LATE 2017. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, the 43-year-old founder of a CrossFit gym in a wealthy Atlanta suburb, hops onto Facebook Live, where she will discuss Moloch, the pagan idol of child sacrifice. Greene is wearing a black top, her blonde hair down. Filming before a blank wall, she looks tired but happy, in her element. “Okay, now,” she says in a pleasant drawl, “have you guys been following 4chan, Q, any of that stuff? Anybody? I’m going to watch for your comments here.” The anonymous persona Q, purportedly a government mole, had begun posting on the right-wing message board 4chan in late October, about a month before Greene’s livestream. Q’s posts formed the nucleus of a collective belief system that became known as QAnon, whose premise was this: Hollywood and the U.S. government were teeming with pedophiles and demon worshippers, whom Donald Trump was trying to bring to justice with the help of unlikely allies such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation of the president was, in fact, a false-flag operation. To anyone who found this idea implausible, Q had posed a question: Why would a famous billionaire give up his charmed life to run for president? Was it, perhaps, because “he could not stomach the thought of mass murders occurring to satisfy Moloch?” 32 new york | september 28–october 11, 2020