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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho or what is QAnon?
Believers in QAnon, as the conspiracy theory is known, were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, where Trump came to stump for Republican candidates. As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. We are Q, it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a Q pattern: Where we go one we go all.
Who or what is QAnon? Its the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be a government agent with top security clearance working with Donald Trump to take out the Deep State. Starting with connections to the original Pizzagate, QAnon has built up followers through mystery appearances in the Trump-loving depths of Reddit. Most of those posts come in the form of breadcrumbs, brief, haiku-like statements that can be interpreted as anything from a stock market prediction to an example of an AI attempting to learn human language through random word combinations. In a real sense, its wrong to even think of the QAnon story as something coming from the QAnon troll. Its a collaborative effort; a group of like-minded racist conspiracy nuts riffing on blobs of half-assed beat poetry.
The supposed meaning of the posts are actually generated by thousands of Q followers who sift through this mess and convert the obscure crumbs into an elaborate story. There are entire 24/7 streaming channels and multiple Youtube videos dedicated to nothing but attempts to fit together the crumbs into a single narrative. And the story generated by this collaboration between incoherent source and conspiracy-monger fans isnt just convoluted, self-contradictory, and utterly inane, its also deeply racist, anti-Semitic, and woven through with equal parts pedophilia and Christian end-times eschatology. In short, its a massively expanded version of Pizzagate in which Hillary Clinton, the Illuminati, and the Rothchildswho may or may not be interchangeableare waging holy war against Donald Trump and his supporters
while running child sex rings and satanic murder cults on the side.
If that sounds ridiculous
it is. Unfortunately, the people behind it are not joking.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/1/1785051/-Worse-than-Pizzagate-conspiracy-theory-is-gaining-force-among-Trump-supporters?detail=emaildkre
shraby
(21,946 posts)A portion of the country has gone stark raving mad.
Caliman73
(11,744 posts)There have always been those who have been stark raving mad. The Know Nothings, the "America First" folks with luminaries such as Charles Lindbergh as members prior to WWII, the John Birch Society types, The "Sovereign Citizens" movement, etc...
The difference between then and now is that there is a president and people in the Republican power structure that have accepted the crazies into the mainstream of the Republican Party.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Pizzagate seems to have been the setup.
Hekate
(90,773 posts)0rganism
(23,965 posts)the bloodshed is coming. American democracy doesn't get out of this situation unscathed.
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)H2O Man
(73,590 posts)kids playing spies, being manipulated by an aide to a rabid-republican congressman.
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)John Gruff
(58 posts)Articles, etc.
expatlib76
(2 posts)You may attract unwanted attention from those 8 chan folks with special talents.