Q conspiracy theorists trigger headlines at Trump rally
A LITTLE-KNOWN group of conspiracy theorists has shot to national prominence in America 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 Mr 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 tag-line: “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 Mr Trump to bring down a global cabal of evil government figures and celebrities.
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 paedophile rings in Hollywood.
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.
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 on to 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 Mr 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”, Mr Decker told The Daily Telegraph. “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’.”
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, distanced Mr 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.
‘ Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who… maybe don’t watch Youtube, will now have heard of the group’