The Unique Power-Trip in the Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Known as QAnon
Conspiracy theories aren’t new. They’re a tale as old as time for both America and the world at large. They’re what happens when a group of people are bred and raised into paranoia in the midst of social change. We saw it with the Bubonic Plague, with the Millerites, the Latter Day Saints, with 2012 doomsdayers, and countless others, but in the age of the internet we have the privilege of seeing the unprecedented spread of misinformation and fearmongering - and the complete unwillingness to do real research in the face of those falsehoods.
A lot of conspiracy theories also have a fair amount of crossover with racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and other forms of bigotry, but relatively few feature a cult leader-like personality behind the half-truths and half-baked conclusions. Not like the most recent (and nearly all-encompassing) QAnon.
If you know anything about QAnon already, you know that it is largely based on sites like 4chan and 8chan, now known as 8kun. If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, lucky you! Prepare to have your day ruined.
Uh oh.
4Chan is self described as a “simple image-based bulletin board,” and the general appeal is that it is fully anonymous. You can post whatever you want with absolutely no identifying information. No login, no username, nothing. Just a color coded ID so people know who’s responding to who. Older posts are automatically filtered out and replaced by newer ones, so nothing is permanent and nothing has consequences.
Do yourself a favor and don’t visit the site. One three minute visit yielded a user posting that he was mutilated by circumcision and was going to kill himself, followed by a barrage of responses taking the opportunity to be wildly anti-Semitic. Delightful. It’s notorious for hosting pretty much the scrapings of the barrel of slime that is the internet, just full of humanity’s worst impulses.
Thus enters Frederick Brennan, a young man born only a couple years before Olivia and I were. Brennan was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disorder sometimes colloquially called “brittle bone disease.” For some reference, Brennan estimated once that by the time he was 19 he had broken his bones over 120 times, and he spent his life pretty much entirely confined to a wheelchair. He also spent the better part of his childhood being carted in and out of the foster system, all of which serves as the perfect recipe for life-altering trauma.
When Brennan was first introduced to the magic of the Internet, it wasn’t for much other than gaming. He only had a few games, so he was set in a loop of playing the same stuff over and over again. One of the games had an online forum, and this is how he discovered what is known as chan culture.
During his time on 4chan, young Frederick had made a reputation for himself as something of a eugenicist. When he talks about it himself, he seems relatively clear-headed about the whole thing. He recognizes that his views on eugenics were born out of extreme self-hatred; he hated his disability, so he vehemently believed that no child should have to go through what he did. He claims he never identified as a Nazi, but that he hated himself so much that he actively wished for a new Nazi party to kill him and everyone like him.
Finding himself stifled by 4chan’s moderation and board-creating system (and having picked up a few coding skills over the years), Brennan decided to create his own chan site - 8chan. The key difference between 4chan and 8chan was that, while 4chan was limited to admin-created boards, 8chan would allow users the ability to make their own infinitely-recurring boards.
According to Brennan, the first year was pretty tame. He still posted about eugenics, but he was starting to grow out of his intense self-hatred. The site got about 100 posts a day, and Brennan saw it more as a portfolio piece than something he really wanted to gain traction.
Then, in 2014, Gamergate happened. For those who don’t know, Gamergate was the internet label put on the mini-culture war that can pretty much be summed up as (mostly male) gamers asserting that the gaming industry was being ruined by forced political correctness in the form of representation outside straight white men. They called video games a “white male safe space” and began harassment campaigns against the SJWs they hated. Those campaigns included, of course, doxxing, and the Gamergate boards were kicked off both 4chan and the slew of other chan sites they were active in.
Brennan invited the Gamergaters onto his site, and 8chan exploded with new content. Brennan transferred legal rights to Jim Watkins and promptly moved to the Philippines, later cutting ties with Watkinis and 8chan altogether.
So this is the seed we’re dealing with; an entire site whose birth started with the most depraved of a site known for its depravity. The people 4chan kicked out were the ones who started the 8chan user baser, and from there its reputation only grew. It was known as one of the darkest corners of the internet, where misogyny, racism, anti-semitism, ableism, pedophilia, pretty much every horrid thing you can think of festered and echo chambered. In fact, a not-insignificant number of shootings were preceded by manifestos posted to 8chan - usually white supremacist in nature.
Now we rewind to October 28, 2017 at 10:56am Central time. The anonymous user now widely referred to as “Q” appeared for the first time on 4chan. He first posted this:
HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run. Passport approved to be flagged effective 10/30 @ 12:01am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur. US M’s will conduct the operation while NG activated. Proof check: Locate a NG member and ask if activated for duty 10/30 across most major cities.
