https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-2651180259/

Extremism experts have noticed an alarming shift toward anti-Asian and anti-Semitic rhetoric among believers in the thoroughly discredited QAnon conspiracy theory.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Joel Finkelstein, director of Rutgers University's Network Contagion Research Institute, has found that QAnon fans are now spreading false claims about Jewish financiers teaming up with the Chinese Communist Party to control the world's population using vaccines for the novel coronavirus.

"There is a huge component of this that China is taking over," Finkelstein explains to the paper. "They are unifying under a giant umbrella of a common enemy. Sometimes it's the Jews. Occasionally it's the Asians, usually it's the government."

Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, says that the distress caused by the pandemic, which has now lasted for more than a year, has been a perfect recruitment tool for extremist groups.

"It really creates an attractive opportunity for extremists to ensconce themselves into divisive, emotionally charged issues where they can focus on the grievances and the villain and not necessarily their own baggage," Levin tells the LA Times. "QAnon is like a newt's tail. It can constantly reconstitute itself."