's really. It's really exploded, obviously, because of COVID because, like I said, mental health, social isolation, these are contributing factors. They're not causal factors, but they're contributing.

2:00:44 Jitarth Jadeja: It's not a coincidence that as my mental health improved and I was diagnosed and medicated and the medication started working, and as my social isolation was removed and I was reintegrating back into my social circle and just polite society, that I started to question Q. It is not a coincidence, right? So to come back on this super long tangent, the first thing and the crux of the QAnon belief is something called the storm, right? Or the awakening. What that is specifically is a sealing of unsealed indictments, a declaration of martial law, military tribunals for civilians and members of the cabal, followed by public executions, followed by question mark. Question mark. Question mark. Followed by profit, right? Like, it's. It's. It's the doomsday. It's an apocalypse. It's like a classic apocalyptic culp. Every after this crazy event, everything will be fine. Everything will be great.

2:01:43 Jitarth Jadeja: Right now, they're still doing this, but people are tallying what they call a number of sealed indictments. They're going into, like Pacer, which is like a legal software where you can see, like, what kind of court cases are going on with state, things like that, right? Without getting too specific, and you can see what kind of, like, how many. Just basically, how many sealed indictments inverted commas exist. At the time that I was following it, and at the time I came across a particular article, it was about 30 to 40,000. Now, people in the QAnon community like to use that as data, that data also in embedded commas as objective proof that something is happening right now. I also. I founded a data analytics social enterprise.

2:02:35 Jitarth Jadeja: Even my limited experience, people use data like a drunk users, a lamppost for support, rather than illumination firm. Yeah. Chris: And I work in that. I've been working in data analytics for the last, like, eight years. Jitarth Jadeja: Oh, really? Yeah. You know. You know, always managers. It's always managers. Right? Like all this business, this number is biggest, and that. And that number flows from this number. So if we get this number big, that number will get bigger. And it's like, yeah, fucking two year old thinking. Are you like, what is he talking about? You more on. Chris: I think that the gap between the nuanced analysis and the, like, actionable insight is often just so wide that it just is kind of like what I'm. Why even bother?

2:03:20 Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, why even bother? Just go with you. Just go with what you want to do. Anyway, you've already made up your mind, right? Chris: If you're listening, and I've worked with you in the past, this is totally not about you. You have a very sophisticated understanding of data and analysis. I'm definitely talking about other people. Jitarth Jadeja: Now, as a result, there were 30 to 40,000 sealed indictments. Then I came across an article, and it was. It's. This whole thing is so ironic because it was by a conspiracy debunker. Right? And his name's Mike Rothschild. Right. No relation, but his name is Rothschild. And obviously, if you're a conspiracy theorist and your conspiracy theory is trying to be debunked by someone with the last name Rothschild, it's almost like a pantomime meme. Right? Like, this kind of stuff could not happen in a movie, can only happen in real life.

2:04:19 Chris: So we actually, as a matter of fact, we actually talked to him for one of our other episodes. Jitarth Jadeja: No, he's really great. I've been. Me and him have been back and forth trying to set up a time to talk and have a chat, but, like, we just keep missing each other. It's really like, I hate it because I really want to thank him because it was his article that first. It was on the daily dot that first pointed out that a. Listen, these are not all sealed indictments. These are sealed court proceedings. Now, while some of them may be indictments, maybe even most, they're not all indictments. Some of them are sealed testimony, sealed subpoenas, sealed whatever. Right? So they're not all objectively indictments. That is correct. That is false. Now, I sort of reason this away with, oh, well, look, you know, you don't need that many sealed in diamonds. 10,000 would do.

2:05:09 Jitarth Jadeja: Who cares if they're not all sealed in diamonds, right? But then Q, he referred to them in a post, and he said, he took a screenshot of the table and he said, good tracking. And I'm like, so Q's referring them to them as if they were all sealed in diamonds. This is not good track. This is objectively bad tracking. Right. Why is Q. Chris: So, the Q post. So his post himself actually had the effect of, since you had already, in your mind, have been able to, like, reason it away, the fact that he was the cue the Q post went against, that was actually, like, destructive rather than constructive. That's interesting. Jitarth Jadeja: It was 100% because I knew I could not. These are objectively not sealed indictments, right? Yeah. When Q referred to them as if they were all sealed in diamonds, and that was not correct. So that was the first thing, then that was followed by a series of events where Q is essentially always wrong. He's always wrong. He's. First he talks about John Huber and Jeff sessions, and John Huber is coming. Nothing happened. Then he talks about 1111, which is supposed to be, which is the 11 November, which was the date that Trump was supposed to have his military parade, which seemed like a great date to round up all the members of the cabal that got cancelled. Then he was talking about a red wave in the midterms that didn't happen. Q is always wrong. Always.

2:06:37 Jitarth Jadeja: And then there's only so many times you can be wrong before you say, I don't know what's going on. And if disinformation is necessary, then my reasoning was, if disinformation is necessary and Q is also saying things that are not correct, how can I know what is right and what is wrong? So therefore, how do I understand what the plan is? So as a result, I don't know what the plan is and. But I reason that I trust that there is a plan. So I am not going to, as a result, live and die by every Q prediction anymore. It took a long time for that to happen, and I was real quick. Chris: The disinformation is necessary. Is that you said that's a mantra within the Q community. Am I correct in assuming that means the Q says that to explain to when he's wrong.

2:07:27 Jitarth Jadeja: Correct. Chris: Okay. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. And when he gets stuff wrong, like, there's. There's a hot. There's so many things, the small things that lead up, that led me to the place where I am today. That is, it would take me, I have to write a book about it. And, like, I've forgotten more things than I remember. Like, another example was when Q tried to take a photo, reflecting off, like, the back of a mirror of a lamp and saying that he was on Air Force one. And then someone showed that was a very obvious photoshop. And then Q was like, just testing, you guys. Just testing, right? Chris: I just wanted to see if you knew. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Exactly right. And I'm like, this is. This is so. This is so basic, bitch. And then the. The last thing I was holding on to was there was a post asking Q to get Donald Trump to say a specific phrase as kind of like a shout out to the board. Right. And the call and the rest of the QAnon community. And that phrase was tip top, tippy top shape. Now, yes.

2:08:30 Chris: I remember the story from your interview in the Washington Post. Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Yes, exactly. Right? This is a big one. And I'm like, this is a very unique phrase. It's a. You know, I've never heard this phrase before. Right. That's interesting. Kayla: Right? Chris: It seems like it's pretty. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: Unique. Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: I've never heard anyone say tip top, tippy top shape. It had to be their exact phrase. Right? Now, four months later, Donald Trump in front of the White House in for an Easter or Easter egg hunt. He's talking about the White House, and he says, oh, we love the old girl. We keep her in tip top shape. We call it tippy top shape. Right? I'm like, dude, whoa. That is insane. If all you know about it is what I just told you, and if that is actually what happened, okay, that would probably blow a lot of our minds and a lot of your listeners minds would say, wait a minute, I saw. It's very natural. I was very excited. I went and talked, told my mom and everything. And, like, I was. I was like, dude. I was like, punch in the air.

2:09:28 Jitarth Jadeja: I'm like, yeah, dude. This is it. Chris: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Now. Chris: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Only when I was finally on the verge of, like, breaking out, breaking down. So I found a video. I just typed in, like, you know, q nine, tip top shape, fake. This video, which had, like, a thousand views at the time. It wasn't the greatest production quality, but I got a fact. I got a stack this guy, because it was a two part video explaining two important things. One, the person who asked Q to say that phrase was also the same person who bought out the fact that phrase was said four months later. That's a bit of a coincidence, considering it's anonymous board and no one else picked up on that and only this one person did. Secondly, and more importantly, that's just something Donald Trump says. He says that from time to time. It's a unique catchphrase of his.

2:10:23 Jitarth Jadeja: It's like, I have a feel if I say Jesus Christmas, right? It's just something that I say, you know, my friends have a joke where we, instead of. We make resubstitute vegetables, food into words. So instead of saying exactly right, we'll say exactly rice. Just a stupid thing. Chris: Right. And if I said that to an outsider, like, I bet this guy will say that, they'd be like, he won't say those words, but it's something that you just say a lot. Jitarth Jadeja: Exactly. And the, and the kicker is, it was asked the day before the state of the union, and there was a chance he could have said that in the state of the union. So having in my life, unfortunately, I've had the pleasure of knowing a few sociopaths. And I mean, real sociopaths, not like, dude, this guy's angry. And like, I mean, like the manipulation, the level and depth and insight into human behavior that was on display in that particular video where not only did someone know that Donald Trump says this. Right, that in itself is so. Is so. It's such a strange thing to pick up on. B found a way to use. To use that in order to prove that Q was real. Right.

