Coming out of cultic, conspiratorial thinking is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s not the flip of a switch: “I believe in lizard people. BOOM! Now I don’t believe in lizard people.” There’s a push and pull, a rise and fall to the process. It starts with the most basic thought: “I could be wrong about this.” But turning your back on a set of theories (for lack of a better term) that one has invested so much into is difficult, and giving up all that, admitting that one is wrong is tantamount to admitting that one wasted a significant portion of the short life we have here on earth.

DeAnna Lorraine, the QAnon conspiracy theorist and rabid Trump supporter who recently ran for Congress, seems to be making those mental movements in a recent video. She begins with the assumptions of QAnon:

Because we have so much trusted this plan, we always think he’s playing 5-D chess. Anything that looks questionable, we think, “Okay, it’s a strategy. He’s playing 5-D chess. We don’t have anything to worry about.” Is it possible that that is a detriment to us?

That’s a level of self-reflection and vulnerability I would not have expected. She seems to be suggesting that her assumptions about Trump’s acumen and about the whole farcical idea that he’s battling a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles that has embedded itself in the government and entertainment industry — she sounds like she’s suggesting she might be wrong.

Later in the video, she says,

We’re going to know for sure. Is Trump really the 5-D master chess player who is just going to totally decimate the swamp and arrest all these deep state operatives and everything we’ve seen up to now is just a massive, you know, all these brilliant chess moves and it’s all going to come into play in a sting operation and QAnon is real and everything is happening and everyone was right. Is justice finally going to be served? Are we finally going to see that checkmate? Are we finally going to see the traps close? Or, we’re not. Or we’re going to find out the truth. Maybe things failed. Maybe QAnon operation wasn’t real. Maybe, maybe some things weren’t really the truth, right? But we’re going to know in about twenty-five days.

Such an admission, it seems to me, is something we should be applauding. Yes, Lorraine has done tremendous damage in spreading the QAnon nonsense, but if she can manage a shift, if she can see the light for herself, perhaps there’s hope for others. Perhaps she could be a force that mitigates the damage of the QAnon cult.

Unfortunately, I fear she’s going to be mocked. Right Wing Watch explained the video thusly:

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps she’ll never stop rationalizing. One user tweeted in response:

https://twitter.com/WasOptimist/status/1344001808906256389

But maybe that pessimism is wrong. Maybe we should give her the benefit of the doubt and not mock her. Mocking never works. It’s fun, I know — I’ve done it enough in my online life. But we know it never works. It’s like a cold wind trying to blow the jacket off someone: she just holds on more tightly. It’s a natural reaction. Mocking certainly does little to reverse this slide into hyper-partisanship we’re suffering in America now.

If anything, the more I think about it, the more I realize folks like this need compassion more than anything. They’re trapped in conspiratorial thinking that is not often easy to escape. That sounds condescending, but it’s not meant that way. These people aren’t stupid. They might have ruts in their thinking; they might lack critical thinking skills; they might gain a certain comfort from this kind of gnostic, insider thinking; they might be lacking in education to one degree or another. But they’re not stupid.

I think Michelle Obama was right: when they go low (however we might define that), we go high.