Condemning Qanon and Rejecting the Conspiracy Theories It Promotes

Floor Speech

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Mr. MALINOWSKI. Mr. Speaker, it is one of the oldest lies in the world. A blood libel. It always goes something like this: that there is a powerful, secret group of people who just happen--many of them--to be Jewish, and they are trying to control the world, and, for good measure, kidnapping our children.

This is the central conspiracy theory that QAnon promotes today. And it sounds crazy--so crazy that sometimes we don't take it seriously enough. But throughout history, conspiracy theories, just like this one, have fueled prejudice, terrorism, even genocide.

And today, social media is fanning the flames. Their algorithms know everything about us: what we search for online, our biases, and they feed us more and more extreme versions of what they think we want so that we stay glued to our screens and see more ads and buy more stuff.

That, above all, is what is causing so many of our fellow Americans to fear and hate one another. And while many extremist groups on the left and the right are recruiting followers online, nothing today matches the scale of QAnon. Nothing comes close.

On Facebook alone, QAnon pages and groups have had up to 3 million members there. There have been days this year when the most widely shared social media messages in the country are those promoted by QAnon.

The physical threat is also real. The FBI, as we have heard, says that political conspiracy theories like QAnon increasingly motivate domestic extremists to commit violence.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point says, QAnon ``has demonstrated its capacity to radicalize to violence individuals at an alarming speed.'' And QAnon adherents have, in fact, committed numerous criminal and violent acts in the last 2 years.

I think the greater threat is to our social fabric. QAnon is like a pill that immunizes you against objective reality, which millions of our fellow Americans are taking. It destroys trust in government, in Democratic institutions, in science, and in facts.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution we will pass today categorically condemns QAnon. It has an equal number of Republican and Democratic cosponsors, and I would thank them: Representatives Riggleman, Kinzinger, Fitzpatrick, Gottheimer and Luria. Our goal is a fully bipartisan repudiation of this incredibly dangerous phenomenon.

Extremist movements gain validation from the belief that they are making inroads into the mainstream. So it is important to make clear we are unified against them, both parties, no hedging, no winks and nods.

Now, there is just one more point I would make today, and that is, when we vote for this resolution today--and I am confident we will all vote for it--we need to mean it.

And here is the only reference that I will make to partisan differences. It is an objective fact that this particular group of extremists today identifies with the right. There are a lot of them. And right now, even as we vote to condemn QAnon, there are political operatives out there putting out vile attacks that deliberately play to the paranoid fears QAnon promotes.

Some people may rationalize this by pretending, Oh, QAnon, it is not that bad. These folks are just against sex trafficking, which is a real threat. Or they are just against the deep state, and hey, so is President Trump. Some might say there are crazy groups on the left, too, and that is absolutely true. And this resolution condemns them all.

But you know what? When I criticize antifa, as I have, I don't get half-a-dozen death threats in a day. Only one of these things--for now at least--is considered an active terrorist threat by the FBI. Only one is a political force. Only one is winning elections.

Remember what QAnon is: It is an anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering cult that the FBI considers a potential terrorist threat, and it has real growing political power.

So if you vote against fire today, please don't play with fire tomorrow. Don't be righteous here today and then go QAnon-lite on the campaign trail. Don't do or say anything to fan the flames further.

Mr. Speaker, America desperately needs to come together. Conspiracy theories are tearing us apart. Let us pass this resolution and do it overwhelmingly and with true conviction so that we can say clearly, we have all had enough.

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