2:11:40 Chris: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: See, knew that people would only go one level deep. They would not search any further than that. They understood human behavior and manipulation to such extent. I'm like, I have. Yeah, I have seen this before. This is. Only a sociopath can do this. And they are very. Yeah, very. Chris: And not only that, like, they couldn't just, you know, they couldn't just say, like, yeah, Trump will say the word. The, you know, like, they had to find that. They had to find that one statement that, a, use a lot, but b, someone would say, no, he won't say that. This part was interesting to me. It reminded me of the story. I think I've told this story in the show before. I don't know, tell it again. I'm gonna tell it again because that's how we roll.

2:12:28 Kayla: We're good at podcasting. Chris: So there's this, it's, I don't know, it's not like one of those, like, truth. It's like anecdote, right? So the anecdote goes, there's a, there's this grifter, there's this fraudster guy. And what he does, he says, okay, I'm gonna get somebody to pay me a lot of money for my stock market predicting services, because I can predict all the right stocks all the time. So what he does is he emails eight people, he picks a stock, and he says, I'm going to say to four of these people, it's going to go up tomorrow. And I'm going to say, the other four people, it's going to go down tomorrow. The stock goes, I don't know, pick one. Doesn't matter. Down. Kayla: It goes down. Chris: It goes down. So all the four people that got the stock goes up are like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Fuck this. And they bail, right? Then he takes those four people he predicted down. The next day he says he takes two of them, it's going to go up. Two of them, it's going to go down. Flip a coin. Stocks go either up or down every day, right? Let's say the next day that goes up. All right, so now the two people that got the it goes down email, they're out. Now you have the two people that the first day they heard stock goes down and it did. And then the second day they heard stock goes up and it did. And now they're like, this guy picked it, right? Two days ago in a row. That's crazy.

2:13:36 Chris: And then of those two people, he does the same thing the next day. One he says up, the other he says down the next day. Of course that's true for only one of them. So the other guy is like, whatever, he's random. But the person that got all three picks correct and their emails are like, oh, this guy is a genius. He knows he's gotten 100%. What's the chances of somebody picking 100% of the stocks, right? All the time. There's, I mean, it's too much for chance, right? So he goes and he signs on and pays the guy a bajillion dollars to be his stock broker, manager guy, whatever, stock predictor, stock picker dude. The point is, it's, you can even be fooled with true information. Like, none of the information we're talking about here is stuff that did or didn't happen.

2:14:20 Chris: This guy was leveraging probability and whether these people would check or, and also not just in the story. Of course, it's not just whether they check, but like, you know, the people that he's sending these emails to, they don't all have the information that the other people do. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: So it reminded me of this tip top, tippy top shape thing. Just because it's one of those things where you can say, where you can make that prediction, you can make that claim that, oh, I can predict something, but in reality, you've just played the odds. And people that don't look further into it don't know. Kayla: You did tell the story before. I'm trying to think of which episode it was. Chris: I forget the episode I did.

2:15:01 Kayla: It might have been the Gary Schwartz soul phone episode. Chris: Why would I have talked about it in that one? Kayla: I don't know, because we're talking about psychics. But yeah, I think that's a really important distinction. Not even. It's an important point to make. Is that, like, is that you can grift using reality? Chris: Yeah. Using just statistics. Kayla: And maybe some of the best grifters do that. Chris: I'm sure they do. And that's, I think, why, you know, things like, we often on the show talk about, like, that doesn't. There's something about that feels off. Right. And it's like that. Where does that intuition come from? Where does that intuition comes from? The fact that we have, we are lucky enough to have a robust, powerful trust network, and we have multidisciplinary education, and we've been taught critical. Like, we have a lot of stuff that's been, like, poured into our brains over the years that give you that sort of, like, huh. That doesn't smell right. Intuition. And weirdly, intuition of that nature. When making these, like, accuracy or veracity judgments, it's pretty important.

2:16:08 Kayla: Right, right. Chris: It feels weird that I'm, like, advocating for intuition here, but. Kayla: Well, your intuition isn't necessarily woo. Like, your intuition, sometimes you listen to it because it's like you're. It's the thinking fast and slow. Like, sometimes your fast. Is it your fast brain or your slow. Chris: Your fast brain is your intuition. Kayla: Your fast brain is telling you something that your slow brain hasn't, like, registered yet. Chris: Right, right. And I just, I love the, like, the tippy top thing was just a really such a great case study in that kind of stuff. And I just wanted to mention the stock market anecdote because I thought it reminded me of it. Kayla: It's good anecdote. Chris: All right, back to what you're here for. Jitarth Jadeja: My mind was so blown as I saw that, and I was like, just the fact that this is. This level of manipulation exists for this one narrow thing. I'm like, dude, this whole thing has been like, that. This whole thing, this. I. This was. I've just been manipulated. I was wrong. Yeah. And, like, that feeling was like, man, I cannot even describe it as someone who has bipolar and adhd and epilepsy. I'm telling you, this is worse than everything. I couldn't process it because it had spent so many years, and I'd been so sure, because I couldn't process how I could have been so sure about something and yet so wrong. I didn't think it was possible for me to be. To be one of those people. I did not think it was possible at all. Yeah.

2:17:36 Jitarth Jadeja: Then I went out and I was like, I had a cigarette and I was just smoking a cigarette, thinking about this. And I was like, there was, like, this giant ball of, like, shame, anger, guilt, like, every negative emotion that you could possibly imagine. And it was like, trying to find a way into me. A little bit would go inside me, and I feel, like, this sharp pain, like, in my chest, and I would have to stop the rest of it going inside me. That's legitimately what it felt like and what it seemed like. So this ball hung around with me. I still probably haven't processed all of it, right, because it's too. It's simply too painful. So this ball hung around with me for ages after, and I was having a cigarette, and I was like, this is unbelievable.

2:18:23 Jitarth Jadeja: What do I do now? I cannot trust my, I'm asking myself what I should do, and at the same time, I cannot trust my emotions or my thoughts. So even though I'm asking, I cannot ask anyone else what I should do. But at the same time, I can't listen to what I say because of, clearly, I was so wrong. I've just been shown that I was so wrong. How can I trust what I think? Chris: It's so disorienting and jarring and just, yeah. I can't even imagine. I mean, that's. Wow. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, it's messed up. And then the only thought that was able to penetrate my brain was, okay, I was wrong. Right? I was wrong. I had visited a particular subreddit called cult Unscore headquarters, where they would, like, the anti QAnon subreddit. And I go there, look at what the side was saying. Right? Like, trying, I don't think I posted in there maybe once or twice, and then I was like, I was wrong. I have, these guys were right. I have to tell them they were right and I was wrong. And I went, like, straight away after. After my cigarette. So this all happened in the space of, like, 510 minutes. So while every.

2:19:34 Chris: God, that's like, yeah, you have, like, an epiphany in the space of ten minutes. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: Like, when it happens fast. Jitarth Jadeja: It happens very fast. It's like a damn breaking. And. Yeah. So then I, so I just, I went on Reddit and I wrote this post, and I was like, look, you guys were right. And I just wrote a post about what I was feeling, what I was thinking, and, like, just, like, how much I hated myself. And I'll link you the post or something because it's like, a part of. Chris: Me was reaction to that post, you. Jitarth Jadeja: Know, what I was expecting, and I was a part of me was hoping to get ripped apart. Slam. That's why part of me wanted, because I wanted. It was like a sort of. Almost like a mental self, emotional self flagellation. Right? I want. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to be. Yeah, I wanted to be ripped apart. Instead, the exact opposite happened. I had 150 plus comments. Every single one of those. Overwhelmingly supportive, overwhelming. And not like, dude, don't worry about it. We're all wrong sometimes. Not like that kind of casual level, unsupportive. Right? Like these. They were like, dude, like, forgive yourself. Understand. Q was made tailored to your dissatisfaction. You know, you sound like a person who reached for emotional support in unsettling political time. We all do this. Humans are social creatures.

