Queuing up against the ‘deep state’
SHADOWY CONSPIRACY GROUP GETS ITS MOMENT IN SUN
Alittle-known group of conspiracy theorists has shot to prominence after supportive T-shirts and banners were spotted in the crowd at a Donald Trump rally this week.
QAnon, which is based on the idea that a secret government official is leaking information to bring down the anti-Trump “deep state”, has been largely found in obscure internet chat rooms since its emergence last year. But this week it triggered headlines across the country as supportive messages were spotted being displayed by some attendees at Trump’s campaign speech in Tampa, Florida. Television cameras captured people holding posters aloft saying “We are Q” or carrying references to the group’s tagline: “Where we go one, we go all.”
It was the first time many Americans had heard of the group and garnered such attention that it even prompted a response from the White House.
But it has also shone a light on a corner of the internet where a swirl of conspiracies, suspicion of the state and a vehement support for the president has at times prompted worrying incidents in real life.
The premise of QAnon is that an individual or a group of people known only by the moniker “Q” are working from inside the government against the “deep state.” Q claims to have top-level security clearance and has allegedly teamed up with Trump to bring down a global cabal of evil government figures and celebrities. Q and the QAnon supporters refer to “The Storm” often, which is a reference to an October 2017 meeting between Trump and military leaders during which Trump said, “the calm before the storm.”
Messages purporting to be from Q which are posted online provide snippets of information, or “breadcrumbs,” which supporters use to piece together the wider secret plan.
The phenomenon is hard to define and includes a mishmash of other conspiracy theories on John F. Kennedy’s assassination and alleged pedophile rings in Hollywood.
Q has posted that special counsel Robert Mueller isn’t investigating Trump at all — he’s really investigating Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and Barack Obama. Other theories involve familiar players in conspiracy theories such as the Freemasons and the Illuminati, while others mention The Titanic. It first emerged around October 2017 when posts supposedly from Q started to appear on the anonymous internet forums 4Chan and 8Chan.
Soon Reddit, a more mainstream chat room, had a thread about it called the “Great Awakening,” which attracted 50,000 followers. Then YouTube videos explaining QAnon racked up millions of views.
A YouTube video posted by “prayingmedic” on July 28, titled, “Something Big is About to Drop,” has 275,000 views. It is an hour and eight minutes long.
It is unclear if anything actually dropped. While the group’s bizarre beliefs have sparked eye rolls and laughter, there is already worrying evidence of people acting on the messages in real life.
In June, a man armed with an AR-15 rifle drove onto a bridge near the Hoover Dam, stopped traffic and demanded the publication of a government report into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
He later referenced QAnon in letters to the president from prison.
Last month Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels — the porn star who claims to have had an affair with Trump — had photos of his California office posted on a QAnon thread. Within an hour a man was spotted near the address acting suspiciously. Benjamin Decker, research fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, has studied QAnon and fears its popularity will surge after the Trump rally. “Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are not familiar with the Chans or Reddit, or maybe don’t watch YouTube, will now have heard of the group,” said Decker. “They may be thinking, ‘Oh, if the Q phenomenon is part of the president’s following then maybe it is something I’m interested in.’ ”
Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami professor who co-authored the book, American Conspiracy Theories, said Q “is just hitting the right audience at the right time given the right circumstance.”
Q’s topics appeal to many who already are inclined to believe conspiracy theories, Uscinski said. Those conspiracy-minded folks have always been around in the country.
“There is no way to know if it’s an embedded deep state operative or if it’s a prankster,” he added. Uscinski, who has studied Q over the last month, says the user’s posts are often about the “deep state” battling Trump, using bureaucratic inertia. Which isn’t that far-fetched, he said, given that many in federal government didn’t likely vote for Trump.
But how long will Q be around? Said Uscinski: “Very few conspiracies have the staying power of a JFK.” Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, distanced Trump from the group at a press briefing earlier this week.
“The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against another individual, and certainly doesn’t support groups that would promote that type of behaviour,” she said.