Beth Macy

The church and your husband, your husband and the minister that told you to ignore a suffering child are the perpetrators, not me.

And, you know, we haven't really talked about it since.

We've talked a little, but not a lot, which isn't unusual for us.

She said she wasn't sure.

She said that—she kept saying, I was always there.

How could it not happen?

I mean, I have letters that the girls wrote me.

Oh, mom's at a prayer meeting this week in Nashville or whatever.

My mom isn't here.

I mean—

You're never always there with your kids, right?

But in her mind, this is the story that she believed.

To me, it was just like she was under the thumb of this misogynistic Christian nationalist men who were telling her what to do and what to think.

I was.

And I was really taken by how many people were believers in QAnon.

And the first time I went, I asked my old buddy.

We were both class clown.

He was the male class clown.

I was the female to drive me around town because he was a recently retired firefighter and he knew everyone in town.

And as we drove around the east in Urbana, he would just point out houses and he would go, she's QAnon, he's QAnon.