2:20:58 Jitarth Jadeja: One person was like, dude, welcome to the world as it is. We are glad to have you here. Seriously, better you be here with us and over there with Q and these guys. If it wasn't for that Reddit post, I don't know where I would be. I don't even know if I'd even be here. Such a positive experience in the last place you'd look for it, especially on the Internet. I mean, when does this ever happen in this day and age? And it was. There was one negative comment. It wasn't even that bad. It was like, you're an idiot. And I'm like, yeah, dude, I know. Chris: At least you got the one right. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, I know. Exactly. And then ironically, like, the five of us who replied to that one comment, mine was the least, like, least upvoted. And all these other people were like, yeah, okay, Google, show me asshole. Like, stuff like that. So I didn't even need to say anything. So that was in June 2019. Now, I. Then, as a result of that, I kind of sort of picked up the rest of my life. Like, I read that. I love that thread. I read it from time to time, right? Just so I don't forget. And every time I feel bad, used to feel bad about it because it still takes, like, it took, like, a whole year to process this stuff. And then in, yeah, June, like, 2020, I was still, like. I was always.

2:22:14 Jitarth Jadeja: I was still so ashamed and looking back at what had happened because I was like, dude, I was someone who's quite. Who was quite libertarian at the time, right? So I went from left wing, like, far left to far right, basically in the space of, like a year and a half, two years. But at the same time, so I'm libertarian. I knew the ends don't justify the means. I know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and yet here I was advocating for a fascist declaration of martial law, military tribunals of civilians. Civilians, right. These are not military people. Civilians. And public executions of political enemies. And not only was I advocating for that, if that had happened, I would have been so happy. I would have cheered, like, if I saw Hillary Clinton when I.

2:23:12 Jitarth Jadeja: Like, when I was in the cold to get beheaded or something, right? I would have thrown a party, right? And I'm like, holy shit, dude. And I look, and I'm like, dude, if that had happened and this. And because it was all crap, this is. I allowed me to, like, see that, dude, I am truly capable of great evil that I'd never thought I could before. And now I really finally understand what it means to say, like, when people say, like, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because Q. The problem with Q is that it's the existential nature of the battle between good and evil. It's not like a conspiracy theory between, like, you know, authoritarians and libertarians. It's not like marxist versus capitalist, right? This is between.

2:24:00 Chris: Maybe they faked the moon landing. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, yeah. It's like, what someone, right? And this is like an existential battle between good and evil, between heaven and hell and good aliens and bad aliens for your very soul. Like, the stakes literally could not be higher. These people could not be more evil. They're not just evil. They're the most evil. Demon children, blood sucking children, raping demons in human skin that you've ever seen. Right? Like, you can't imagine a more evil than that. So because of that disconnect and that existential battle extend nature of the QAnon conspiracy theory, people are willing to see do their political opponents great evil and not just watch them burn, but cheer as they burn. This is how you get good people to do bad things. This is exactly how it happens.

2:24:56 Jitarth Jadeja: You know, we all think about every now and again, like, we've all thought about it. What would I do if I was in Nazi Germany during World War two and they were rounding up all these Jews and shit, right? They also. Hitler also made a similar kind of narrative where the Jews are existential evil, and we always think, dude, like, bro, like, for sure I would have, like, done something, right. Like, dude, how could you not? You know, we always like to think of ourselves as a good person who would have done the right thing. Chris: Sure. Jitarth Jadeja: I was no different, right? And then I look back at it now, and I'm like, dude, I would have been a fucking Nazi. I would have been a fucking Nazi. And I know that it's not a guess, right? I know that's exactly what happened with QAnon and that darkness that existed in my own heart, which I didn't think did, I didn't think was possible. That's a thought that still disturbs me to this day. And that is why QAnon is dangerous. It's not just crazy, it's not just wacky. It's not just like, what the hell, right? These people are mentally ill or something like that, whatever, right? All of that is true. But the level of evil and good and the battle that people.

2:26:13 Jitarth Jadeja: And the lengths that these people want, martial law, a military tribunal for civilian public executions, and against political opponents, against Democrats, against people like Hillary Clinton in the, you know, the Silicon Valley. And. And then it used to be a little bit more. It used to be quite secular and bipartisan when it first started. But as a result of being banned from, say, Reddit and a couple of other platforms, it shifted to, like, vote, for example. And that's when this, like, whole, like, really anti jewish thing came into about this pro christian thing, this pro Republican. And then now it's just basically, I. Chris: Was wondering where the pro christian thing came from. Yeah.

2:26:56 Jitarth Jadeja: The other major thing that got me out of QAnon was the simple fact that it kind of circles back to a little bit. It circles all the way back to Bernie Sanders, because I, like I said, I was following the media for a long time. I remembered 911 and WikiLeaks for the longest time. You know, they were just rolling out, embarrassing all these officials and contracting governments, and they have always been bipartisan. Dude, Abu grade was against Republicans. Right? Chris: Right. And the NSA revelations were pretty. That was pretty neutral, too. And, yeah, hella important.

2:27:38 Jitarth Jadeja: Snowden, I think that was Snowden. You can think Julian Assange is a russian asset if you want. I don't think so. He's never. There's never been any evidence. He's unloaded a load. Load so much shit on Russia. Whatever you think about Julian Assange, whatever you think, we all agree that he. Dude, he's the reason why Trump won. Trump would not have won without WikiLeaks. It wasn't like James Comey and all of this stuff. All of that is because of WikiLeaks. All of this happened because WikiLeaks showed what happened in the democratic convention. I'm sorry, the primary, all the Bernie Bros going over to Donald Trump, like, the ten or 20% that did, Donald Trump won because of Julian Assange. And because of that, he owes Julian Assange. He owes him more than he owes any other singular person.

2:28:26 Jitarth Jadeja: Obviously, he owes, like, you know, the american people the most. But I mean, like, as a granular individual, single person. Donald Trump owes Julian Assange the most. And he's on record as saying, you know, he likes Julian Assange, and he knows about Julian Assange, and he likes WikiLeaks, right, to then saying he doesn't know anything about WikiLeaks, and he wouldn't mind if Julian Assange was put on trial. And I'm like, dude, forgive part of my french, but you fucking piece of shit, Donald. You piece of filthy traitors. Just to me, I'm like, the idea of betraying someone who helped you the most is so egregious. And also because, dude, I like Julian Assange. Obviously, I'm biased, right? Because regardless of whether he's russian talent or not, you cannot doubt the veracity of his documents.

2:29:20 Jitarth Jadeja: Nothing he has ever said has ever been shown to be anything other than completely true. Everything WikiLeaks has been released is 100% correct. Because they have hashtags, right? They have proof. Without getting too technical into it, you can look it up right now. I sound like my dad. I've done the research. You can look it up. Listen to me. I know what I'm talking about, right? But, like, legitimately, right? Nothing WikiLeaks has ever. It's not. It's never about what WikiLeaks release. It's always about the intention, right? Or who's behind WikiLeaks or whatever. No one ever comments on what they actually released, which is a great pivot away from, like, you know, by all the institutions that are under the gun. But anyway, so when Donald Trump then.

2:30:07 Jitarth Jadeja: And he was being extradited, and I thought initially at the start of Q, you know, there was a whole thing about Julian Assange would be the one to blow the COVID of the cabal. Donald Trump would pardon him and whatnot, right? Then, you know, all of a sudden, his citizen, his, not citizenship, his, asylum gets revoked by Ecuador. He gets arrested, right? And this is definitely. This is one conspiracy theory I 100% hold on to this day. And I hate every other conspiracy theory of my entire life. Even now with Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton, I'm like, dude, maybe he just needed a lift. All right? Chris: Okay. Jitarth Jadeja: I hate them with a passion. So this one I still believe in. It's like, look, you can. I don't want to go too deep into it, because that's not. It's irrelevant. But it's like, you know, the Swedish. Those rape charges that were dropped straight after, like, you know, he got. He's got taken out of the ecuadorian asylum. Like, the women have come out and say, recanted some stories.

