Everywhere you looked during the frenzy of January 6, you could find symbols of QAnon iconography: a man in a Q T-shirt was one of the first rioters to bust through Capitol defenses and brawl with an officer. Images of the "Q Shaman," clad in furs, face paint, and a horned helmet, were reproduced everywhere in the flood of media that covered the events. There were Q flags flying and signs with Q slogans on them. Insurrectionists screamed the text of one of QAnon's cryptic 8chan "drops" as they destroyed the camera equipment of one news outlet, and several of the day's mortalities were avowed QAnon believers with social media feeds that expressed full-throated belief in QAnon and a willingness to die for Trump—right until the moment they did.

What has grown to be called "QAnon" is a complex web of mythology, conspiracy theories, personal interpretations, and assumptions featuring a vast range of characters, events, symbols, shibboleths, and jargon. It can be understood as a conspiracy theory, for sure, but it also touches on aspects of cultic movements, new religions, Internet scams, and political doctrine. It's impossible to fully explicate every aspect of QAnon because it is so diffuse and has so many different plot strands and meanings. But the most important thing to know is that all of it started with an anonymous poster on 4chan.

If you don't understand anything else about Q, you should at least understand this one dimension. It's not just a conspiracy theory or game to these people. It's a ringside ticket to the final match between good and evil—and when the hammer finally falls, the supporters of evil will need to be put down with brutal swiftness. This mix of biblical retribution and participatory justice has drawn in fans around the world.

Q lets people feel like they're part of something bigger than their small lives. It gives believers a higher and noble purpose. It offers explanations for terrible things. After all, it's easier to believe that a dark cabal is orchestrating negative events than it is to believe that powerful people, including our leaders, are simply greedy or incompetent.

The elemental parts of Q didn't start with meme culture or chan boards or Trump or social media. They didn't start with the Internet, the CIA, the Russians, or the Illuminati. They're baked into the way humans demand explanations for things that seem to defy reason. And they start with the one group that humanity has always managed to pin the blame on: Jews.