“Where We Go One, We Go All.” The lurid slogan belongs to the notorious far-right conspiracy theory community called QAnon. The group believes elitist Democrats, institutional figures, politicians, journalists, and Hollywood celebrities are part of a cabal of Satanic worshipping pedophiles and cannibals running a global child sex trafficking ring. Supporters believe that such figures have long controlled the “deep state” government, and that Donald Trump is the heroical savior that is trying to battle the cabal and “save the children” from the Democrats.
Yes, because it wasn’t Donald Trump who was also close friends with Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous billionaire who ran a massive pedophilic sex trafficking ring across different countries.
While QAnon is seemingly just another far-right group that promotes farcical theories, its various notable members are disturbing. Familiar names within the supporters of the conspiracy theories include: Osama bin-Laden’s niece, Noor bin Laden; Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor who posted a video on July 4th singing QAnon slogans and using QAnon hashtags (which he also included into his bio); Eric Trump, the President’s son, who posted and then later deleted a gigantic “Q” picture on Instagram with the “where we go one, we go all” hashtag; Marjorie Taylor Greene, candidate for the House of Representatives for Georgia’s 14th District; and Dan Scavino, White House deputy communications director who posted a Q symbol on Facebook back in March.
The now deleted image with QAnon’s symbol posted on President Trump’s son Eric Trump’s Instagram. Photo Courtesy of The Guardian.
QAnon followers receive information that allegedly comes from a high-ranking government official in the U.S. Department of Energy, who leaks intelligence under the anonymous name “Q.” Q proffers cryptic posts which are almost like riddles, that are then interpreted into somewhat comprehensible storylines by QAnon supporters on Youtube.
According to Q, the military is ostensibly eager to overthrow the deep state, and has recruited Donald Trump for this cause. The deep state also controls the media, which attempts to smear Trump with “fake news” and false allegations of Russian interference. However, despite the media’s efforts, Q tells it’s supporters that Donald Trump is still winning and is working with special counsel Robert Mueller to dismantle the deep state. Q says it’s planning on leaking sanctioned information to the public to galvanize the people ahead of “The Storm,” a Judgement Day-like event where various members of the deep state cadre, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, will be arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay. QAnon supporters call this process “The Great Awakening.” The phrase “The Storm” is an allusion to President Trump’s enigmatic rally cry from October of 2018, where he talked about the “calm before the storm.” After the rally, Q began posting that the storm was Trump’s reference to the demolishment of the deep state with a series of mass arrests.
Though the conspiracy theory community has recently gained media attention, QAnon’s roots go back further back to 2016, when Russian hackers stole emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The content of the emails discussing pizza was interpreted as child sex trafficking towards the end of the campaign, and “Pizzagate” was born. This ended with Edgar Welch of North Carolina terrifying customers and workers with an assault-style rifle at the DC pizza joint, Comet Ping Pong, where he believed sexually abused children were hidden in unknown tunnels. He found no children, no secret tunnels, and no sex trafficking ring led by Clinton or her campaign chair, John Podesta. All he was left with was the disturbing revelation of QAnon’s fallacious premise and a warrant out for his arrest.
Illustration: Courtesy of Sean McCabe for Rolling Stone.
From Pizzagate to organ harvesting, Bill Gates to COVID-19 misinformation, QAnon spews the utmost outlandish sophomoric gibberish, with popular theories including that John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive and will come out of hiding to support Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Katy Perry drink the blood of young children to gain eternal youth, and that the government created vaccines to chip and track citizens. The mass also believes that Bill Gates used 5G cell phone towers that caused the coronavirus outbreak.
I know, I wish I was kidding too.
The deplorable group has become egregious enough for the FBI to label it as a domestic terrorist threat, citing violence and incidents of kidnapping by believers of Q’s message. The dangerous cult is now going global, with the parasite taking over Europe, especially Germany. The timing of the popularity of QAnon could not be worse, as the number of coronavirus cases in the United States and Europe continues to advance while many QAnon supporters pursue spreading misinformation about the virus and methods used to combat it such as masks.
Members of the conspiracy theory group repudiate factual evidence no matter how ludicrous their beliefs are, and find a way to twist that story to “logically” fit their narrative, creating an everlasting pattern of bigotry. Philip Bump of the Washington Post encapsulates why the spread of this charlatanic blather is an incessant cycle: “After all, if The Washington Post says QAnon is dangerous gibberish, maybe there’s something to it?”
From the start of the pandmeic, QAnon Facebook groups saw a rise in population on their pages, going from 50,000 members to over 300,000. According to NBC, in August, Facebook’s internal review identified more than 3 million QAnon followers across multifarious groups and pages. The expeditious rise of QAnon believers is vivid in Washington as well, with 24 supporters running for Congress this election.