2:31:06 Chris: Right? Jitarth Jadeja: I think one of them has maybe both. It's like, this is so obvious, like, trying to get him. Like, I laugh about it because otherwise I'm. Right. So obvious, dude. Like, what do you mean? Like, oh, no, he's rapist. That's why they want him to. Just a coincidence that he's embarrassing world governments for the last 20 years. I feel like it's like, it's. My dad says, like, you know, I'd rather be a conspiracy theorist than a coincidence dentist. Chris: And then it's an interesting statement. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, I find it really funny. Right? I still find it funny, even though now I'm on the opposite side. I was wondering. I'm like, what's going on here? And then there was a Washington Post article that was just talking about how, dude, the United States government, Donald Trump's administration, used the IMF to give Ecuador a big loan as a quid pro quo to revoke Julian Assange's asylum. And now they're extraditing him to United States to face trial, right? And it's like, dude, why is he extraditing him? He doesn't need to charge him to pardon him. He could do it right away. Donald Trump is doing this. Right? And that is the kind of intelligence that's. That's enough. That's, like, probably the biggest, the final big thing that got me out of this Q stuff.

2:32:25 Jitarth Jadeja: So it was essentially things that I knew before Q, before I went down the conspiracy hole, these two things, these things that I held to be self evident and true, as close to any truth that I have with anything else, right? These things that are probably part of my character and my nature and my behavior, it's when these things were challenged directly and objectively, right? After a long period of better social reduction, social isolation and mental health, that I was able to get out. And that's why I can't give anyone any advice on how to get your loved ones or your friends or your family or what we're going to do about it, because I can only tell you what happened to me, and I. You can't. How do I. How do you scale up a deprogramming that's tailored to an individual? Can you?

2:33:19 Jitarth Jadeja: I don't even know. Chris: But even that in itself, I think, is useful information. Right. Because what it says to me is that if you had to recommend something, you would say, Taylor, tailor your response. You would say, it depends on the person. Right? Jitarth Jadeja: Depends. I would even say, don't even talk about QAnon. Right. Make the issue their behavior, because it's the behavioral change that is the most disturbing aspect when you're presented with this concept that the world is almost a fake reality. Right. There's a lot of angst, instability, fear. There's a lot of fear. That is the undercurrent of all their irrational behaviors. They are scared because Q is telling them to be scared of everyone. The mainstream media, the Democrats, the cabal, anyone, right? So they are panicked. They are in fear, and as a result, people do stupid things when they're afraid. So make the issue their behavior. Talk about, hey, see, look. You know, talk to your husband and say, look, dude, why? Like, that's fine. Let's assume QAnon is real.

2:34:23 Jitarth Jadeja: But why doesn't explain why you've been on your computer for the last three weeks doing nothing. The kids still need to be dropped to soccer practice. You still need to go and wash the garden. Like, wash the. Wash the garden? Like, hose down the garden, wash the garage door. Right? Like, try and get them away, back into their everyday life and routine. You need to. QAnon has become their routine. You need to. And you can't do this straight away. It won't like that. That won't happen. You have to nudge them slowly but surely, and it's gonna. And it requires a lot of patience, and it's a fine line, but it can happen. It can happen. I like, I've seen it with my dad. Right? He still believes in QAnon. I introduced my dad to QAnon.

2:35:06 Jitarth Jadeja: I have a lot of guilt about that, and he still believes in it, but his behavior has changed. It's come. It's an ever evolving situation and changes every day. Like, my. It's almost like. It's almost like I'm South Korea, he's North Korea. Qanon is the DMZ. My mom and my sister are the United nations and the US enforcing this. Right. It's almost like. And every now and again, we'll trade. We'll take potshots at each other from across the border. Every now and again, you know, we might actually have a phone call and just talk about something that affects us. So, like. Chris: That'S a good analogy. Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Thank you. It's a bit like that, but his behavior is back to normal. Like, it's almost as normal as he can be. He still does stuff for me. He still goes and does shopping, does the laundry, you know, makes my food, stuff like that. We still talk and joke, things like that. That's the only thing I can really recommend. But the flip side is that's not viable for everyone because people's families are being torn apart. Like you see on the subreddit called QAnon. Underscore casualties. That part of that too. Yeah. Yeah. That also has. I think it might have more, but it's at least almost the same number of subs as colt headquarters. Just the general anti QAnon sub, it's like 34, 35,000. I remember when it was 200 and the first and the general sub had about 20,000.

2:36:36 Jitarth Jadeja: And now, since it's Covid, it's exploded. People's families are being ripped apart. Decades of marriages have ended. Kids have been thrown out of their house. There was a. There was a post just the other day about a girl who came back from college, and her dad has said to her, he will end her if she stops him from trying to radicalize her younger brother. I don't even read. I can't even read a lot of these posts. Right? Yeah, I do. I try to. Now, ironically, I'm like, I'll be granted some mod access to it as well, just to verify media requests. Between that and another subreddit specifically for QAnon recovery. Executable. So just reading these posts, it's so difficult, and people can't do that. So some people, I would say, do run.

2:37:26 Jitarth Jadeja: Run as far away and understand, on the flip side, this is nothing. This person, this cultist, this is not the same person you knew. They are different. I was different. I was. Dude. I was more intolerant, more impatient, more aggressive. I was constantly agitated, constantly stressed. I could not talk about anything except QAnon. I'm bringing up constantly all the time. I was essentially an addict who was using, needing my hithen constantly every day. It is. It is a cult. Chris: Well, there it is. There you go. It's a cult. So that wraps up our QAnon series.

2:38:07 Kayla: Bye. Chris: Well, actually, there's more interview that you guys probably want to hear. Kayla: Oh, shit. Okay. Jitarth Jadeja: It is a virtual online conspiracy cult with a political twist. And the worst part about it is that with any doomsday cult, when the. There's something called forcing the end. This is going to air about a month after the election, right? This is perfect. So Joe Biden's going to win. I think that's. I think someone even on Fox News said there was like a 5% chance of Trump winning. Right? Let's go with this assumption, right, that Joe Biden is going to win. Even with the courts and all of that stuff. I don't think Donald Trump's going to get anywhere. I think he will lose as a result of that. I do think he's going to run again. Right. I just can't see him not running again. Totally see it. God help us.

2:38:56 Jitarth Jadeja: But then as a result of that, when any doomsday cult and the inevitable doomsday doesn't arrive, what happens is, yeah, people drop off. People realize it was crap, right? But a certain proportion of hardcore people try and do this thing where they called force the end, where they try and act in a way that allows doomsday to occur. They try and create the doomsday. This is already happening with Q. I see. I've seen. I've seen people say maybe Q was fake this whole time. It really made me so happy to see a few posts like that. Right. For some people have definitely realized and woken up to it. Problem is, there are millions of q followers now all around the world. There's millions. We're only talking about, like a 1%, if we're lucky, of people falling off.

2:39:40 Jitarth Jadeja: Even if it was 50%, even if it was 90%, there's still gross number of a lot of hardcore hundreds, thousands of hardcore followers who still are even more in within the black hole of the cult than before. They will try and force the end. They will. The narrative will occur. Oh, dude, maybe we are the great awakening. Maybe the great this, the whole kudo that we are supposed to do, the great awakening. And that's what q was. It was the awakening of us. You know, we are the ones who are meant to do these, get these military tribunals and seal in diamonds and blah, blah, right? And given that they think it's a battle between life and death, right, the states, anything could happen. Anything. People could literally, like, commit suicide and shoot their whole family. People could try and assassinate political opponents.

2:40:33 Jitarth Jadeja: People could blow out, like, just ram antifa with Kawasaka. Like, I swear to God, I hope that doesn't happen, but, like, people could. This is. That's historically what happens with cults, and this is a phenomenon like we've ever seen before. Chris: And the fact that it's so big that you were just saying is part of it, you know, at least Jonestown, as awful as it was at the time, was isolated, you know? Jitarth Jadeja: Correct, correct. And now this is in every country. I joined a finnish organization. It's a volunteer organization that's trying to stop queued on in taking root in Finland first, and then hopefully I saw. Chris: That on the culp headquarters. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, yeah. Collectivity. There's. It's in Germany, it's in Australia, it's in England. It's in the UK. Like in. Sorry, in the US, obviously. There's, like. It's. There was a post saying it was in some asian country, like Thailand or something. Right? So all these movements, right? You saw that hunter Biden stuff, for example, and there was all these rumors about Hunter Biden and underage girls and whatnot. Dude, that's. That's Qanon. All these right wing. The right has completely allowed the wolf into the henhouse. They have no idea who these people are. A lot of them are sympathetic to these people because they don't understand what they have. And as a result of that, we had anti lockdown protests in Australia recently. While they weren't massive, they still. They were still significant. And there was violence. Save the children. That was on signs.

