Gli americani credono ai loro miti?

The assault on Capitol Hill will remain in the social imaginary as the symbol of Donald Trump’s presidency: the January 6, 2021 epiphany was both a failed coup and a collective ritual of the QAnon «myth», played outside the Internet. Starting from a famous book by the historian Paul Veyne, this article proposes to analyze what is now called the «crisis of the boundaries between true and false» discussing the hypothesis according to which the concentration in the public debate on issues related to the «truth» is a key element to understand Trump’s populism along with the spread of falsehoods by the so-called «conspiracy» theories. The tension between democratic principles and the revaluation of truth in politics —operated, for example, by some theories of post-truth— will be analyzed starting from the myth of Q, highlighting its relevance, first of all, as an identity ritual of ideological endorsement to Trumpism, in an age claimed to be post-ideological.