Remember when all the Democrats and left-leaning celebrities all got outed for participating in a worldwide child sex trafficking ring? Of course not. It never happened. But this idea and so many more have managed to get Trump supporters on the internet pretty excited. And they’re coming out of the woodwork at real-life rallies now too. This instalment of Spooktober covers Qanon: the pro-Trump conspiracy theory that will make you question far-right American intelligence. Again.

The first time the outside world heard about Qanon was in August. Supporters showed up at a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida wearing t-shirts that read ‘We Are Q’ and MAGA hats. No one could figure out who they were or why they were waving star-spangled Q’s in front of the president. Their at the rally forced the media to cotton-on to a movement which had been developing on web 2.0 platforms like Reddit and 4chan for months: Qanon.

What is Qanon?

QAnon, or simply Q, is at the same time a theory, a 4Chan user and, now, a community. QAnon is a collection of mostly debunked and not-worth-debunking conspiracy theories based on vague, unreliable and baseless claims made by an anonymous 4chan user. Qanon theory is also known as The Storm and followers refer to believing as The Great Awakening.

Q, referred to as QAnon due to the anonymity of 4chan users, is a user account which appeared on 4chan in October 2017. They post supposedly top-secret government information. It seems that many believers think that the QAnon user is a group of military intelligence officials. The name Q comes from the fact that the user claims to have ‘Q level’ government security clearance. This clearance supposedly gives the user or users access to military intelligence and the inside scoop on the current US government and its enemies (the Democrats/deep state).

The user account posts highly cryptic, ambiguous messages regarding a bunch of loosely connected conspiracies surrounding the US government. People must have been looking for something to believe in because Trump supporters have been lapping this up. Q’s theories have provided false proof for Trump supporters that Democrats and their supporters are totally evil and Trump is a genius saviour.

What do Qanon supporters believe?

Depending who you ask, Q has either been given permission by Trump to release this information or they recruited Trump, in which case they wouldn't need permission. The Q narrative has taken on such a life of its own that it’s difficult to identify or narrow down the interconnected theories. Followers decode and analyse each instalment of Q’s story, and connect their theories to everything from Trump’s tweets, outfit choices, typos, government data and news coverage. They find hidden messages in anything in order to support their theories. Ben Decker, a researcher at Harvard, has described QAnon as an ‘interactive conspiracy.’

The Great Awakening

Although it’s difficult to narrow down the exact content of all the theories or how exactly they're related, we’ve got a general idea. The main idea that pervades the whole narrative is that there is some kind of great, flawless master plan. Followers believe that Trump, Q, the administration and whoever else are all working to a highly detailed master plan. So highly detailed in fact, that Q followers have found a noble reason for every blunder, lie, slip up or unpopular move. Even Trump’s possible collusion with Russia was planned - he’s apparently working with Mueller to expose .. Obama? Clinton? It’s not clear.

Get ready to take your Red Pill. The idea, very roughly, appears to go like this:

Trump was recruited by US military intelligence, possibly Q, in 2015 to run for president.

The goal of the whole thing is apparently to combat the Deep State: a secret coalition of Democrats, celebrities, industry bigwigs and other left-wingers who make up a secret society running the country. At least, we think this is the reason. One of the main problems with Q theories is that it’s unclear why any of this is happening.

The Democrats are involved in a worldwide child sex trafficking ring (see Pizzagate) from which the Donald has saved thousands of children (according to Roseanne Barr anyway).

The Rothschilds, Saudis and George Soros are the ‘puppet masters’ of the deep state and run a worldwide Satanic cult that involves Putin and the Clintons.

And … Hillary Clinton had something to do with the Kennedy plane crash because she got onto the Senate the following year.

It just goes on and on and on. Anything that Q posts appear to mean something to the followers of the theories. This is all regardless of the fact that the posts are so highly cryptic and strange that they could literally mean anything.

Who believes this stuff?

You’d be surprised. Although the last thing this community needs is more publicity, some celebrities are starting to catch on to the Qanon thread. Most notably Roseanne Barr from the eponymous American sitcom ‘Roseanne.’ At some point recently, she decided that it was all true. She initially tweeted citing Donald Trump’s heroic efforts of freeing children from their bondage in some ambiguous ‘high places.’

She also tweeted asking about Q and asking them to contact her. Shortly after which her Twitter went down and her website was briefly taken offline. This obviously freaked everyone out and all the Qanon people thought the deep state had got her. They hadn’t.

Why is it so dangerous?

Like so many conspiracy theories, the Qanon movement would be easy to discount as nonsense. But because of the volatile and violent nature of the community, we sadly can't do that.

Firstly, the Qanon subreddit r/TheGreatAwakening has been banned due to its reputation as a breeding ground for white supremacist, xenophobic, sexist and violent dialogue. The subreddit promoted hate speech, encouragement of violence and dissemination of personal information. A good measure of the type of ideas that circulate within the Qanon community is the subsidiary of the violent male supremacist ‘Incel’ group, calling themselves Quincels, that that has appeared is a crossover of the two. Incels are a dangerous hate group responsible for more than one mass homicide.

Not only that, but the Qanon community is closely related to the group which created the environment for the Pizzagate scandal. A man shot up pizza restaurant Comet Ping-Pong as part of his ‘civilian investigation’ into a child sex trafficking conspiracy that grew from these types of communities.

It is clearly not just an online community of conspiracy theorists and it is obviously growing. An NBC report cited that an app called ‘QDrops’ was one of the top 10 most downloaded apps in the Apple app store in April of this year. Q drops is a mechanism whereby members have up to date information on Qanon’s ‘breadcrumbs.’ From what we know of these communities, and how dangerous their followers can be, this is not the kind of group which should be allowed to grow.

Trump looks to be encouraging the Qanon community.

It seems that throughout his presidency, Trump has made it his mission to normalise hate speech and undo the work that America has done in minimising hate. Not only has he encouraged violence and hate speech in his followers, but Trump is also now appearing to be actively encouraging these violent communities. Trump recently took a headline directly from a conspiracy website - throwing a bone to the delusions that populate it. To the rest of the public, these kinds of actions are just another blip on the radar of Trump trash, but to Qanon followers, who analyse everything, this would be seen as a show of support.

Not only this, but Trump has done nothing to dispell or discourage the community. Press secretary Sarah Sanders skirted around questions asked regarding QAnon at a press conference following the Tampa rally. Trump has even invited a QAnon proponent into the Oval Office. In August, Trump granted a private audience to Micheal Lebron, a Q conspiracy theorist who is publically vocal about the theory that Democrats are involved in sex trafficking rings.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Trump is clearly no stranger to conspiracy theories. He was one of the top voices in the theory that questioned Barack Obama's birth certificate leading up to the 2012 presidential elections.

Whatever the real origins of the Qanon group or individual, it has gone way beyond prank or a simple conspiracy kook. What is needed now is to keep these people as far away from the impressionable as humanly possible.

See for yourself on exopolitics, Qanon.pub.

Happy Halloween.