And then this:
Mockingbird HRC detained, not arrested (yet). Where is Huma? Follow Huma. This has nothing to do w/ Russia (yet). Why does Potus surround himself w/ generals? What is military intelligence? Why go around the 3 letter agencies? What Supreme Court case allows for the use of MI v Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has ultimate authority over our branches of military w/o approval conditions unless 90+ in wartime conditions? What is the military code? Where is AW being held? Why? POTUS will not go on tv to address nation. POTUS must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. POTUS knew removing criminal rogue elements as a first step was essential to free and pass legislation. Who has access to everything classified? Do you believe HRC, Soros, Obama etc have more power than Trump? Fantasy. Whoever controls the office of the Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a moment they (Democrats and Republicans) would lose control. This is not a R v D battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently? Why would he place all his funds in a RC? Mockingbird 10.30.17 God bless fellow Patriots.
What followed was a slew of cryptic “Q Drops” that included hilariously action-movie-esque riddles and masturbatory doomsday fear mongering.
Q is short here for Q Clearance Patriot, which refers to someone who has the federal clearance level of the president or an extremely high ranking military official - basically one step higher than Top Secret. He laid out this alternate reality where the world was evil because it had been corrupted by a Cabal of “criminals,” and that only dedicated patriots could save it.
What’s so funny about Q’s general thesis is how much they get basically correct. They literally lay out the ways in which Capitalism causes a wealth divide and how it informs social interaction. It even comments on how the ruling class got its wealth by exploiting the working class and that the rich are only concerned with keeping their wealth. I’d even tend to agree that the ruling class has a vested interest in sowing dissent among the working and middle class so we’re too preoccupied to do anything about their very real crimes. But they somehow manage to fly way past the point and somehow land at the conclusion that those who are currently corrupt and hold the most wealth were already criminals before they got there - that their nefarious plan was to accumulate power and money for the express intention of being evil.
From the various Q Drops over the years, followers of QAnon have assumed a narrative that has a few key points. First, that most of the government, most celebrities, basically most people who hold a decent amount of public power are inherently evil people who have created a complex network of Satan-worshipping (in their words) globalists who kidnap, torture, and rape children through the Vatican and child-centric nonprofits and organizations. They allegedly do this to show off how much power they have, that they can kidnap and torture kids and get away with it.
Their key belief is in a 16-year plan that the globalist Cabal created with the explicit intention of destroying America because, in QAnon’s words, they hate America. But fear not, for there is a savior. See, the QAnon movement began almost immediately after the start of Donald Trump’s presidency for one reason: because Donald Trump is single handedly going to save us all.
I’m exaggerating a bit, they do acknowledge that there are a few other “good” people in politics, like for instance Mike Pence, and ironically Bill Barr, Michael Flynn, even Robert Mueller who they believe is secretly working with Trump behind the scenes. Never mind the fact that Trump has publicly bashed all of these people except Pence. But the important thing to note is that, in general, QAnoners believe that it’s safe to trust (surprise surprise) in the Republican party.
In general, they simultaneously believe that this evil Cabal of the world’s most powerful people have completely manipulated the system such that they have the power to literally infiltrate every major outlet in our modern world but also (and I’m quoting them directly on this) that the whoever holds the office of the president has the most incorruptible power in the country. So they think that the”Good Guys” (literally what they call them) banded together to find the perfect candidate who would save the world.
Of course, it didn’t have to be Donald Trump - they argue that JFK and Reagan both knew about the Globalist Elite, but that their efforts to stop it were limited by the technology at the time. The progress they made and the threat they posed to the Cabal were too easily suppressed. That’s why JFK was assassinated and Reagon got shot, and why every president since Reagan has been a puppet of the Globalist Elite. But their reasoning for why Trump isn’t part of the Cabal is simply this: “The Cabal hates America, and Donald Trump didn’t agree with them on that point.” So naturally this means he’s fighting a battle for the nation’s soul.
Enter the NSA, who they genuinely believe not only store but also archive and categorize every piece of data from every device in the country. Q has apparently promised that the NSA’s stores of data will be key in eventually proving the involvement of and ultimately arresting the people involved in the Cabal. In fact, that’s the crux of Q’s message: don’t worry, folks, the Bad People will be arrested tomorrow. Oh, they weren’t arrested? Don’t worry, here’s the exact date they’ll be arrested.
So this is the level of delusional analysis we’re dealing with. The people who still believe in Q are the same people who assert that no public media outlet is trustworthy, who claim that unnamed witnesses or spokespeople are untrustworthy in the media but simultaneously mark Q’s anonymity as a sign of credibility.
