What QAnon supporters, butthole sunners and New Age spiritualists have in common

Former NBA player Royce White addresses a crowd after the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright in April 2021. Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via Getty Images by Christopher T. Conner, University of Missouri-Columbia After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, former NBA player Royce White became an outspoken advocate of defunding the police. Over those ensuing months, he appeared at a number of protests and marches in Minnesota – demonstrations that conservative politicians and pundits excoriated. Four years later, White accepted the endorsement of the Minnesota GOP in the state’s 2024 U.S. Senate race. In the interim, White had appeared on the show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, where he decried the “establishment” and “corporatocracy.” While on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, he complained that women “had become too mouthy.” Elsewhere, he lambasted the LGBTQ+ movement as “Luciferian” and described Israel as the vanguard of a “new world order.” White’s transition from an NBA player who advocated for progressive causes to an acolyte of Jones is more common than you might think. Many people might associate conspiracy theories with certain demographics or political leanings. But the reality is far more nuanced, with emerging research finding that there is far...