..by Mark Sumner @ Daily Kos….
Sometimes “deplorable” just isn’t deplorable enough. That’s the case with a core set of Donald Trump supporters who have come together around a new conspiracy theory that’s … not Pizzagate. Because it’s worse. And, as the Washington Post reports, this new conspiracy is already spilling from under the rocks of alt-Reich websites, into living, screaming Trump rallies.
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.”
Who or what is QAnon? It’s the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be “a government agent with top security clearance” working with Donald Trump to take out the “Deep State.” Starting with connections to the original Pizzagate, QAnon has built up followers through mystery appearances in the Trump-loving depths of Reddit. Most of those posts come in the form of “breadcrumbs,” brief, haiku-like statements that can be interpreted as anything from a stock market prediction to an example of an AI attempting to learn human language through random word combinations. In a real sense, it’s wrong to even think of the QAnon story as something coming from the QAnon troll. It’s a collaborative effort; a group of like-minded racist conspiracy nuts riffing on blobs of half-assed beat poetry.
The supposed meaning of the posts are actually generated by thousands of Q followers who sift through this mess and convert the obscure “crumbs” into an elaborate story. There are entire 24/7 streaming channels and multiple Youtube videos dedicated to nothing but attempts to fit together the crumbs into a single narrative…..
Nutjobs at a hatefest.
Are you talking about Jim Acosta of CNN at the Trump rally yesterday Jack?
I’m talking about those nutjobs who were wearing those tee shirts.
Acosta had a good quote though when he said that he had answered more questions from the attendees at this rally than Trump has from the press lately.
Yup
I saw THAT follow up….
President Trump claimed at a press conference Wednesday that he doesn’t know much about the fringe conspiracy theory QAnon, but that he understands its supporters “like me very much” and that they “love America.”
Why it matters: QAnon is a sprawling internet conspiracy theory that baselessly alleges that a powerful cabal of sex traffickers within the “deep state” is engaged in a global fight to take down Trump. The FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories, like QAnon, as domestic terrorist threats in 2019….
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