Biden: QAnon believers should get a mental health check

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Hill

Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Friday blasted President Trump for refusing to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying adherents to the theory should get a mental health checkup before the president dismantles ObamaCare.

“I’ve been a big supporter of mental health,” Biden said. “I recommend the people that believe [QAnon] should take advantage while it still exists in the Affordable Care Act. It’s bizarre, totally bizarre.”

-snip-

Biden on Friday called the conspiracy theory “embarrassing” and “dangerous.”

“Look at how it makes us look around the world,” Biden said. “It’s mortifying, embarrassing and it’s dangerous. If the president doesn’t know better, which he has to know better, then my Lord we’re in much more trouble than I thought we were.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/515160-biden-qanon-believers-should-get-a-mental-health-check

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Tweet from The Hill with video of that part of the press conference:

Link to tweet

GD thread with complete video of Biden's speech and press conference:


https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214023055

[bucolic_frolic]

1. They could never admit a QAnon believer to an asylum

They'd drive the psychiatrists crazy!

[TomCADem]

5. Sitting Down with QAnon Conspiracy Theorists - The Jim Jefferies Show

It is pretty crazy what these right wingers believe in:

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Thanks, I had a good but uneasy laugh because their paranoia makes them so certain

Certifiable, every one of them

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Willful ignorance is not mental illness. Not a fan of this framing.

[SoFlaBro]

4. Their brain has disconnected from reality.

I am a fan of this framing.

[FM123]

10. Disconnected from reality. Yep. Like losing wifi connection to their brains.

[ck4829]

15. I am... some of the stuff QAnon has pushed enables mental illness in other ways

The whole "crisis actors"/"the storm has already come and the satanists have already been arrested/executed but the deep state secretly replaced everyone involved with body doubles" pushes something known as the Capgras syndrome.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. Capgras syndrome is caused by schizophrenia or dementia, not QAnon.

[ck4829]

17. Yes, and? We don't need something enabling it. Capgras is already very hard to treat.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. We also don't need throwaway laugh lines that enable the stigma of mental illness in this

country. Ableism is one of the last acceptable bigotries.

[ck4829]

23. True

QAnon-heads will never see their conspiracy theories of "crisis actors" and "body doubles replacing Satanists executed by the storm" as abnormal or enabling though.

If someone told teenage girls with anorexia that they "really are fat! FAT!", that person would rightly be described as a ghoul or a monster.

Maybe that's what we should do here as well.

[Skittles]

22. wilful ignorance is one thing

believing in pedophile pizza parlor rings is entirely another

[C Moon]

3. That's what I said about a friend of ours who COMPLETELY went off the deep end with this crap.

I didn't even know what it was when she was spewing out that nonsense. Then I saw QAnon mentioned on DU; then saw someone on Nextdoor spewing the same b.s.; so I looked it up—and it's EXACTLY what she's rambling on about. A little worse, though: she's saying something about aliens being involved.

[catrose]

6. I was just wondering if "authoritarian follower" should be listed in the DSM*

* Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Because seriously how do you even talk to someone whose devotion to Dear Leader makes shared reality possible?

[WhoWoodaKnew]

7. Aren't they just Republicans?

[summer_in_TX]

21. No, they are a crazy subset.

Many Republicans are rational conservatives. They come from a conservative tradition, maybe military, their friends and neighbors are conservative.

These Qanon conspiracy theorists are cultists and potentially dangerous. Pizzagate could have been deadly. Yes, mental illness makes some sense. But I don't have expertise in that area.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

24. Then they are Republicans then, right?

[summer_in_TX]

25. I'd be very surprised if their numbers were even a third of all Republicans.

I'd like to encourage the sane Republicans to address the crazies and get them in line. I think they could influence them easier than we could.

[mwooldri]

9. There's three Q's I truly believe in.

The Q I get stuck in (spaced 6 feet + apart of course) at a store...

Q from James Bond and Q's gadgets.

Q from Star Trek.

The last two I know are works of fiction.

QAnon belongs with these latter Q's.

And I'm the one with the mental health issue? Joe's right, those who believe the nonsensical tweets of an anonymous party need a head check.

[sanatanadharma]

11. It took the internet for the inmates to come to believe they are the asylum

In times past the largest group that could be found sharing a self-generated delusion would be limited to the inmates of an asylum.

Today the internet enables shallow thinkers the illusion of believing they alone are right, as they share and spread their certifiably insane and inbred ravings and delusions.

Veracity is not found in false facts, loopy logic, missing morals, nor cult-consciousness.

[rockfordfile]

12. They should be locked up.

[Marie Marie]

13. And Trump should be first in line for that mental check-up.

[durablend]

14. Now their snowflake fee fees are going to be hurt

[Illumination]

19. Joe is correct. He handled this subject perfectly!

[NoRoadUntravelled]

20. "The Words of a President Matter. Even a Lousy President."

I love Joe Biden more every day.

[ck4829]

26. Kick

[ck4829]

27. Kick

[GulfCoast66]

28. The few I know how believe it are also Evangelical Christians

With no science education. I think these factors are related.

Since they already believe the earth is 6000 years old, some 600 year old man built a boat and put every animal on earth on that boat and that some dude rose gone the dead after 3 day dead their brains are already very practiced at ignoring reality.