QAnon

QAnon (/kjuːəˈnɒn/), or simply Q, is an American far-right conspiracy theory and movement originating from false claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". It is alleged a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles run a global child sex-trafficking ring which plotted against former U.S. president Donald Trump while he was in office.

Quotes

• We’re living in a unique time in which ordinary citizens around the world are collaborating to understand and expose the corrupt system that rules us. The system thrives on deception, and the overwhelming task of The Great Awakening is to penetrate its lies and reveal the truth.
  The first phase of The Great Awakening is heightened awareness of the Deep State – the interlocking governmental entities that operate outside the law to expand their own power. Elections and popular opinion don’t impact the ability of the Deep State to enforce its agenda.
  The second phase of The Great Awakening investigates the Deep State’s alliance with other powerful sectors: the media, Hollywood, charities and non-profits, public schools and universities, religious organizations, medical, scientific and financial institutions, and multinational corporations.
  • Quoted in An Introduction to Q by Deborah Franklin American Thinker (January 14, 2020)

About QAnon

• The role of QAnon in the January 6 MAGAist insurrection is becoming clearer by the day... QAnon provided Trump loyalists with a transcendent narrative, moral certitude, hostile enemy, and unit cohesion. QAnon sought to mobilize a mass to “change the narrative” in accordance with a putative military operation. Its redpilling phase (The Great Awakening) is now over, as it successfully won over a sufficient number of hearts and minds. The Storm is here now...The seeds were planted months ago.
  More than anything, QAnon has been fomenting war in various spheres. From its inception, QAnon has rested on the prophecy of an imminent military coup against the deep state... QAnon, now publicly moribund because it resides secretly in the hearts and hashtag-engorged profiles of its enthusiasts, has completed its mission’s first phase. It has developed a national social network gearing up for a holy war, ready to become fodder for its operators. Someday historians will puzzle over this elusive alphabet letter much like we do over the Nike shoes on Heaven’s Gate corpses. But the stakes this time are much higher.
  • Jack Z. Bratich, in QAnon’s Afterlife: A Holy Civil War, CounterPunch (15 January 2020)

• If QAnon is a new religion, it bears the birthmarks of our truth-deprived time: Born on an obscure internet image board, it spreads through social media, preaches a perverted form of populism and is amplified by a president who has demonstrated little regard for facts.
  • Daniel Burke, "How QAnon uses religion to lure unsuspecting Christians", CNN.com (October 15, 2020)

• Q claimed to be a high-level government insider with Q clearance (a United States Department of Energy security clearance with access to classified information) who had been instructed to post intelligence leaks straight to 4chan “in order to covertly inform the public about POTUS’s master plan to stage a countercoup against members of the deep state”, adds the magazine (New York magazine)... One twist, however, “makes QAnon unusual”, says the New York Times{'}s Michelle Goldberg. While conspiracy theories are usually about evil cabals manipulating world events. QAnon, by contrast, "is a conspiracy theory in which the good guys - in this case, Trump and his allies - are in charge", she writes.
  • Who is Q and what’s the QAnon conspiracy theory? Joe Evans The Week Jul 22, 2020

• Currently, among these candidates who have endorsed or given credence to the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content: Fourteen candidates have secured a spot on the ballot in November by competing in primary elections. Of those 14 candidates, five are from California, two are from Illinois, and there is one each from Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.
  • "Here are the QAnon supporters running for Congress in 2020", Alex Kaplan, Media Matters for America, 7 January 2020

• In its broadest contours, the QAnon belief system looks something like this: Q is an intelligence or military insider with proof that corrupt world leaders are secretly torturing children all over the world; the malefactors are embedded in the deep state; Donald Trump is working tirelessly to thwart them... The eventual destruction of the global cabal is imminent, Q prophesies, but can be accomplished only with the support of patriots who search for meaning in Q’s clues. To believe Q requires rejecting mainstream institutions, ignoring government officials, battling apostates, and despising the press. One of Q’s favorite rallying cries... is “Enjoy the show,” a phrase that his disciples regard as a reference to a coming apocalypse: When the world as we know it comes to an end, everyone’s a spectator.
  • The Prophecies of Q, by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, June 2020

• Briefly summarized, QAnon is a conspiracy theory that claims that the Trump administration is engaged in a kind of behind-the-scenes battle against the so-called “Deep State,” with the fate of the U.S. and the world at large hanging in its balance. The theory started a few years ago based on the online postings of an individual going by the name of "Q" who claimed to have access to top-secret information supporting a wide variety of conspiratorial claims including those implicating the Democrats, the Clintons, and the likes of the FBI in orchestrating a coup against President Trump as well as running an international child sex trafficking ring.
  • Joe Pierre "The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: Mistrust and Mass Appeal" Psychology Today (November 4, 2019)

• Twitter and TikTok both took action against the internet's most persistent conspiracy theory this week, but experts suggested it may be too little and too late to halt the phenomenon known as QAnon.
  • Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan "Can anyone tame QAnon?" Financial Times (July 24, 2020)