Abstract
QAnon is beginning to gain attention in scholarly circles, but these sources often disagree
about how to categorize the movement. This amounts to the meta-dispute between those
who view QAnon primarily as a religious “cult,” and those who grant it greater credibility
as a political populist movement. Using quantitative and qualitative methods we test the
proposition that QAnon could be a mix of both. Results from both analyses suggest that
QAnon is best understood primarily as a political populist movement, but one that utilizes
religious rhetoric. The findings thus highlight the asymmetric nature of the conflation of
religion and politics in the contemporary American civil sphere.