The detrimental theories would be comical if there wasn’t a cavalier President in office, who repeatedly amplifies and endorses an abhorrent community profiled as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI. Oh wait, but he didn’t endorse them; he simply “retweeted” QAnon posts.
If a retweet isn’t a direct endorsement, then what does a retweet from the President mean? And what exactly does a retweet from this President mean?
Ahead of the battling town halls that attempted to replace the second presidential debate, President Trump retweeted a series of 14 posts by QAnon pages that claimed Osama bin-Laden’s death was faked by SEAL Team Six and a body double was killed instead. Since the pandemic started, Trump has retweeted a total of 163 posts from 87 QAnon accounts.
President Trump retweeted a post from a QAnon account that claimed Osama bin-Laden’s death was faked. Photo Courtesy of USA Today.
When asked about the retweets during Trump’s town hall, led by NBC’s Savannah Gutherie, Trump replied, “I know nothing about it. That was a retweet — that was an opinion of somebody. And that was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.”
An outraged Guthrie responded saying, “I don’t get that. You’re the president — you’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever!” Well, it seems as if he is a crazy uncle. You know, the unfiltered relative who will attempt to eviscerate everything without having any factuality, creating a debacle at the Thanksgiving table. Yes, Trump is America’s crazy uncle. And he has created a debacle out of this country.
President Trump with moderator Savannah Guthrie exchange during a heated town hall hosted by NBC News. Photo Courtesy of The Independent.
This is not the first time Trump has refused to denounce QAnon. During several press conferences at the White House, the President’s narcissistic nature has jumped out at every opportunity when he was told that QAnon believers support him. When asked by a reporter at a White House press conference about QAnon’s central presupposition that the President had ventured into office to save the world from the satanic, pedophilic, and cannibalistic cult, Trump refused to condemn the movement and exempted from questioning the validity of the claims. Rather, he offered his aid.
“Is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?” said Trump. “If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there.”
Trump took it a step further, fastidiously backing away from vituperation. “I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate…I have heard that it is gaining in popularity,” said the President. “And from what I hear these are people that they watch the streets of Portland, they watch what happened in New York City…,” said Trump, rambling about a completely different topic of anti-crime.
“These are people that like me. And they also would like to see problems in these areas, especially areas that we are talking about, go away…. I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” he said.
His callous remarks parallel his statements about there being “very fine people on both sides,” following the deadly Ku Klux Klan “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville. The President’s denial to disavow the movement has QAnon supporters cheering and celebrating,
In Trump’s mind, a retweet doesn’t mean an endorsement, “very fine people on both sides” doesn’t mean complacency with the KKK, and “stand back and stand by” doesn’t mean support for the Proud Boys. Except it does. A retweet is an endorsement. Calling the KKK “fine people” is complacency. A dog whistle towards a white supremast group is supportive. There is a trend here where Trump’s unearthly defiance of common sense pries on the minds of the naive and baffling those who see right through him.
Yet, his preposterous handling of the presidency has Trump behind Biden in the polls, forcing him to resort to another method of gaining popularity, similar to what occurred in 2016. In this election, QAnon is much more deeply penetrated into these risible claims than in 2016, and with Trump repeatedly flirting with the cult, along with their extensive media coverage, it is adding more fuel to the rapid fire.
On October 14, the New York Post published an article on baseless, leaked information against Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. According to the article, the leaked information included emails from Hunter Biden’s personal hard drive which Rudy Giuliani got his hands on and leaked to the New York Post. The photos of the emails on the drive are supposedly enough proof to indict the son of the former Vice President for corruption, showcasing the right’s attempt to “pizzagate” Hunter Biden in this election.
Front page of the New York Post features a baseless story on emails allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. Photo Courtesy of Variety.
Following the dubious article’s release, Facebook and Twitter attempted to take steps on Wednesday to limit the spread of the misinformation, with Twitter going as far as shutting down the accounts of the New York Post and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, for retweeting the article. The strict limit sparking outrage on the right and invoking the complex debate that has taken place since the 2016 election on how Big Tech should handle misinformation campaigns ahead of the election. Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter also attempted to crackdown QAnon profiles, banning videos, accounts and groups affiliated with QAnon and blocking URLs associated with the group from being shared.
This election season has been messy and the next days leading up to the election are going to be critical. Though coverage of QAnon has been mostly negative in refuting the claims it makes, the quick rise of the bizarre conspiracy theory cult is daunting, especially when the current sitting President is instigating the movement. The stakes are at its zenith, and in the coming days, the country will determine whether or not we invite America’s crazy uncle back for Thanksgiving.