2:42:06 Jitarth Jadeja: That was everywhere. That's Qanon. Chris: Does it scary. Do like, people like Major Tyler Taylor. Excuse me, Major Taylor Greene. The fact that she got elected yesterday. Jitarth Jadeja: Yes, yes. Another. There was another QAnon follower that got elected to Congress yesterday. Not just her. Chris: Yeah, I forget the name. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah, yeah. That's two. There were 90 running. What happens in four years? What happens in eight years? QAnon is not going away. Even if Trump loses, QAnon's not going away. He survived every single thing. He survived being wrong a billion times. He survived the fact. There was another mantra we used to repeat where Q said, no outside comms, because eventually all the alternative conspiracy media that used to promote Q slowly but surely turned against them. Because it's just money. Q is taking all their. Advertise, all their. All their followers, right? They're against it. So, like, they're like, this guy's full of shit. And then Q would be like, yeah, Alex Jones is secretly a member of the cabal, right? He said that. My point was that I was making was that, Q survived everything. He. We had a mantra. No outside comms.

2:43:18 Jitarth Jadeja: That means no a. Only on a chan on that board could you trust. It was Q. Eight got taken down. Now it's acorn. He survived that, right? He'll survive Donald Trump losing. He will survive that. Donald Trump could die tomorrow and he'll survive that. And this Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other one. And the 90k on believers or, you know, whatever, followers, you know, dilly Dahlias who are also running for Congress. Dude, it's in the Congress now, for God's sake. And it's only a couple years, four years old for a political movement to come out of note, to think about this, a political movement that started on four chan in three years is now in Congress. That's an incredible acceleration. These things take years and decades, right? Lyndon LaRouche has been trying for like.

2:44:18 Chris: 50 years, since before I was born. Right? Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Nowhere at the speed of light. Okay. Like it's. I'm. Yeah, man, I'm worried. I'm really worried. Chris: I think that there, do you have any sense of what we can do to help fight that wave or do you think it's just coming and we have to be prepared? Jitarth Jadeja: I think there's, you gotta. If you've got the, let's say you got the demographics of the cultists, right? If you look at them as a group, the social media bands will cut off the intense spread. Thank God. Because that had to happen at some point. Like, ironically, I've never been less libertarian than I have been that I am now because of COVID okay? I'm like, oh, that's why governments exist, so they can react quickly in a time of viral infection. I get it now. I get it.

2:45:09 Chris: I guess there's some circuit. I used to be pretty libertarian myself. I guess there's some situations that collective action is actually necessary to be certain. Jitarth Jadeja: As a result of that, you've got this big block of cured potential. And current cultists, social media bans will cut off the flow of potential cultists. Some people in the middle, on the edge will naturally just, anytime you draw an arbitrary line, people are going to fall one way or the other. But having said that, the current cultists will only push them even more hardcore. Hugh being wrong and Donald Trump losing will also cut into that. People will fall away. They'll go into other conspiracy theories. You know, Q is a psyop. They'll come back to reality, think they will realize they were wrong. Those people who come off from that group, the group two, they need to be reintegrated back to society the same way I was, with empathy and understanding.

2:46:08 Jitarth Jadeja: And they need to be able, they need to be given their dignity back. They have to have some incentive to come back. It's so much fun and it's so easy to ridicule them because they are so easy and fun to ridicule. I do it all the time, dude. There's nothing wrong with making fun of people. Okay. Really? Like, if you're with your friends, you make fun of me. Okay. But obviously, at that particular learning moment that all these people from group two will have, that is the point where you have to be empathetic, understand it, and give them permission to hold on to some of their self esteem, because there's. You have to give them some incentive to come back. Otherwise, why would they. Why? What are they?

2:46:54 Jitarth Jadeja: Like, if you just ostracize them and say you're a moron, ridicule them for the rest of their life, why would they come back? Chris: Who would, right? It seems like there is no coming. I mean, when you were going through your story, it struck me how part of what you got you into QAnon was your disillusionment and an inability to trust for legitimate reasons, the mainstream media and mainstream sources. And then you found QAnon as, like, a way to combat that and then to have the same, like, crisis of. The same crisis of under. Of trust with. With that. Jitarth Jadeja: It's not we. That's way. I just want to make that. Chris: Yeah, I know. It strikes me as, like, that must have been even. Almost even harder than your first crisis of trust, right? Because, like, you already had one, and so how could this. How could the medicine be doing this?

2:47:44 Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. The cure is worse than the disease. Chris: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Right. And, like, that's. That's very. I think that's a great point you bring up. That is. It is like that, but it is better in the long run. I look back on it, and people, it's gonna seem strange. Dude, I am so lucky and glad that I went through all of this. I never want to go through anything like that again. Please. Jesus, God, Buddha, la Krishna, Joseph Smith, anyone, please. Just enough. Enough learning. Can let me just cruise for the rest of my life. Please, God. Okay, that won't happen. I'm sure that won't happen, but I could try. But, like, yeah, I'm glad I went through that, because if I didn't, who knows what could have happened? I could have done some great evil.

2:48:28 Jitarth Jadeja: I would never have confronted the darkness that's in my own heart, the abyss, and that exists inside me, and I needed to confront that. Pain is how we grow. Chris: So there's kind of a lot to unpack. There's still more interview here, but. But we've gone a while, and he's talked about a lot of things that are really deep and interesting, so I wanted to speak to a couple of those with you here before we get to the end. And just kind of do our wrap up reaction thing first. Kayla: Can I just say, yeah, I know. Chris: I mispronounced Marjorie Taylor Greene again. Kayla: I wasn't gonna bring that up. Chris: For some reason, I just can't get it right. I don't know why. Kayla: No, what I was gonna say is I feel so validated about what over the years of me lamenting to you, hey, this thing is dangerous. This is legit dangerous. You are dangerous.

2:49:23 Chris: So smart. You got it right ahead of everyone else. Kayla: I know that. I'm just saying. Chris: That's literally what you're saying. Kayla: It's nice, on a totally selfish level to hear that. I wasn't crazy for thinking that this thing was legit dangerous. And I'm very sorry that so many people have to have gotten involved in something so dangerous and that something this dangerous has gotten this big. But I'm glad that, like, I wasn't just making something up and it really scary and bad as we thought. Chris: Great, great. Call Kayla. Why don't you start picking some stocks for us or something? And then I'll. Kayla: I'll just. I'll. I'll send you an email. Chris: Just send me and seven other people emails and one personal. Yeah. So, boy, kind of going back to what he was, one of the things that was really interesting about his epiphany moment with the subreddit.

2:50:15 Kayla: Right. Chris: And he talks about this a little bit more in a minute. But I thought it was really interesting that he sort of wanted them to react negatively. Like, he wanted to make that post and he wanted to get that. It feels like penance almost. Kayla: Well, because you. We tend to feel like we deserve punishment when we do something bad. Yeah, we want to be punished. But the thing is, you're a victim here. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Kayla: You don't necessarily deserve punishment. Chris: I know. I know. It's so complicated because I get it. Right. I so get the wanting. Like, if I were that situation, I would want the same thing. And I feel like my brain has done that, and not with QAnon, but with other situations that I've been in where I've been like, please just yell at me for this.

2:51:03 Kayla: Please yell at me for this. Chris: You know? Like, yeah. So that's that. I thought. Kayla: It's like when your parents, like, don't get mad at you for something that you think they are really gonna get. Chris: Mad at you, right? I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Kayla: It's worse when they're not even disappointed, when they, like, understand and, like, are going to help you, and it's like what? It's very confusing. Chris: Stop helping me grow emotionally. It's very hard. He also talked a bit a little while back about ends justifying means. Kind of connected in my brain a little bit there with, like, our Rokos basilisk episode, because we talked a lot about utilitarianism there and the trolley problem. And I think that's part of the issue with why. That's why it's hard to use those. That calculus, that utilitarian calculus when talking about decision making and moral decision making by some future entity is because we don't know. We don't have perfect information. In fact, most of the time, our information is crap. If you're a Qanoner and you have these stakes, and it's like you absolutely feel like it's the right thing to do to have your enemies executed and whatever, because they're the stakes.

