Writing from a part of the world where conspiracy theories are a way of life, I'm familiar with having to analyze the smoke before calling something a legitimate fire.

You don't have to believe that yesterday's inauguration was pre-recorded - I personally don't - in order to see that something was "off."

To regain your innocence, here's a Magic Bullet. Believe that a candidate who was no one's choice, and who never campaigned or generated any visibly enthusiastic support, got more votes than any president in history. That Joe Biden received 81 million votes even as CNN says that just 20 percent of white males voted for him. That President Trump appeals primarily to racist white men, even as the organizers of Stop the Steal and the Proud Boys identify as "Black and Arab" and "Afro-Cuban," respectively. That anyone but a person protected by the media could get away with publicly telling Charlamagne tha God that he "ain't black." That burning down black-owned small businesses is a way to show that "black lives matter." That impeaching Trump in his last week in office was about a fear of violence from Trump supporters. That Vijaya Gadde's father had to ask the KKK for permission to sell insurance, door-to-door, in late '70s Texas. That a media which has ignored and even censored the Biden family's Ukraine scandals, and which asked yesterday whether Biden would be repainting Air Force One, ever posed him a question he was not given in advance. That there still exist a Left and Right which are ideologically opposed to one another. That all the courts who refused to look at the evidence of election fraud, genuinely had no jurisdiction. That the Pakistan, Vatican and Iran blackouts were entirely coincidental. That Maria Zack was LARP-ing. That yesterday's WHO note about false positives was purely coincidental.

People are free to believe these things and more like them, but they singularly fail to appreciate the difference between believing what they're told, and thinking for themselves. If Q was a "plan" that was laid out in its entirety, I'd have more sympathy for their point of view.

It wasn't.

Like Oliver Stone's "JFK" back in 1991, Q taught many, many people to read between the lines.

We live in an era in which even scientists wave the flag of their side instead of searching for The Truth. The skills learned here are essential to surviving this graceless age.