STICK WITH PURE RAGE

Joe Biden is now the president of the United States, and I'm reading a lot of stories like this:

As Biden was sworn in, ... the mass arrests that QAnon believers call “The Storm,” stubbornly refused to happen. Trump really did appear to have left office, rather than springing the sly trap as they had all hoped. The Democrats really did have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

The tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers QAnon believers thought would help Trump retake Washington instead appeared to be there for a more obvious purpose: protecting the city from the same crazed QAnon believers who had violently attacked the Capitol two weeks earlier.

“I’m about to puke,” one QAnon fan watching Biden take the oath of office wrote....

“Trump fooled us,” complained one Telegram commenter.

“All my family and co-workers think I’m crazy,” wrote another.

“I feel stupid,” wrote a third.

Even major QAnon boosters saw their faith in the bizarre conspiracy theory shaken on Monday. QAnon booster Roy Davis co-authored a bestselling book promoting QAnon under the alias “Captain Roy,” even getting his sports car painted with a giant, blazing “Q” on the hood.

... as Biden’s new title became official, Davis said he was ready to move on from Q—something his doctor has long urged him to do anyway.

“We misinterpreted it,” Davis said. “Maybe we should have done something different.”

Apart from gun and abortion absolutism, both of which appeal to a certain segment of the population, Republicans have nothing to offer ordinary voters. So they find ways to rally voters that have nothing to do with policy. QAnon became one of those ways.

But if you're promising mass arrests of all your voters' enemies, it's likely to be somewhat of a problem if you can't deliver. It appears that many QAnoners are disillusioned now. The GOP has probably lost many of these voters.

Simply encouraging voters to hate Democrats and their allies is a strategy that's more likely to lead to a durable allegiance to the GOP. If you follow this strategy, you don't have to promise anything -- you just have to treat rage as the reward.

At Breitbart, there are headlines such as "Joe Biden’s Amnesty Bill Elevates Fortune 500, Migrants, but Sidelines Americans" and "Hollywood Celebs Fawn over Biden, Harris During Inauguration: ‘Democracy Exhales,’ ‘I’m Hyperventilating With Joy.’" At Gateway Pundit, there's "Biden Has Maybe 2,000 Attendees at Inauguration — and 25,000 Military — Just Like They Do in Lawless Banana Republics" and a story referring to "the 'Hunger Games' inaugural" (apparently a reference to Lady Gaga's clothes and hair).

See? No promise of a payoff -- just pure resentment.

Donald Trump understood that. As it turned out, it didn't matter whether he brought all the coal jobs back (he didn't) or got the wall completely built (he didn't do that either, and he certainly didn't get Mexico to pay for it). The resentment was everything.

Unfortunately for Republicans, it wasn't enough to get him reelected. But the resentniks will stick around, and will feed off all the anger Brietbart and GP and Josh Hawley and the rest inspire. But the QAnoners might never come back.