QAnon is hardly the first conspiracy theory to sweep the nation.
What QAnon calls the Deep State was once known as “the hidden government behind a government.”
Where QAnon says that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death, past fantasists of yore believed that John Belushi’s death by overdose was a government hit.
And when QAnon followers spin yarns about a phantom cabal of satanic cannibals and sex traffickers, twisted liars of the 1850s and 1860s warned of satanic bankers and Catholics who also drank blood and abused children.
That’s why QAnon, who made a messiah out of former President Donald Trump, was always bound to lose steam. It will follow the arc of furious, loopy-loo American conspiracy theories that have existed since before the Civil War. Cults like QAnon burn bright, and they fade fast.