2:52:15 Kayla: There's literally a cabal. Evil satanic elites are not only sex trafficking and sacrificing and eating and mutilating children, but also trying to cause the downfall and enslavement of the rest of global society. The stakes do not get higher. Chris: Yeah. And that's the trolley problem. Of course. Kayla: The ends justify the means. Chris: That's the trolley problem again, right? Is. Yes. I would totally make the trolley run over Hillary Clinton because it means it's saving all of these children from adrenochrome. Kayla: That's a harvest problem. Chris: It's totally the trolley problem. What are you talking about? Kayla: The trolley problem isn't, would you run over Hillary Clinton to stop her from eating babies? Chris: It's a version of the trolley. The trolley problem is a metaphor.

2:52:56 Kayla: It's different than the trolley problem because it's not would you run over a criminal to save ten innocent people with QAnon? It's. I want this criminal to be. I think it is moral and right for them to be run over. Chris: Okay. Okay. Kayla: Cause the Trump promises we gotta kill Hillary Clinton. Cause then it'll save a bunch of people. No, it's Hillary Clinton deserves to die because she's sucking the blood out of babies. Chris: Okay. Cause in the actual trolley problem, the one person you're saving for the five doesn't necessarily deserve death, but Hillary Clinton does. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Okay, got it. And then finally, is just sort of his epiphany about, like, you know, the darkness inside of him and, like, he's lucky to have realized that. And I actually think that's true. Like, as shitty as it was for him to go through this, he's had this learning experience that maybe a lot of people don't have, because it's not the darkness in him, it's the darkness in people. Like, this is just something that we all have in us, and it's important to recognize that it's not.

2:53:57 Kayla: We all have this. Chris: We all have that, including me and you. Like, we talked about this in the first episode of QAnon. We might talk about it in the next episode. But sometimes I wonder if I. If I am capable of shitty things because I have such high stakes anxiety for climate change. Right? Like, I don't know, if there was a military tribunal, like, shooting all the people that are killing us from the climate. Like, would I be like, yay? I mean, no, probably not. But I do worry about that. I worry about, like, man, what would get me to that point? Kayla: And I think that. I don't think that there's anybody that doesn't have a capability of getting to that, but I don't think it means that, like, we're all inevitably gonna become evil under the right circumstances. No, I just think that we all have the capability. We all have the propensity given the right circumstances. And I think that. That maybe that's, like, one of the only ways to really, I don't even. I don't even think it's an inoculation, but, like, maybe one of the only ways to kind of inoculate yourself from getting involved in evil, especially evil cults, is realizing that you have that in you.

2:55:08 Chris: You are not immune. Yeah, you're absolutely not immune. You're not even immune just because you know about it. Kayla: Right. Chris: I would also add to that I think that there's that individual element that you said about us inoculating ourselves, but there's also a very sort of, you know, it's a design problem thing. There's also very much a societal element to it because you were saying, you know, what are those circumstances that get us into that? And I think that, for me, I've been thinking about this a lot this year, but I think that survival is, like, the opposite of morality, isn't immorality, it's survival. I think that morality, as we sort of know it, as we understand it, is really it's just these norms and things that we have in our brains that we've developed and teach our young, blah, blah. And it's social glue.

2:56:00 Chris: It allows us to build giant societies where we're all living packed to each other in cities and working together, blah, blah. That allows that to happen. Kayla: Right. Chris: But when you remove that you get back down to this, like, survival mechanism, this survival behavior, right. And morality just kind of goes out the window because you're in a survival situation. The thing that I think about a lot for this is, would you steal. Kayla: A loaf of bread to feed your family? Chris: Right, exactly. Because Aladdin did, and he was not. Kayla: Stealing it to feed his family, he was stealing it to feed himself, and then he gave it to somebody else. But he had to be, like, pressured into it, basically. Chris: He didn't have to be pressured into it. He just saw a kid and he was like, here's your bread, dude. Kayla: Just saying he wasn't stealing it for that kid, he was stealing it for himself.

2:56:43 Chris: You know, if that kid wants to eat, he should learn how to do all that parkour shit that Aladdin could do. Kayla: I'm not saying it's immoral to steal a bread of feed yourself. Chris: Well, that wasn't the example I was gonna give. I was gonna use an example from a fellow podcast. You may not have heard of him because he's not as big a deal as we are, but Dan Carlin, I'm a big Dan Carlin fan. I listen to a lot of hardcore history. I know, shocking. Anyway, he has got this. He's in the middle of a series now on the Pacific theater of World War Two. And he talks a lot about how the Pacific theater got to be really ugly. Kayla: It was such a fun time. Chris: Really, really nasty. Yeah. One of the stories he tells is how one of the things japanese soldiers would do is they would feign injury after a battle and then sort of do like a suicide bomb type thing where they would, like, attack people that were then going over the battlefield after the battle, which is horrible, because then what american soldiers would do is they would say, okay, well, I guess we have to go double tap all these casualties now because otherwise we're gonna die.

2:57:50 Kayla: Right. Chris: Which is awful. That's like, you're not supposed, like, independent of that. Like, killing injured folks, like showing no quarter on the battlefield. Like, that is literally against like centuries of like, warfare, ethics and morale, whatever. But in this survival situation, it's like. Kayla: The centuries of warfare and ethics is like, don't play dead in mass numbers. Chris: They were. Yeah, exactly. So when you get into that survival situation, a decision that you make that under normal circumstances would be completely immoral is suddenly, well, I had to do it to survive. Kayla: Right. Chris: So you get into basically just like a different mindset. It's like a different set of rules.

2:58:34 Kayla: Right. Chris: And I think that happens with things like QAnon too, where if you feel like you're being threatened in a survival situation, if you feel like this, if you have enough fear, like Jatarath was saying, then you get into this position where you're making decisions that are not moral. That's where that darkness in his heart, I think, that he's talking about comes from. And so the way you fix that is not to say, like, you bad soldier, you shouldn't do that. The way you fix that is you try to make sure that the war doesn't happen, right? You try to, like, end the war or not start it, because in that situation, that's just what's gonna happen, right?

2:59:15 Kayla: The moral, like, the bottom line, most moral thing we can do as a society is work together to keep ourselves and our friends and our family and our fellow man and our fellow humans out of these survival situations where they are then forced to make these really shitty decisions that in the moment of 100%, you're gonna choose survival, and then you're forced to deal with the fallout of that after your survival. Chris: Right. Which is what Jatar is being forced to do now, where he feels terrible about it with QAnon. I think, obviously, there's a bunch of people that aren't actually in a survival situation, which is part of what's so insidious about it is that Q can convince his followers that it is just from what they're reading online. Like, we talked about that last episode with the, you know, comparing it to the ARG, when you get engaged with it starts polluting your mind. Like Jatar says, you have a different conception of reality where you are in a survival situation, even though that's not real, even though you're, like, you're totally fine. Like, you can eat, go to work, you can do whatever.

3:00:27 Kayla: You're not literally locked in the basement of Comet Ping pong, getting about to have your adrenochrome harvested and satanic ritual. Chris: So anyway. Kayla: And if you are, if you do find yourself locked in a cage at the bottom of comet Ping pong with about to be harvested for adrenochrome, you have our permission to do whatever you need to do to get out of that situation and survive, and then come on our podcast and blow the whole lid off of Pizza gate. Chris: Yeah. Please come on our podcast if you find that pizzagate was real, because that would be. We would be breaking that news, man. Kayla: That would be the carry on top of this. Chris: Can you imagine? Kayla: The last episode is, oh, by the way, surprise. Chris: All right, let's go back to the interview because we still have a good, like, ten minutes of it, and then we'll kind of wrap up.

3:01:10 Jitarth Jadeja: So I'm glad I went through that. I never want to go through anything like that again. But most of all, I'm very lucky. I'm very lucky because it's, like, because I had a strong. While this was going on, my family was like, my rock. They're all there. They're still around. My siblings, me, my mom, my dad. Live in. Live my parents house. Right? I moved back in so I could finish uni. Now I got Covid and stuff, so, like, whatever. Plus, it's awesome living at home. I love it. I don't know why people hate it, but then my parents, they don't like a lot of the stuff I do, but, like, they can't stop me. And anyway, my sister lives down the street with my brother in law and my niece, and she's so cute, and I see her every day for hours.

