Reading this piece from last summer by @normative, I realize that there is a parallel here between Qanon's "Storm" and the Cold War cults that sprang up at various times, but especially in the 70s and the 80s. Bear with me.
"The Storm" is a moment, like nuclear war, after which everything is different, even if there's bloodshed. It's purgative, restorative, resets all the social relationships, ends all traditional and normal social structures. It's shaking society like a huge Etch-A-Sketch.
/2
Why is this so attractive to so many broken people? Precisely because it *is* a reset. It's awful, but it's an awfulness that sets everything - including all social differences - back to zero. The high and mighty are smited, and the Common Folk live by their superior wits. /3
The Cold War pulp literature is what one scholar calls "Radioactive Rambos," men freed to be Warrior-Kings of the Wasteland, with all rules about sex and society out the window in the name of a greater good: America, Civilization, Killing
The sexual element of Cold War survival cultism was omnipresent. (Dr. Strangelove and "breeding prodigiously" in the mines, etc.)
But the other undertone is status. And how the low rise up and rule after the pinheads blow all that shit up.
/5