We’re dealing with a type of person who genuinely believes, to a paranoid degree, that the traumas we experience are all the result of one big, looming bad guy. It’s easier to think that the world is engaged in a shadowy, behind the scenes war for good vs. evil than it is to acknowledge that many of the world’s problems are complex, difficult to solve, and exist in the people they trust.
Those who end up going “down the rabbit hole” as they say end up bending over backwards to maintain Q’s credibility. They assert that enough has happened that there’s no way it could be a coincidence (usually referring to words Trump uses in speeches, signals and patterns in White House communications, things like that). But when you look at their level of analysis, it would be impossible to disprove anything to these people.
One example I took straight out of an independently published QAnon book that basically acts as a field guide to Q and the Great Awakening.
“As time went on, it became obvious that there was a synchronicity between Q's posts and President Trump's tweets. For example, on February 21, 2018, President Trump visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County Florida, to visit with some of the surviving students of the tragic shooting that took place earlier that month on the 14th. Just prior to the beginning of the meeting, President Trump was photographed holding a piece of White House stationary, with some notes written on the back. Two fingers on his right hand and three on his left gripped the notes, obscuring most of the writing. The odd way he held the paper garnered much attention in the media, with the picture circulating widely. The stationary held a numbered list, with the fifth and final line reading, "I hear you." After the meeting, Q posted a picture of the President holding the list and later that evening in post 435, Q posted a list of stringers that ended with, [SIG_5:5_READ], followed by brackets filled with 58 spaces. With the five on the paper combined with five of the President's fingers showing (5:5), it was speculated that perhaps the message was not intended for the students, but rather, for those of us following Q. On Feb. 22 the connection was confirmed when the President sent out a tweet that contained 58 empty spaces, similar to Q's post from the day before.Was it possible that The President had allowed his notes to photographed accidentally? Perhaps, however it is highly unlikely that both Q and the President would both post messages containing 58 unnecessary spaces within 24 hours of each other. The President was listening and we received the message, loud and clear. 5:5 Mr. President. We hear you too.”
They use quotes from people actually involved in politics and twist their meaning to make it seem like they’re endorsing QAnon. In one particularly egregious example, the handbook I mentioned quotes Michael Flynn during a speech and claims that Flynn was explicitly talking about QAnon. What he was really referencing was the fact that the internet was a pivotal part of the election in a revolutionary and unprecedented way.
And when theories and promises inevitably fall through, they’re the first ones to make insane leaps of judgment to prove that, in fact, it wasn’t a contradiction at all. They jump to Q’s defense, saying that “Deception is all part of Q’s plan” and that faith is more important than fact. One woman I read about asserted that Hillary Clinton had set up JFK Jr.’s assassination, and when a journalist asked her what proof she had of that very serious accusation, she responded “Is there any proof to not believe it?”
Are these people just an online annoyance, or are they dangerous?
On a micro level, we’ve seen dozens of cases of physical violence at the hands of those directly involved in the QAnon community.
In Seattle, a Proud Boys member and QAnon believer killed his brother by stabbing him with a sword because he believed his brother was a lizard.
In 2018, a man blocked traffic on the Hoover Dam in an armored truck before getting out, heavily armed, demanding the release of the inspector general’s report on Hillary Clinton’s emails.
There have been multiple kidnappings by QAnoners who overlap in the sovereign citizen group, who believe that they can declare themselves sovereign by citing certain codes and proclaiming that the US Government has no jurisdiction over them (I’m not even going to go into that).
Another man who posted QAnon content armed himself and stormed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s house with the intention of assassinating him before he was arrested, so it’s not localized to the US.
And even as late as 2019, Hillary Clinton has said that her secret service detail still finds threats against her life and “weird things” in her mail.
But the one that most people might have heard of was the infamous Pizzagate. I had major trouble piecing the motive for this one together, but what I could figure out was this: Wikileaks posted some emails from John Podesta, the White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton and counsel to Barack Obama, to Hillary Clinton, where he wrote a phrase - Spirit Cooking - that apparently told the QAnoners that they were having elaborate ritual sex parties. They also noticed some references to “pasta” and “pizza” and decided that these were codes for “boys” and “girls” that they were hiding in their elaborate satanist sex ring.
The emails also mentioned a man named James Alefantis, who was a Democrat supporter and had raised a ton of money for both the Obama campaign and the Clinton campaign. He also happens to own a pizza place called Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C.
