The following text is the first half of the speech I gave at Purdue University in early April on the uniquely American properties of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Because it wasn’t recorded, I decided to post it online, broken up into two parts because it’s really long. Part two will follow later this week. Enjoy!

My name is Mike Rothschild, and I’m an author and journalist focused on the history and spread of conspiracy theories. And since you’re probably wondering, yes I debunk conspiracy theories while also sharing the last name of one of the most prolific subjects OF conspiracy theories of the last century, the Rothschild family. And no, I’m not related to the Rothschild family.

BUT the conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family are the subject of my next book, called Jewish Space Lasers and out in September. And in writing that book, I realized that for as universal as Rothschilds conspiracy theories are – they’re not called “globalists” for nothing – there’s also a deeply American aspect to them. The Rothschilds actually had very little success in the US compared to the rest of the world, but the conspiracy theories and myths about them are intertwined in American institutions, American paranoia, and America’s economic calamities. Even if the Rothschilds had nothing to do with them.  

Of course, Rothschild conspiracy theories are just one part of the buffet of madness that is QAnon. And while Rothschild theories started in Europe and migrated across the Atlantic, QAnon’s foundations are almost entirely American. Yes, it’s based on universal tropes – the blood libel, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and so on. And it’s become popular around the world, particularly with far-right movements in Europe and Australia. But Q has become popular overseas by sanding off its most American aspects, and exploiting universal unease over power, wealth inequality, and science.  

There is something deeply and uniquely American about QAnon. It’s built on layer after layer of past American conspiracy theories and hoaxes. It exploits deeply American evangelical fears and hopes. And it revolves around not just American politics, but the most uniquely American president – the outsider who claimed he would stick it to the elite and fight for the ordinary, forgotten American.

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