'Shed my DNA!' New book reveals heartbreaking stories of how QAnon ripped families apart

The QAnon movement has torn apart families to an extent that few people realize, according to a new book by Jesselyn Cook, reviewed by Jonathan Russell Clark of The Washington Post.

The abandonment of those adopting this conspiracy theory, which holds that America is controlled by a cabal of Satanists who traffic children and consume their blood, has been well documented. But in this new book, "The Quiet Damage," specific and heartbreaking cases are explored in more detail.

The movement has been linked to old Nazi conspiracy theories, and has spurred bizarre spectacles like the "ReAwaken America" tour with former President Donald Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and gatherings in Dallas where believers thought that former President John F. Kennedy would reveal he was still alive and working with Trump to defeat the forces of evil.

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Cook, wrote Clark, "grapples with the personal ramifications for many of Q’s devotees and the people who care about them" with a special intent to "humanize those deeply committed followers who are so easy to dismiss as delusional or gullible or worse. She also hopes to answer the question she received in 'a cascade of emails from strangers across the country sharing chilling' stories of those who abruptly recalibrated their identities around dedication to QAnon: 'What happened to the person I love?'"

One such case profiled in the book include Emily, a woman who turned to QAnon after losing her husband to suicide, bombarded her children on Facebook with conspiracy theories that former First Lady Michelle Obama was a man and former Vice President Mike Pence was a clone, and proclaimed her son Adam a "huge disappointment" who needs to "shed my DNA." Another was a pair of twins who grew up in Milwaukee, Kendra and Tayshia, who when Tayshia's husband died, Kendra, brainwashed by QAnon, convinced her son that Tayshia had killed him by getting him to take the COVID vaccine, destroying the family.

"Beliefs like those espoused by QAnon — which are certainly inventive, if nothing else — can appeal to those for whom the truth is too banal to be riveting or too multifaceted to be comforting," Clark concluded. "Disinformation, provocative theories and silver-platter scapegoats have proved to be alluring alternatives to more people than we might have imagined. Cook’s book doesn’t offer solutions, but it sheds important light on the problem."