The Republican Embrace of QAnon Goes Far Beyond Trump

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/politics/qanon-trump-republicans.html

As the president all but endorses the internet-driven conspiracy theory, it is shifting from the fringes of the internet to become an offline political movement.


A QAnon rally near the White House in September 2019.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

By Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman

Published Aug. 20, 2020
Updated Aug. 21, 2020, 5:49 a.m. ET

Late last month, as the Texas Republican Party was shifting into campaign mode, it unveiled a new slogan, lifting a rallying cry straight from a once-unthinkable source: the internet-driven conspiracy theory known as QAnon.

The new catchphrase, “We Are the Storm,” is an unsubtle cue to a group that the F.B.I. has labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat. It is instantly recognizable among QAnon adherents, signaling what they claim is a coming conflagration between President Trump and what they allege, falsely, is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.

The slogan can be found all over social media posts by QAnon followers, and now, too, in emails from the Texas Republican Party and on the T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts that it sells. It has even worked its way into the party’s text message system — a recent email from the party urged readers to “Text STORM2020” for updates.

The Texas Republicans are an unusually visible example of the Republican Party’s dalliance with QAnon, but they are hardly unique. A small but growing number of Republicans — including a heavily favored Republican congressional candidate in Georgia — are donning the QAnon mantle, ushering its adherents in from the troll-infested fringes of the internet and potentially transforming the wild conspiracy theory into an offline political movement, with supporters running for Congress and flexing their political muscle at the state and local levels.

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This is going to be an much bigger problem in November.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Quite questionable quislings.

Qrazy.

[Pachamama]

2. Qray-Qray

[get the red out]

4. But dangerous!

[Chainfire]

3. It is astounding to me that people are so stupid

It is as if a bunch of stoned people got together and made up the most asinine scenario they could come up with. It probably started as, "Hey, Dude, here is a story no one would buy."

If the Republicans want to embrace insanity, more power to them, if it works for them, then all is lost already.

[Amishman]

5. I live in a red area and have a lot of really conservative family members

I don't know any that still take the Q crap seriously. Two that did when it started but realized it was crap eventually.

I suspect most of the Q stuff is bot driven by foreign powers, with a handful of useful idiots making idiots of themselves in public.

[Ilsa]

6. I'm sure that in order to make such claims that are eagerly accepted

they must have video. Oh wait, we're talking about moronic republicans.