One evening in 2020, I happened across a Twitter thread miles long. The original post had been yet another news item about the far-right conspiracy theory known as QAnon, and the replies were flooded with grieving users telling stories of loved ones who had all become so entrenched in the theory’s dark fever dreams that the users had finally been forced to cut contact. For people such as these, and those in journalist Jesselyn Cook’s debut, The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, QAnon is more than an over-the-top threat to our democracy. It is a destroyer of homes and marriages, a force that orphans and isolates.
QAnon’s most radical believers think that Donald Trump and Q, an anonymous government insider, are locked in a secret battle with “a satanic cabal” of pedophiliac global elites to liberate the country and ensure democracy. Other believers embrace some but not all of the core conspiracy theories. In total, Cook writes, they number twice the population of California.
The Quiet Damage is thoughtful and nuanced, delving into the destructive phenomenon of QAnon through the very human stories of believers and the loved ones who become collateral damage. Cook defies stereotypes, featuring a diverse group of people: a brilliant and formerly progressive lawyer in Tennessee at war with her three grown children; two once-inseparable Black sisters, the relationship irreparably sundered by one’s fascination with conspiracy theories; a young husband and father at risk of losing his family as he binges endless YouTube videos; and a 50-years-married couple facing their first real divide over the wife’s disbelief in COVID-19.
Resisting the all too common temptation to mock the believers who have fallen far enough down the proverbial rabbit hole to believe in the most extreme core conspiracies, Cook instead opts for a considered and thorough investigation into the psychology of what drives people into the arms of conspiracy theorists. The Quiet Damage employs an empathy that invites the reader to feel for both the alienated, hurt families as well as the believers. And as Cook begins to explore the delicate art of bringing the lost back to reality, she makes abundantly clear that empathy and radical compassion, not ridicule, are the most important tools at our disposal.