3:01:53 Jitarth Jadeja: She comes over, babysitter and whatnot. So sweet. And I got it. Like, I lost a lot of friends. I'm not gonna lie. Probably lost, like, 90%. However, the ones that stayed, right? Like. Like, you know that they'll never leave you. They're rock solid, that they're always gonna be there, and it's great. Like, it's really good. It's even cathartic. I'm even lucky that I get to talk about it. The first time a journalist contacted me, I, after reading my Reddit post was in last June. It was weird. It was, like, almost, like a year to the day since I made that Post, and I didn't respond to them for a month, right? And I'm like, do I want this? Do I want to be known as this guy? What is that going to do to my social status? Not that I particularly care, right?

3:02:36 Jitarth Jadeja: But that is something that will impact other people care about it, so it is something that affects me. Employment opportunities. Just Google my name. You can find, you know, all this stuff. Crazy Qanon. I talk about having bipolar, ADHD, epilepsy. Like, these are all things that, you know, that people could easily hold against you, and you wouldn't blame them for that. That's very natural. But at the same time, I was like, this was the worst, most guilt, disgusting, embarrassing, shameful thing that I ever did in my entire life. And it's such a burden on me. That ball that I was talking about earlier that was hanging around me for so long, it gets smaller and smaller with every time I talk about it. I knew, dude, people will think that the Kieran cultists, right? They'll be like, they could turn up to my house.

3:03:26 Jitarth Jadeja: Okay. For sure. On eight chan. They already know, like, where I live, what my parents names are. They've got photos of my house from Google Street View. I talked about the safety concerns with. Especially with my niece and everything, and, like, with my friends and my family, especially my family, because it affects them, too. And they were like. They were like, dude, do it. If it would do what? Do what you think you should do. Also, I'm lucky because I also did. I live in Sydney, in Australia. If I was in America, I probably wouldn't say anything, dude. Like, I'm fingers crossed for us. Chris: Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: Like, so many guns everywhere. I'm like, you know, like, we live. I live in Sydney, dude. I live. Like, it's boring. It's great. But, yeah, like, I'm lucky that I get to release some of this burden, you know? Most people obviously are just like, dude, guys, a borad, like, blah, blah. And it just makes me laugh now. I swear to God. Just makes me laugh. I don't even. I don't even feel bad about it. Like, people are misquoting me, right? It's like, Jatai just says he has a new job. Well, are you working for the open? Like, the George Soros foundation? I'm like, where did I say I have a new job? Did you read the article? Some guy said.

3:04:36 Violet: Yeah, some guy said, I was in. Jitarth Jadeja: A Steven Seagal movie because I was in some Australian made for tv movie when I was a kid. And I'm like, he was in a Steven Seagal movie? I'm like, Steven Seagal? Chris: That makes you a crisis actor now, right? Yeah. Jitarth Jadeja: It's so funny because I do have an IPV, but the best one was on the Donald win when it was like, dude, this guy, like, he's the worst. The most obnoxious thing about this is that he's not even american. He's an immigrant to Australia who took up us politics as a hobby. Fuck him, bro. Then the next quote was like, dude, he's not a real person. Trust me. And the last line was, I know. Seriously, bro. What a stupid fake name.

3:05:21 Chris: Fake person all the time. Jitarth Jadeja: Dude, I love so hard. That's what my sister. Chris: Really good deep fake, by the way, for our audience, we're on video chat here. So I do my best. Like, I do my best is really spot on. Jitarth Jadeja: I do. Thank you, thank you. I do my best. Yeah, I'm really lucky. Yeah. People have said to me, like, dude, your story gave me hope for the first time in a long time. And I was like, that's really nice. I'm glad. I'm glad that people, there's some benefit to others because it's not about me and not about what I want. It's almost like a bit of, I view it as, like, my penance. I want other people to know that do this, can, like, they, you can come back and it's okay.

3:06:05 Chris: I mean, honestly, that gives me hope, too, like that, you know, not to be like, you know, weird about it, but it's the same thing for me. Like, it's a tough time in the US right now, even with Biden looking like he's going to win and maybe some normalcy coming with that, but there's still a lot of turmoil right now, as I'm sure you're well aware and especially, like were talking about with the QAnon folks that are running for and in some cases winning congressional seats. That's scary. And it is hopeful, even for me, to hear these words that you're saying that people can come back from this and that. And then the fact that you've been able to do constructive, sort of, like, fulfilling stuff with it by kind of telling your story is really good.

3:06:49 Chris: And it's the vulnerability, too, that you showed with the Reddit post is pretty inspiring. Jitarth Jadeja: And it's like, it's not even about being, it's just being honest. Right. That's it. Just being honest. Like, just tell the truth. Tell what happened to let the cards fall where they may, you know, the chips. Sorry. Chris: Like, the fact that you said you put that out there and didn't know whether people were gonna come back and call you. Oh, you moron. Right. Yeah. The fact that you didn't know whether that was going to be the response, it was like, extremely brave. Jitarth Jadeja: You know, it's true, but it's not entirely brave because, remember, that's kind of what I wanted. That's kind of what I wanted, you know? So it was a combination of that very selfish incentive and also the combination of a selfless incentive where they were right and I wanted them to know they were right, because if I was right, I would want someone to tell me. It was a weird mixture of these two. So in a strange way, it's a good rapper because it's like, yeah, dude, darkness and light, right? However much you've got in, no one knows. So it's. Everything's just a mixture of that. It's all shades of gray. Right.

3:07:58 Chris: Yeah, I think that's fascinating too, that you have that self awareness of it being the post, being somewhat selfish and that self flagellating, I want people to attack me sort of way because I feel like I. Not in this context, but I feel like I've had that before. In certain cases where it's like your brain almost seeks that out in a way to sort of protect that kernel of identity. Jitarth Jadeja: Yeah. Chris: And, you know, it's like protecting the kernel of that identity is almost like more important for your psychology than it is to, like, actually get the empathetic. Nice comments, but it's more healthy to get in the long run. Jitarth Jadeja: No, I know. I know exactly where you be. And I think that, like, I think everyone goes through that at some point, right? And it's like this is a part of growing up and trying to be an adult at the same time. Just like pain is how we grow. And even with the tumultuous times, like, everyone's in a lot of pain right now, right? Like, everyone's scared. You know, I'm fucking scared. And I'm like, I've got nothing to be really scared about. Like, my life is fine right now. But, you know, the one thing is, like, in the kingdom of hope, there's no winter. And throughout history, in parallel with my own life and experience, a period of great turmoil is always followed by a period of great peace and happiness and stability, always. So the more turmoil we have, the better.

3:09:25 Jitarth Jadeja: Eventually we will come out of it as. And like, just look at World War Two, the greatest generation, the roaring fifties and sixties, you know, world War. Chris: Every generation, even other plagues, like other plagues have been followed up, you know, it's sad that they happen, but they typically historically followed up by periods, prosperity. It's just hard to. It's hard to remind myself about that while we're in it, you know? Jitarth Jadeja: I know, because it's. It's always hard. Like, it's a cliche, but the dark is always. It's always darker before the dawn and all that stuff, right? But it's almost like it's because it's hard to see that far ahead, right? And I try and remember, like, where I was ten years ago. Like ten years ago, like, I just finished my degree now, economics and mathematics. I got a distinction. Average was great. Everything's so good, right? Ten years ago I was expelled from the second university I had attended for the second time. No one knew I wasn't going to uni. This had been going on for years. Lying to everyone, no money, living outside, living on my own, and sleeping on basically a mattress, ironically, in my dad's investment property.