That was all they needed. They went to work finding any reference to children in connection to Alefantis they could find, and they found stylized modern art and photographs featuring children in Instagram photos of his restaurant. With all the proof they needed, people showed up and began protesting outside Comet Ping Pong. Then, in 2016, a man showed up with an assault rifle strapped to his chest and demanded to see their secret basement. Only problem was - the building didn’t have a basement. So he started trying to pry open a locked back door with a butter knife before giving up and just shooting into the door. What he found was the server closet, and by then the guests had run out of the building and called the police. He was peacefully detained and completely mystified by Comet Ping Pong’s lack of a basement.
But it’s more than just the one-off deeply ill people who take the law into their own hands. This has actually wheedled its way into the fabric of our country’s highest positions.
At least 35 current or former Congressional candidates have openly embraced QAnon and its messages, and several Mayoral candidates across the country have voiced both subtle and overt support of QAnon. We know at least that Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is favored to win the heavily conservative 14th congressional district, and she has embraced QAnon views in social media posts and videos, and Trump has endorsed her in the race. More on Trump later.
State Rep. Lin Bennett called QAnon “Legit” in a facebook comment before later claiming she doesn’t believe it: “They’re legit. And they haven’t been wrong. I just haven’t shared any til now.”
In my own hometown, San Juan Capistrano, former Councilwoman Pam Patterson quoted QAnon in her farewell speech after being voted out of office
There was a SWAT cop in South Florida who was demoted after wearing a Q patch on his uniform
A Montana justice of the peace was reprimanded after sending emails from his work computer during work hours attacked a journalist who critiqued QAnon:
"Whether Q is real or otherwise, there is a movement started by the hypothesis of a Q and somebody behind the scenes standing up for the average American citizen," Swingley wrote in the email. "Patriots are uniting against people just like you. Your world of fake news and liberal agendas that give away our country to foreigners and protect the Clintons and Obamas is coming to an end. Wait for it........... you pathetic, snobby ass."
Even the Director of National Intelligence follows a whole host of QAnon accounts and is a confirmed conspiracy theorist (9/11 truther, pizzagate believer, etc.) - and these are just the outspoken ones
These people have real power in our country and make decisions that impact the public at large. It doesn’t make me feel terribly secure to know that a fair number of people who hold public office believe in QAnon’s nonsense.
QAnon currently has more followers than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints did in the first decade of its existence. Even the creator of 8chan, Frederick Brennan, is convinced that by allowing Q to be active on 8chan and 8kun, the Watkins family is directly responsible for any violent fallout that follows:
“They kept Q alive. We wouldn’t be talking about this right now if Q didn’t go on the new 8kun. The entire reason we’re talking about this is they’re directly related to Q. And, you know, I worry constantly that there is going to be, as early as November 2020, some kind of shooting or something related to Q if Trump loses. Or parents killing their children to save them from the hell-world that is to come because the deep state has won. These are real possibilities. I just feel like what they have done is totally irresponsible to keep Q going.”
So what does the federal government think of all this?
It depends on who you ask. Obviously we have some of the people I mentioned above, and that’s disconcerting. But in May of 2019, the FBI labelled conspiracy theorists a domestic terror threat and later labelled QAnon specifically as a domestic terror threat in an internal memo. A couple days ago, the House even passed a resolution that formally condemned QAnon and its adherents, calling it a “collective delusion” and a “sick cult.”
But, predictably, Donald Trump seems to have other ideas.
As of 4 months ago, Donald Trump has retweeted from QAnon-aligned accounts 131 times.
A Trump rally introductory speaker named Brandon Straka quoted a QAnon slogan while he warmed up the crowd
Some QAnoners allege that Trump has made the signal of drawing a Q with his hand while on TV and on stage, but I’ve found no evidence of it actually happening
Donald Trump actually met with a YouTube QAnon conspiracy theorist named Lionel Lebron, and the White House declined to comment any details about the meeting
And multiple times, he’s voiced support for QAnon followers online - honestly I think that’s enough
Do I think Donald Trump actually believes in the QAnon theory? No, I really don’t. It’s veritable bullsh*t, and I think he’s well aware of that. But I also think that Trump is a narcissist who derives deep joy (or whatever is akin to joy in his shriveled remains of a soul) from feeling important. He likes the idea of being the savior of America and mankind, so he entertains and encourages the conspiracy theorists to stroke his own ego.
At best, this is childish. But at worst, Trump is actively encouraging a group of people who have proven their violent and bigoted tendencies. His refusal to condemn them and occasional outright support sends the message that he approves of their tactics, making extremist activity far more likely. It encourages other politicians to accept Q’s message, and thus continues the cycle of harm for those already marginalized. It’s unacceptable.
Join a grassroots movement. Vote. Do what you can, and take care of yourself. See you in a couple weeks.