‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour

[Trump Worshippers - Bible Belt Queers]

‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd
at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour


During President Trump’s rally on July 31, several attendees held or wore
signs with the letter “Q.” Here’s what the QAnon conspiracy theory is
about. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)
By Isaac Stanley-Becker



On Tuesday evening, the dark recesses of the Internet lit up with talk of
politics.

“Tampa rally, live coverage,” wrote “Dan,” posting a link to President
Trump’s Tampa speech in a thread on 8chan, an anonymous image board also
known as Infinitechan or Infinitychan, which might be best described as the
unglued twin of better-known 4chan, a message board already untethered from
reality.

The thread invited “requests to Q,” an anonymous user claiming to be a
government agent with top security clearance, waging war against the so-
called deep state in service to the 45th president. “Q” feeds disciples, or
“bakers,” scraps of intelligence, or “bread crumbs,” that they scramble to
bake into an understanding of the “storm” — the community’s term, drawn
from Trump’s cryptic reference last year to “the calm before the storm” —
for the president’s final conquest over elites, globalists and deep-state
saboteurs.

What Tuesday’s rally in Tampa made apparent is that devotees of these
falsehoods — some of which are specific to faith in the president, others
garden-variety nonsense with racist and anti-Semitic undertones — don’t
just exist in the far reaches of the Web.

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.”

The symbol appeared on clothing, too. A man and a woman wore matching white
T-shirts with the YouTube logo encircled in a blue “Q.” The video-sharing
website came under criticism this week for unwittingly becoming a platform
for baseless claims, first promoted on Twitter and Reddit by QAnon
believers, that certain Hollywood celebrities are pedophiles. A search for
the name of one of those celebrities on Monday returned videos purporting
to show his victims sharing their stories.

Audience members at a Trump rally on July 31 in Tampa wear T-shirts
referring to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory. (The Washington Post)

The prominence of the “Q” symbol turned parts of the audience into a
tableau of delusion and paranoia — and offered evidence that QAnon, an
outgrowth of the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led a gunman to open
fire in a D.C. restaurant last year, has leaped from Internet message
boards to the president’s “Make America Great Again” tour through America.

“Pray Trump mentions Q!” one user wrote on 8chan. He didn’t need to. As
hazy corners of the Internet buzzed about the president’s speech, his
appearance became a real-life show of force for the community that has
mostly operated behind the veil of anonymity on subreddits.

Trump himself has at times been a purveyor of conspiracy theories, most
notably in refusing for years to back down from his false claim that Barack
Obama was not born in the United States. He also asserted without evidence
that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, peddled the debunked idea that
millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote and associated the
father of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with the assassin who shot John
F. Kennedy.

But viewing their message boards, it’s clear that QAnon crosses a new
frontier. In the black hole of conspiracy in which “Q” has plunged its
followers, Trump only feigned collusion to create a pretense for the hiring
of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is actually working as a
“white hat,” or hero, to expose the Democrats. Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton and George Soros are planning a coup — and traffic children in
their spare time. J.P. Morgan, the American financier, sank the Titanic.

In the world in which QAnon believers live, Trump’s detractors, such as
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Hillary Clinton aide Huma
Abedin, wear ankle monitors that track their whereabouts. Press reports are
dismissed as “Operation Mockingbird,” the name given to the alleged
midcentury infiltration of the American media by the CIA. The Illuminati
looms large in QAnon, as do the Rothschilds, a wealthy Jewish family
vilified by the conspiracy theorists as the leaders of a satanic cult.
Among the world leaders wise to satanic influences, the theory holds, is
Russian President Vladimir Putin.

QAnon flirts with eschatology, fascist philosophy and the filmmaking of
Francis Ford Coppola. Adherents believe a “Great Awakening” will precede
the final storm foretold by Trump. Once they make sense of the information
drip-fed to them by “Q,” they will usher in a Christian revival presaging
total victory.

The implication is that resolving the clues left by “Q” would not just
explain Trump’s planned countercoup. It would also explain the whole
universe.

When “Q” is absent for long stretches of time, followers take note.

“Please tell me where to go,” one wrote last month. “I feel lost without
Q.”

Some big names have bought into the fantasy. Roseanne Barr, the disgraced
star of the canceled ABC revival that bore her name, has posted messages on
Twitter that appear to endorse the QAnon worldview, fixating on child sex
abuse. She has sought to make contact with “Q” on social media and has
retweeted messages summarizing the philosophy built around the online
persona. Among QAnon’s promoters are also Curt Schilling, the former Boston
Red Sox pitcher, and Cheryl Sullenger, the antiabortion activist.

There is a component of QAnon that can be interpreted as a direct call to
action, which has already had real-life consequences.

The Newport Beach Police Department said recently it was looking into the
presence of a man outside Michael Avenatti’s law office after a link to the
lawyer’s website and images of his office building appeared in QAnon
threads. This spring, armed members of Veterans on Patrol stumbled on a
homeless camp and demanded that authorities investigate it as a site of
child sex-trafficking, NBC reported. They later thanked QAnon followers for
taking up their cause.

[Rudy Canoza]

[followups vandalism by cocksucking shitbag repaired]

On 1/16/2019 4:55 PM, Trump Worshippers - Bible Belt Queers wrote:
> ‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd
> at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour

QAnon[a] (/kjuːəˈnɒn/) is a far-right conspiracy theory[2] detailing a
supposed secret conspiracy by an alleged "deep state" against U.S.
President Donald Trump and his supporters.[3] The theory began with an
October 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by someone using the
tripcode Q, a presumably American[4] individual that may have later grown
to include multiple individuals,[5][6][7] claiming to have access to
classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents
in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon

No one among these far-right-wingnut knuckle-draggers had any classified
information. That's just bullshit.

[Rudy Canoza]

More from the excellent Wikipedia write-up of these irrational crackpots:

The QAnon pattern is striking similar to the way people were enticed into
cults in the pre-Internet era, where as the targeted person was led deeper
and deeper into the group's secrets, they become more and more isolated
from friends and family outside of the cult. In the Internet age, QAnon
virtual communities have little "real world" connection with each other,
but online, they can number in the tens of thousands. Rachel Bernstein, an
expert on cults who specializes in recovery therapy, says that "What a
movement such as QAnon has going for it, and why it will catch on like
wildfire, is that it makes people feel connected to something important
that other people don’t yet know about. ... All cults will provide this
feeling of being special." There is no self-correction process within the
group, since the self-reinforcing true believers are immune to correction,
fact-checking, or counter-speech, which is drowned out in the groupthink of
the cult.

[CLOISTER]

Trying to discredit the voters supporting President Trump is like
calling them a "basket of deplorables" You see how that backfired
on poor ole Hillary. It became a rallying cry and even reached
England where they support our President There are even tee shirts
declaring themselves as "deplorables"

[me]

Just as there are Trump followers so there are followers of other cults. How else can one explain the irrational hatred for all things Trump on the part of those in ‘Progressive’ cults?

[The Man in the High Castle]

CLOISTER wrote:
> Trying to discredit the voters supporting President Trump is like
> calling them a "basket of deplorables"

It's what you are.