3:10:33 Jitarth Jadeja: So it was a beautiful house, and yet I was poor as shit, so there was nothing in it. So I remember how I felt. I remember I was like, how will I ever finish uni? It's impossible. I just look back ten years ago, and I'm like, dude, awesome. And I can't. I never would have thought that I would have finished uni, for example, let alone finish with a good GPA. So I'm like, I always take heart from that. I'm like, dude, that was probably. That actually, in a way, was probably worse feeling than realizing QAnon was, like, fake and I'd been so wrong. That was actually because there. It seemed like there was no hope. It seemed like there was no hope. Whereas with QAnon, it's like. Jitarth Jadeja: It's a very abstract thing, whether I was right or wrong about Q and one, it doesn't affect what time I get up in the morning and where, you know, what job I have and all of that stuff. It's a very abstract, mental thing. But this was, like, directly impacting my quality of life. So I think we all just have to remember, like, how different were you ten years ago? One year ago, you know? And easier said than done. We'll get through this together, dude. You and me, Chris.

3:12:36 Chris: So, yeah, we, We figured it out. We into Toronto. We got it all figured out. Everything's gonna be just fine as long. Kayla: As we got you two working on this. Can you guys solve the pandemic now? Chris: Yeah. You just don't get infected. Kayla: Talk about an actual survival situation that the cuban honors aren't really rising to the occasion on. Chris: Yeah, interesting. But, I mean, I think that there's a point that you make there in that, like, you don't. It doesn't have to be the same survival situation to trigger the emotional response. Kayla: It's just gotta be the made up one. Chris: We are in a situation that we are fearing for our very survival, and so that is maybe pushing people to make decisions and things.

3:13:24 Kayla: Not wearing a mask. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Kayla: No. They're ignoring the survival situation. They're not having a moral. Chris: No, the survival situation is, like, causing them to lose their damn minds. Kayla: Yeah. What I'm saying is that going back to us talking about the survival situation, how it makes you do immoral things in order to survive, whereas many Qanoners are anti maskers. So they are making immoral decisions in order to not survive. Chris: Yes. And what I am saying is that the survival situation pushes you to make decisions that you wouldn't otherwise and could be immoral. They don't always necessarily logically make sense. Like, in the case of the soldiers, it did. Right. It was like they're. Oh, they were killing people. That might blow them up. In the case of anti maskers, it's more of like a. I feel scared because everything is super fucked, and then therefore, I'm gonna, like, kind of lose a little bit of my mind. Like, that's. That's kind of the deeper thing is, like, we lose our minds a little bit when we don't feel safe.

3:14:28 Kayla: Yeah. Hashtag Qanon. Chris: Yeah. Anyway, no, I mean, I did really like his, the way he ended up there. And, in fact, that's kind of how we're gonna end up when we do our next. Because our last episode of season two is coming up, folks. That's our next episode, and it's gonna be our wrap up for QAnon, and we're gonna be talking about how to make it better. Like, what can we do to help and fix this? And we're gonna talk a little bit about. Kayla: But you and Siddharth already answered that. Chris: For us, so do we not have to do the next episode? Kayla: No, we have to do the next episode. Chris: Well, yeah, we didn't figure it out. We just decided that there's maybe a light at the end of the tunnel. I think that. But that's, you know, that's part of the episode.

3:15:12 Kayla: We're going towards the light. Chris: Yes. Go towards the light. Kayla: That was a fantastic interview. Thank you for. Chris: Yeah, it was one of the better ones, obviously. Kayla: Thank you to Jadarth for talking to you. Chris: I know. Kayla: I know how much of a fog that can be, but it was something that we're still kind of seeing with the QAnon community as it's so fresh and as it is such an insular group or cult as Jdarth, like, funky fresh. It's very funky fresh. There are not necessarily a lot of people who have been involved with it that are willing to talk about their experiences. I personally could not get anyone who was currently involved to talk to me about their experiences. And I think Jadarth is probably the only person who responded to us who'd personally been involved with QAnon to talk to us. And I think it was also in our Mike Rothschild interview where he talked about just now he's just starting to talk to folks who are leaving the community. So we're ahead.

3:16:18 Kayla: Super lucky to have that really rare, really exclusive insight. Chris: Ooh, we have exclusive insight on our podcast. We're special. The other thing that was kicking around in my head when he was talking to me about, in particular when he was discussing how he had that crisis of trust in sort of like mainstream media and whatever, and then that turned him to listen to Alex Jones and go down the q rabbit hole, and then he had the crisis of trust again where he was like, oh, my God, the cure is worse than the disease. This is horrible. Reminded me a lot, actually, of the conversation I had with that ex twin flames universe person. The way they described their sort of negative experience within the healthcare system that made them super disillusioned and again, felt unsafe, uncared for. Not like there was no recourse for this person, right.

3:17:15 Chris: And so they wound up in this twin flame universe called. Kayla: Right. Chris: And then some years later, they were like, oh, my God, that cure was worse than the disease. Now they're in a much better place. But just that journey is just. Kayla: Oh, God, it's so tragic of, like, I'm disillusioned. I found the answer. Oh, shit. The answer. I'm disillusioned now about the answer. Chris: Even worse. Right. You know what reminds me of? Reminds me of misery. Stephen King movie slash. No, because he's author guy. Kayla: Spoilers for misery. Guys, I'm in a car accident. Oh, thank God. Somebody saved. Chris: Somebody saving me. Exactly. Kayla: Oh, God. I saw a gif of the hobbling scene the other day and. Chris: Did you say Jif? Kayla: Kayla, we've already talked about that.

3:17:55 Chris: Jif. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: What is wrong with you? Kayla: I'm gonna kill you. I saw a graphics interface for me. Is that what it's called? Chris: Gif? Kayla: No, no. What is. Chris: It's graphics interchange format. Kayla: I saw a graphics interchange format the other day of the hobbling scene and. Chris: God, it's brutal. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Oh, yeah. It reminds me of that. It's just like that. And that is that trope, which unfortunately, is not just a media trope. It's happened to people in real life, is just so. Ugh, it's so devastating to me. Anyway, enough about misery, actually. Kayla: Oh, I still have. I have so much more misery content left in me. Chris: We should. We should name this episode misery. I was gonna name it casualties, but I kinda wanna name it Misery now.

3:18:42 Kayla: Do it. Chris: Cause that's how I feel. Kayla: I feel pretty miserable. Chris: Well, I feel less miserable and grateful after talking to Jatarth. Kayla: Yes. And honestly, as difficult as the stories from the top are. Again, it makes me. I am glad that there is a community for people who are losing loved ones to this really distressing movement. Chris: Yes. And if anyone is listening to this and you really want to tell your story and, you know, feel free to reach out to us. I can't guarantee that we'll be able to put it on the air or anything, but, you know, you're always welcome to shoot us an email and. And drops the line. Kayla: We're here for you, especially as we get closer. Keep saying it to the holiday season. It's just.

3:19:27 Chris: And we all get to spend time with our. Oh, never mind. Covid spiking. Kayla: Maybe that's a silver lining. I try to sometimes find silver linings of COVID Maybe that is a silver lining of COVID for some people is that if you are having trouble being around your family right now, Covid. Excuse to not get a mulligan this year. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Just use Covid as an excuse. Obviously, they don't believe in Covid, so they're probably gonna be mad. But still, you don't have to see your family, because Covid. Chris: Yeah. Well, we have one more episode coming up before the holidays, so I won't say happy holidays yet. Kayla: You can see happy holidays. Cause I think Hanukkah's starts, like, next weekend. Chris: Oh, okay. Happy, like, weird pagan holiday, then.

3:20:08 Kayla: Oh, stop. Chris: Happy Hanukkah. And, you know, merry Christmas when it comes around, when it happens, that's still another month away. Kayla: And as Chris mentioned, I think at the top of the podcast. Who knows anymore? Chris: Yeah. Thanks for sticking with us. By the way, we're on, like, what, our 9th hour of this episode? Kayla: God knows. Chris: Holy crap. Kayla: The next episode will be not depressing. Chris: Yes. Kayla: The next episode will be the thing that we are craving every time we read an article about QAnon where we just need a little glimmer of hope. The next episode will be the hope episode. Chris: Yes. Kayla: Or we'll try very hard to make it so. Chris: We will do our best. That's all we can ever do, Kayla.

3:20:50 Kayla: Just try your best. Chris: Anyway, here at the 11th hour of this episode, I want to say one more time, thank you to Violet and Kay and Jatarth and everyone else who reached out to us. And thank you to anyone that's sharing your story and providing support on Q casualties. Thank you to everyone, and hang in there. And thank you for listening. Kayla: I'm Kayla. Chris: And I'm Chris. And this has been cult or just weird?