QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of beliefs, based on anonymous Web postings from “Q,” who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.
A core tenet of the conspiracy theory is that U.S. President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and “deep state” allies.
Trump begins openly embracing and amplifying false fringe QAnon conspiracy theory
After winking at QAnon for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world events linked to it grows.
Check The Availability Of Trump Qanon Card On The Official Website
On Tuesday, using his Truth Social platform, the Republican former president reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming.” In QAnon lore, the “storm” refers to Trump’s final victory, when supposedly he will regain power and his opponents will be tried, and potentially executed, on live television.
As Trump contemplates another run for the presidency and has become increasingly assertive in the Republican primary process during the midterm elections, his actions show that far from distancing himself from the political fringe, he is welcoming it.
He’s published dozens of recent Q-related posts, in contrast to 2020, when he claimed that while he didn’t know much about QAnon, he couldn’t disprove its conspiracy theory.
Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump allegedly is saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, he claimed ignorance but asked, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”
“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” Trump said.
Trump’s recent postings have included images referring to himself as a martyr fighting criminals, psychopaths and the so-called deep state. In one now-deleted post from late August, he reposted a “q drop,” one of the cryptic message board postings that QAnon supporters claim come from an anonymous government worker with top secret clearance.
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday spoke at a rally for Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance while a QAnon song played dramatically in the background, and his supporters raised their fingers in an unusual salute.
In recent weeks, Trump has amplified QAnon talking points on his social media, but Saturday night's spectacle in Youngstown, Ohio, was perhaps the clearest sign yet that he's now openly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory.
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A Reckless Escalation
Trump rallies can often seem ridiculous, not least because Trump himself is inherently a ridiculous person. He grips the podium and shouts, his sweaty angst giving rise to a reddish tinge apparent even under the thick layer of orange-hued chemicals he slathers on his face. In these moments, stock phrases and gimmicky asides pop out of his mouth like lottery numbers churning to the top of a Powerball machine.
But Saturday night’s Ohio rally was not a typical Trump carnival, and it was not just ridiculous—it was dangerous. His embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theorists represents a new expansion not only of Trump’s cult of personality, but of his threats to sow violence.
Despite his seeming inability to remember anything from one thought to the next, Trump has a kind of lizard-brain awareness of danger—only to himself, of course—that guides him when he’s faced with threats. His reflex in such situations is to do whatever it takes to survive, including bullying, lying, threatening, and allegedly breaking the law. He is in political and legal jeopardy now, and he has decided to escalate his war against the rule of law, the American system of government, and the American people by embracing and potentially weaponizing QAnon.
They’ve done absolutely nothing to discourage QAnon followers from believing as they do,” said View — a position that only stokes the community’s fervor more. “I mean, QAnon is premised on the idea that there is a secret plan to save the world, so they take the silence more as part of that secrecy.”
Check The Availability Of Trump Qanon Card On The Official Website
Then again, going on the offensive against Q might not do much. Gorka, a former White House official and Trump loyalist, himself became the target of QAnon attacks after he called the community “garbage” in 2019. Q followers started posting his home address and claiming, without evidence, that he had engaged in various crimes. Even top conspiracy figures like Alex Jones of Infowars, who claims QAnon is actually a deep state disinformation plot to mislead Trump voters, are not safe from the QAnon community’s wrath.
“The whole community is volatile,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, who has tracked QAnon since its beginning in 2017. “They expect not just loyalty, but they have expectations in terms of behavior that are extraordinarily suspect and susceptible to feeling like they’re being betrayed — or alternatively, feeling like there’s some shadowy puppet master rigging things.
WHAT ARE ONLINE PLATFORMS DOING ABOUT IT?
Twitter in July said it would stop recommending QAnon content and accounts in a crackdown it expected would affect about 150,000 accounts. It also said it would block QAnon URLs and permanently suspend QAnon accounts coordinating abuse or violating its rules.
Facebook Inc this week stepped up its earlier actions against QAnon by saying it would remove any Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts “representing” QAnon. In September, it also banned Facebook ads that praised or represented militarized social movements and QAnon.
Check The Availability Of Trump Qanon Card On The Official Website
