Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Followers of the QAnon conspiracy fiction are facing an inflection point. With President-elect Joe Biden about to be sworn in on Jan. 20, and Donald Trump about to be a former president, their worldview — which imagines Trump as an exalted leader waging a brilliant battle against the deep state and a satanic cult — is about to fall apart.

Many adherents to QAnon may find new ways to rationalize the developments, but Trump's role as president has been so central to the belief system that his leaving could create some genuinely jarring cognitive dissonance for true believers. Travis View, who hosts a podcast about the conspiracy theory called QAnon Anonymous, shared a video of one woman who is struggling to cope with the realization that the whole story behind QAnon is collapsing.

"So, who else is feeling just a little silly?" she asked. "Just a little... went too far down the rabbit hole, and now I'm back out again. And if nothing happens on the 20th, how many of you are going to feel stupid as hell? I can't do it anymore!"

She shifted to talking about Q, the pseudonymous writer behind the cryptic posts that have fueled the QAnon conspiracists. Q's predictions have repeatedly proven false.

"And who the fuck is Q? Who is he? Who is this person?" she asked. "Cause none of it has come true! And I was just thinking — what if this person knows that none of this stuff is true? And they're just messing with people? Like, getting inside their heads? I thought something would happen today, in Trump's speech. Nothing!"

Watch the clip below: