January 21, 2021

"For weeks, QAnon followers had been promoting 20 January as a day of reckoning, when prominent Democrats and other elite 'Satanic paedophiles' would be arrested and executed..."

"... on the orders of President Trump. But, as Mr Biden took his oath and no arrests were made, some in the QAnon community had an uncomfortable meeting with reality.... 'This is a very difficult day for all of us,' said one influencer whose Twitter account with 200,000 followers was recently suspended. 'Today's inauguration makes no sense to the Christian patriots and we thought "the plan" was the way we would take this country back.'... Some said they were waiting for 'Q,' who has been largely silent since election day, to post as they had so many unanswered questions. And some expressed hope that Mr Trump would communicate directly with them soon. However, a considerable chunk of the community remains steadfast in their belief, urging one another to remain patient and keep the faith." — From "Biden inauguration leaves QAnon believers in disarray" (BBC).

From "The QAnon 'Storm' Never Struck. Some Supporters Are Wavering, Others Steadfast" (NPR): "[E]ven late on Wednesday morning, QAnon groups were still hopeful that the mass arrests would materialize. But after noon, 'the mood changed quickly'... with supporters saying they felt fooled by Trump and felt sick. Feeling fooled may not lead to a return to normalcy.... [D]isappointed Q followers could be prime targets for radicalization by other extremist groups, like neo-Nazis.... A multitude of Q predictions has failed to materialize, and that has never stopped the conspiracies from spreading. Like apocalyptic cults that persist despite a noteworthy lack of apocalypse, QAnon may survive...." 

From "Inauguration sows doubt among QAnon conspiracy theorists" (AP): "'We gave it our all... Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.'... Other followers continued to hunt for clues that QAnon prophecies would be fulfilled, with several social media posts noting that Trump’s speech Wednesday was delivered in front of 17 American flags — a significant number to QAnon conspiracy theorists because 'Q' is the 17th letter of the alphabet. 'I believe the game is still being played this is not over!' one QAnon user wrote to his 26,000 Telegram followers moments after Biden took office."

171 comments:

Readering said...

Passing the time under covid.

Joe Smith said...

It was interesting to follow the whole Q thing.

I viewed it as entertainment.

YoungHegelian said...

Well, I'll tell you one group who believed the QAnon conspiracies --- whoever it was that ordered 25,000 troops to occupy DC not only for inauguration but for some indefinite time afterwards.

Who ordered the National Guard in, and at whose behest? What was the evidence of an invasion army? The FBI and its "chatter on the internet"? You think that the FBI collective hive-mind isn't susceptible to conspiracy theory? if so, I have a question for you -- just how many FBI agents resigned in protest after the debacle that was Crossfire Hurricane can to light?

I seriously thought that there might be military vs military action afoot. I knew that there wasn't going to be a right-wing volunteer army. It turns out that those 25,000 troops are all about Congress' & the new Administration's cowardice

tim maguire said...

Like apocalyptic cults that persist despite a noteworthy lack of apocalypse, QAnon may survive....

Why not? Global Warming Alarmism is as strong as ever despite every prediction being wrong.

Not for nuthin', but it remains true to this day that I have never heard anyone mention QAnon except to disparage it. For all these huge Instagram accounts, why do there seem to be no actual QAnon-ers? Why does every story I've come across (I never look for them, but there hard to completely avoid) just repeat things the author read on social media? Why do they never contact and actual believers and interview them about their beliefs?

I have my belief. As stated several times over the last few days, my belief is that QAnon doesn't exist. That's my QAnon conspiracy theory--there is no QAnon.

YoungHegelian said...

@Tim M,

Why not? Global Warming Alarmism is as strong as ever despite every prediction being wrong.

I can tell you from my FB feed that my liberal friends believe two conspiratorial propositions almost to a (wo)man:

1) Every COVID death was Trump's fault
2) Trump won in 2016 because of Russian interference, including changing votes

Now, for proposition one, the fact that we are in the middle of a plague, that plagues kill people, and that the rest of the world that had no Pres. Trump lost a lot of people to COVID seems to make no difference. The US deaths are Trump's fault.

And as for two, the fact that the Mueller Report found no American citizen cooperated with the Russians and even dropped its case against the Russian corporation that challenged its indictment in court, that, too makes no difference.

Everybody has their own favorite conspiracy theories. The only question is which ones are socially acceptable & which ones aren't.

wendybar said...

But Antifa showed up...in Portland, Denver, Seattle and Sacramento....Of course...we don't talk about their violence. They are on the right side.

mockturtle said...

This is the new straw man for the leftist media. Not saying there aren't some people who follow this stuff but they are certainly unrepresentative of Trump supporters and the media well know that.

Tim--climate alarmists are a good parallel. Unfortunately, however, they probably do represent the majority of leftists.

Michael K said...

I also have never heard of a Qanon group except from left wing hysterics. I do worry that all this talk on the left about "Deprogramming" and other nonsense about hunting down Trump supporters is being watched by another Tim McVeigh.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Good work AP! Now get to work on the folks actually rioting in Portland last night.

boatbuilder said...

"Some said that they were waiting for "Q", WHO HAS BEEN LARGELY SILENT SINCE ELECTION DAY, to post..."

Some "conspiracy" to overturn the election, when the head conspirator has nothing to do with it.

I dunno. I just dunno.

Gospace said...

Whenever a cult announces the end of the world and they gather together and it doesn't happen, the leader realizes (belatedly) he misread the signs, and announces the new end of the world date. So if you want to see how this works in real time for Q believers, you should go straight to the source at Voxday to see how it works.

MartyH said...

200,000 followers... Mostly Russian troll farms and law enforcement, I’d bet.

Amadeus 48 said...

Of course QAnon will persist. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming has survived total failure of all their predictions that have come due. Keep the faith, CAGW believers—and send money. There are conferences that your leaders must attend!

Leland said...

For weeks, the media propagated a hoax to make Trump look bad and hamstring him in his final hours. Just like for 3 years, the media propagated a hoax to make Trump look bad and hamstring in his first term.

Now we will get 4 years of investigative reporting into Biden's favorite colors for airplanes and what is his favorite playlist.

PM said...

What if it were short for LGBTQAnon?

mockturtle said...

Simpsons' prophecies are far more accurate: Kamala First Woman President

mandrewa said...

If that really is what QAnon is about then that sounds insane. So insane that I doubt that this is what 'QAnon' said.

But then on the other hand, one reason I've never paid any attention to QAnon is that it seemed to me to be anonymous and, therefore, couldn't anyone make something up and pretend to be QAnon? Or have I misunderstood how this works?

But in any case this is story written by the left, specifically the AP, for the left and as has been demonstrated repeatedly, in my own experience, the modern left has no integrity and doesn't hesitate to make things up if it will help their narrative.

But still that leaves me not knowing what the QAnon business was actually about.

Expat(ish) said...

The old joke was that if three Klansmen had a meeting, at least one of them was an FBI informant. I'm assuming that if all three QA members get together it's about the same thing.

Never has so much press been spent on so few loons.

-XC

Leland said...

Who ordered the National Guard in, and at whose behest?

Pelosi, but she didn't get all that she wanted.

Mike Sylwester said...

I am not an expert on QAnon, but I have spent some hours of my life looking into it.

I came to think that QAnon was Eric Trump. His father Donald Trump knew about this hobby of his son and occasionally contributed as QAnon+.

Of course, I cannot prove my opinion -- especially now, many months after I looked into it.

Now that QAnon has become a huge boogeyman, I perceive that 99% of the people who are denouncing it really don't know anything significant about it.

QAnon is a lot of riddles. It might be just a hoax. Nobody knows for sure.

Let's say for the sake of argument that QAnon indeed is written by Eric Trump. If so, then it's his spin on current events. For example, he thinks (or thought) that the FBI is (or should be) investigating some pedophile ring.

Or else Eric Trump is spinning an entertaining fantasy along those lines on the Internet.

I eventually lost interest in QAnon many months ago, because it seemed to disappear from the Internet.

In any case, the relatively few people who spent any time studying QAnon are harmless. I do not see any reason for anyone to make this into such a scary boogeyman for the general public.

Begonia said...

I know two women--smart, middle aged women--who got sucked into the Q conspiracy theories...
and I am a liberal madisonian who lives in a liberal bubble. I know this because of things that they post on facebook.

Both of them are also wrapped up in conspiracy theories about the vaccine being a medium for some kind of computer chip that bill gates want to inject in all of us, and that local county health departments are overreporting COVID deaths as part of some grand global conspiracy to control us/get children to wear masks/make it easier for child pedophiles to kidnap children because they are wearing masks.

It's just disturbing to me because these ladies are kind, smart people and they have completely lost touch with reality.

YoungHegelian said...

@Leland,

Who ordered the National Guard in, and at whose behest?

How can Pelosi order in the National Guard if she isn't in the chain of command?

Mayor Bowser wanted machine guns, too.

These people are seriously whack.

Drago said...

"I can tell you from my FB feed that my liberal friends believe two conspiratorial propositions almost to a (wo)man:

1) Every COVID death was Trump's fault
2) Trump won in 2016 because of Russian interference, including changing votes"

Every single lefty posting at Althouse believes those 2 things.

And always will.

While lecturing others about "conspiracies".

iowan2 said...

We have a story from NPR, quoting and anonymous q person. q, a notion that lives in the heads of leftists.
FBI has their boogeyman. This should be enough to bump their budget by at least 10%. Is Agent Strzok still around? He seemed very adapt at investigating dangerous apperiations, and protecting america from a dangerous yet invisible foe.

What is the $total for proper damage, businesses destroyed, persons unemployed? How many murders, rapes, personal assaults, has q racked up?

We know the summer of love (2020) is $billions in property damage, +100 deaths, and untold personal assaults and rapes.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

It strikes me that there is a definite trend in Big Media to try and pass of the idea that virtual followers and flesh and blood followers are interchangeable terms. I’m not impressed with an alleged “leader” of anything with 25K “followers” on social media. Bots abound in cyberspace. I know guy who created thousands of them for social media. This is another reason to ignore Big Media. I mean I don’t use social media because it’s too much of a sewer. But too many “news” stories started using Twitter as sources material. Now I take in no news directly. And this kind of weird fiction Ann chose us just reassurance I ain’t missing nothing.

Begonia said...

Anyone curious about who Q actually is can read about Frederick Brennan and James Watkins on wikipedia.

For those of you who enjoy listening to podasts, I recommend this Reply All episode:

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/llhe5nm

Inga said...

“...whoever it was that ordered 25,000 troops to occupy DC not only for inauguration but for some indefinite time afterwards.”

I’ve been reading that groups of NG are checking out of their hotels and leaving to go back home.




mockturtle said...

Mike Sylwester asserts: I do not see any reason for anyone to make this into such a scary boogeyman for the general public.

You don't???!!!! Then you're not paying close attention. The more 'scary boogeymen' the left can invoke against potential Trump supporters, the sooner they can impose their totalitarian measures.

Ficta said...

"[D]isappointed Q followers could be prime targets for radicalization by other extremist groups, like neo-Nazis"

JFC! "Neo Nazis", how scary. The investment Dems have in WW2 LARPing is pathetic.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I’ve heard WAY better conspiracy theories than Q stuff. But this the first I’ve heard it was an apocalyptic death cult. How long before Biden and Inga start blaming lizard people for his failure as a fake president. That’ll be lit.

Matt Sablan said...

I mean, conspiracy theorists always find a way to bounce back. We still have people who think we didn't land on the moon!

mockturtle said...

Begonia reports: I am a liberal madisonian who lives in a liberal bubble. but complains of Qanon-supporting acquaintances: they have completely lost touch with reality. Anyone else see any issue with the proximity of these two statements?

Rob said...

We spent hours debating the late 1960's controversy over whether Paul [McCartney] was dead. He was out of step with the others in the cover photograph of "Abbey Road." There was a lyric, "He blew his mind out in a car." It turned out that Paul was alive. But is he Q?

Inga said...

“Not for nuthin', but it remains true to this day that I have never heard anyone mention QAnon except to disparage it. For all these huge Instagram accounts, why do there seem to be no actual QAnon-ers?”

Q Anon adds conspiracy theories Trump support

Oh they exist all right, they are 100% Trump supporters, but I’m not saying all Trump supporters are Q Anon believers.

Gusty Winds said...

Q never meant anything. Wishful thinking for some at best. But now it will be amplified by liberals to promote the upcoming thought purge, which will be led full force by academia and fueled by the media.
John Brennan was already on TV last night comfortably talking about the new administration moving quickly to identify and rid the gov’t of “subversives”. He made it a point to include Libertarians, with racists, religious fanatics, etc…

Some nutbag PHD named Loretta J. Ross is calling for the “the elimination of the Republican Party and purging Nazified people from Congress, Universities, and their regular jobs. These people are serious. They’re not blowing dog whistles

I'd imagine the purge is going to become very popular in Madison, WI by this summer. The me too voices will join in along with letters signed by 88 professors.

DavidUW said...

The only source I have for the latest Q news is the liberal media.

Therefore I can only conclude it's entirely a fantasy spun by those professional liars.

Mike Sylwester said...

I got interested in QAnon in the early months of Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller's investigation -- maybe in late 2017 into early 2018.

At that time, QAnon was advising its disciples to "trust the plan". Supposedly, Mueller was conducting an elaborate double-cross plot to entrap government officials who were leaking government secrets against President Trump. Mueller's plot was "the plan". In other words, Mueller was a secret ally of Trump.

Of course, that was not how the Mueller "investigation" turned out to be.

So, why was QAnon communicating about this "plan"? Well, maybe Eric Trump thought that was what was happening. Or maybe some hoaxster was concocting this elaborate hoax for fun.

Or maybe QAnon's riddles were understood incorrectly by me and others.

The fun of it was the idea that these communications seemed to be coming from President Trump himself. We were supposed to "trust the plan", because it was Trump's plan.

However, it was all riddles, puzzles, mystifications, guessing games. If it was just a hoax, then it was a clever, innovative, entertaining hoax.

As I said, I suspect that Eric Trump was QAnon and that his father Donald Trump knew about it and occasionally participated -- perhaps prankishly. I thought so because of various clues, which I no longer remember and no longer can present. Maybe, though, I am completely wrong.

Maybe the QAnon secret will be revealed some day.

Eleanor said...

I think QAnon was invented by the left to make Trump supporters keep waiting for QAnon to save the day instead of taking a more active role themselves.

n.n said...

Antifa will force insurrections in cities. Some, Select Black Lives will burn, loot, and occupy neighborhoods. Progressives will sacrifice human lives for social progress. Social justice zones will force catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform. The conspiracy theories are unbelievable, but true. JournoLists will carry out witch hunts, warlock trials (e.g. trial by press), and cover-ups over 17 trimesters. The Democrat President will reestablish the axis with Chinese and Iranian regimes.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Well, I'll tell you one group who believed the QAnon conspiracies --- whoever it was that ordered 25,000 troops to occupy DC not only for inauguration but for some indefinite time afterwards."

The razor wire and 25,000 troops are facts the Democrats aren't going to be able to escape. This inauguration was unique in American history. Post '68 Democrats have always had the fascist strain but, Jesus, they've embraced it so fecklessly now that they're never going to get the stink off.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

Oh they exist all right, they are 100% Trump supporters

For that statement to be false, all we need is one Q-er who doesn't support Trump. Do you think the woman in the article referenced the other day by Prof. Althouse or by Begonia's Madison ladies above are Trumpers? I doubt it very much. For one thing, anti-vaxxers, including the Bill Gates micro-chippers, are very much liberal, white, suburban women. That is not, to say the least, a Trump constituency.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Certainly all of us here at Althouse were promoting the idea!

Bidenist Inag knows.

Inga said...

Marjorie Taylor Greene gives her opinion QAnon

At the .50 mark.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

British reporter flew in to see the bizarre spectacle.

"I Watched Biden’s Inauguration First-Hand
Haunted and numb in a horribly sanitized city."

Leland said...

How can Pelosi order in the National Guard if she isn't in the chain of command?

According to the linked news stories, she called up DHS. We know she called the JCS too, but they noted the illegalities of following her orders.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The only conspiracy theories allowed are those you find on Rachel Maddow.

Rick said...

It's revealing neither the authors nor any other public official notes the disconnect between the left's over-wrought preparations for the inauguration and what actually happened.

Let's not pretend these people care about QAnon supporter reactions. These writers are trying to create a focus point so regular people (including liberals) don't wonder why left media hysteria was completely proven wrong. Their primary goal is to be able to continue with their plans for retribution and cleansing the government of non-leftists even though the threat they were supposedly responding to just proved massively over-hyped.

Sebastian said...

"who has been largely silent since election day"

Quite the conspirator, that Q.

Inga said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tina Trent said...

I know a handful of people who fall hard for this stuff. Fewer than ten, either quite old or a bit damaged by other experiences, out of hundreds of members and dozens of leaders of social conservative and citizen groups. Most of us have perused it, but either for entertainment, or to see what all the fuss is about, or to see what we’re being accused of now. Mostly, including me, the latter.

Some of the messaging generally makes sense to people, but not so that they literally believe in cabals of child molesters in political circles. What resonates is a sense that federal security and intelligence agents and social media giants are acting covertly against their interests and in favor of protecting and promoting the agenda of Democrats and the Left. You hardly need to believe in Q in order to believe that. I suspect Qanon is demoralization propaganda emanating from the Voltaire Network or their allies, and behind them, the entire spy versus spy-ocracy where everyone meddles with everyone all the time. Good propaganda always appeals to the target’s core values.

Meanwhile, Obama tried to install a Department of Education head who is still a Maoist. An actual Maoist. Many elite academics are avowed revolutionary Marxists, and some are also Maoists, I mean card-carrying— the Maoists tend to congregate in the teacher-training programs. The majority of people whom I met in academia believe Che Guevara is a hero, and a significant number would argue that Castro created a Communist paradise. There are entire academic departments dedicated to, yes, literally eliminating all policing and all incarceration.

The point is, in our movements, the Qanon people aren’t given positions of authority, let alone elite jobs if they subscribe to this stuff. In entire swaths of academia and politics, you pretty much have to be a vocal anti-TERF Marxist BLM-fetishist to get in the door, and that’s why you get in the door.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

After every ridiculous lie you buy, Inag - your Q-anon hivemind concern, is rich.

Inga said...

“Do you think the woman in the article referenced the other day by Prof. Althouse or by Begonia's Madison ladies above are Trumpers?”

Yes of course they are Trumpers. Do you think that there are no Trumpers that live in Madison? We have commenters here that are Trump supporters that live in Madison, Original Mike, Madison Man and others.

Mike Sylwester said...

I stopped paying attention to QAnon many months ago. However, now that QAnon has turned into such a boogeyman, I wonder if QAnon might be a factor in the accusations that President Trump provoked the invasion of the Capitol Building on January 6.

QAnon seems to be communicating secret messages from President Trump, but doing so in riddles, thus ensuring plausible deniability to Trump.

It's quite likely that some FBI and NSA officials have been trying to figure out whether President Trump really is the QAnon mastermind. Therefore, if it actually is just a hoax, then the most important fooled victims might include FBI and NSA officials.

In other words, some hoaxster has convinced the FBI and NSA that President Trump secretly did communicate via QAnon that his disciples should invade the Capitol building on January 6.

QAnon is not jut the riddles.

QAnon also is the clever and sophisticated use of the Internet to communicate without the source being detected. Perhaps even the NSA cannot figure out for sure who has been posting the QAnon messages.

Butkus51 said...

Everything is prefaced by, "without a shred of evidence" regarding the last election. After 4 years of Russia crap. Never once prefaced by..."without a shred of evidence"

bloggers let this crap happen

Nonapod said...

So the inaguration of Biden went off without a hitch despite the imaginings of many. What does this mean? What could we conclude from that? Could it be that maybe... just maybe, Q-Anon isn't as big a threat as some would have us believe? Is it possible that Q-Anon is just a noisey but very tiny group of overwhelmingly harmless people who may talk and fuss a lot online but would never actually do anything serious? I mean, outside of maybe a half dozen or so whackos who may potentially be dangerous either in a "lone wolf" sort of way or the nitwits who planned the kidnapping Gretchen Whitmer?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Over-hyping Q-anon. You can count on the Bidenist hivemind.

DAN said...

I'm trying to figure out if George Smiley was in charge of this or in charge of thwarting it.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

We have commenters here that are Trump supporters that live in Madison, Original Mike, Madison Man and others.

And, notice, it's an all male list. My point remains -- anti-vaxxers are liberal, white women, and QAnon has its share of anti-vaxxer conspiracies, so I doubt that all QAnon folks consider themselves Trumpies.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Now do climate change, another repeatedly falsified apocalyptic conspiracy theory.

Inga said...

“So the inaguration of Biden went off without a hitch despite the imaginings of many. What does this mean?”

It means that the fools who stormed the Capitol on the 6th are getting arrested and the rest of the fools know there were 25,000 NG troops in DC. That’s sort of a duh.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The purging of the Trumpers will be done for your own good. Q-anon must be stopped!

*most of us have no the fuck clue what or/who is behind Q-Anon.
No matter - it's a super excuse for the corrupt totalitarian left to.... purge.

You will not be allowed to think there's any sex trafficking going on. nutters!




*****Whatever you do, don't look into Biden family corruption.
Everything from the left is a distraction..

mockturtle said...

There are some of us who persist in believing that Epstein didn't kill himself, that Seth Rich wasn't the victim of a random shooting and several more 'conspiracy theories'. But I had to look up QAnon the other day because I didn't know what/who they were [I still don't].

Growing up as I did in the 1960's, I became inured to lies from the government and from the media ["This is not an invasion of Cambodia", as we invaded Cambodia; the CIA-directed assassination of Diem and other leaders whom we found inconvenient.] so I was never naive enough to believe what I was told but try to piece the evidence together into some logical analysis of my own device. Call me a whack job if you will but there is more about the COVID 19 virus origin than we are being told and more about the Las Vegas shooting, too. Based on my own study of what evidence exists [or, in the case of the former, existed for a time].

Inga said...

“...anti-vaxxers are liberal, white women”

That is baloney. There were mega churches in Texas and Hasidic Jew communities in NY, who are conservatives, who had large outbreaks of measles because they were anti Vaxxers.

“and QAnon has its share of anti-vaxxer conspiracies, so I doubt that all QAnon folks consider themselves Trumpies.”

You are free to doubt, but the evidence is there.

YoungHegelian said...

@inga,

the rest of the fools know there were 25,000 NG troops in DC

So, what's the endgame here, Inga? If there was a "People's Army" ready to descend on DC, it's still out there. Still out there and hasn't taken a single casualty. Does Biden take a division with him everywhere he goes? Or, does he govern from a bunker in an undisclosed secure location? And what about DC? Is it under lock-down forever just to make our new overlords feel safe?

Also, remember, in the minds of those who would participate in such an insurrection, they almost certainly believe that a large number of those NG troops can be turned or talked into standing down. They may have seen many of the 25,000 as their allies. Certainly, the Democrats weren't sure of the NG's loyalty.

So, if such an attack was being planned (and I don't think it was), don't assume that the NG was seen as a deterrent.

Rick said...

YoungHegelian said...
Well, I'll tell you one group who believed the QAnon conspiracies --- whoever it was that ordered 25,000 troops to occupy DC not only for inauguration but for some indefinite time afterwards.


Whoever ordered those troops didn't believe QAnon or even that other people believe QAnon. They wanted regular people to believe QAnon supporters are real threat justifying their plans.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

There were mega churches in Texas and Hasidic Jew communities in NY, who are conservatives, who had large outbreaks of measles because they were anti Vaxxers.

Megachurchers & Hasids, like Jenny McCarthy?

Google is your friend, Inga.

Mike Sylwester said...

I am in a speculative mood -- as I often am.

Suppose that QAnon began as a hobby of Eric Trump and that his father knew about it and occasionally participated. Furthermore, Eric intended to communicate to the public his own understanding of his father's secret thinking.

To some extent, it's just Eric's secret hobby. To some extent, he is communicating some remarks he hears occasionally from his father. It's semi-serious and semi-fun.

Now suppose that the NSA figures out the mystery -- that it is being done by Eric, with his fun-loving father's knowledge and occasional participation.

However, the NSA advises President Trump to terminate Eric's hobby. And so, QAnon disappears from the Internet for many months.

Now, however, some well-informed Trump-hating villains could take over the project. Now, QAnon is not Eric Trump. Rather, QAnon is someone else who knows all about the secret history of QAnon.

This new, fake QAnon could begin to send out new riddles that suggest that the Capitol building should be invaded on January 6. Afterwards, these messages could be pinned on President Trump.

This might explain why QAnon suddenly has become such a huge boogeyman.

Inga said...

“If there was a "People's Army" ready to descend on DC, it's still out there.”

People’s Army? It seems to me they are groups of losers who are addicted to conspiracy theories, like playing dress up games with their guns and flags and when they get together in a large group like on Jan.6th, all it would take would be for someone they respected to encourage and incite them...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

YoungHegelian said...


These people are seriously whack.

Scared shitless, too.

RigelDog said...

Begonia said she knows some smart women who believe that there is "some grand global conspiracy to control us/get children to wear masks/make it easier for child pedophiles to kidnap children because they are wearing masks."

Was just reading comments on another blog from a while back, noting that there are so many women who post fear-mongering stories on Facebook about how they are sure that their kid was being targeted by some creep in the store/playground/arcade for kidnapping into child sex-trafficking. These women relate how they foiled the perpetrator, and then they receive all kinds of warm fuzzies from other commenters about how brave they were and how it's so scary out there, all the child kidnappers. It's not a right/left divide, either. Equal opportunity safety-ism.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

It seems to me they are groups of losers who are addicted to conspiracy theories, like playing dress up games with their guns and flags and when they get together in a large group like on Jan.6th

If they're such losers, then why does it take two fucking divisions of NG to stand between them & the losers you helped put in office?

Inga said...

https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/measles-outbreak-tied-texas-megachurch-sickens-21-8C11009315

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6819a4.htm

Google is your friend too!

Inga said...

“If they're such losers, then why does it take two fucking divisions of NG to stand between them & the losers you helped put in office?”

Losers can’t be violent? Really? Oky doky then.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

Google is your friend too!

I'm not saying those cases didn't happen. But that's not the standard anti-vaxxer demographic. Those are outliers. There's an awful lot more white suburban women than megachurchers or Hasids in this country.

Tell me, what evidence would you like me to post to prove my case? I gave you a peer reviewed scientific article. What else would you like?

twhp said...

I'm not as disdainful of the Trump supporters on this board as they seem to be of me, but I'm just as baffled as they are by how we can co-exist in the world as alert and intelligent people and perceive such different things.

For the record, I'm a life-long liberal with mostly liberal and left-of-liberal friends, and nobody I know thinks that Trump is responsible for all COVID deaths. The pandemic would have been frightening and deadly no matter who was in office. But, like every liberal I know, I think that Trump's initial responses were woefully inadequate and that the failures of national leadership at every stage--in testing, in agreed-upon public health measures, and now in vaccine rollout, are substantially responsible for the fact that the US has had a lot more illnesses and deaths per capita than many other developed countries. Not totally responsible--the US is uniquely hard to govern because of its combination of geographic spread and diversity of jurisdictions. But substantially responsible.

As for Russian actions in the 2016 election, I think that the Mueller report had it about right--that the Russians acted concertedly and intensely to influence the election on Trump's behalf, that members of the Trump campaign team had many contacts with Russian operatives though with no provable coordination or conspiracy, and that the Russian efforts probably had a marginal effect on the election outcome. As did Hillary's failures and omissions as a candidate, and the Benghazi and email scandals (well-justified in your view, I gather, politically motivated nothing-burgers in mine). Close elections are like close football games; any of a dozen things might have made them turn out differently. The Nate Silver projections on the morning of election day 2016 were about right, I think. He said there was a 1 in 3 chance that Trump would win, and the 1 in 3 chance then happened as it will 1 out of 3 times. In 2 alternate universes, Hillary wins, and we can nurse our separate opinions about whether the pandemic would have been more or less deadly, or equally deadly, in that scenario. Or about whether the economy would have been weaker or stronger, the deficit higher or lower, the US position in the world more or less advantageous.

About the antifa riots in Portland last night: I'm not sure how big a story you think they should have been in the scheme of things, but it's noteworthy that the only significant property damage was to the Democratic Party headquarters. One thing that I would claim to know more about than you Trump supporters is what campus radicals think of liberals, since I've been a campus liberal for many decades. They hate and condescend to us as much you do, which for me at least calls into question the frequent assertions on other Althouse threads that the Biden administration will somehow be the puppet of the radical left. If anything, I agree with you that Antifa and the Proud Boys are brothers and sisters under their different tough warrior disguises. Indeed, the view of Antifa in my liberal bubble is a lot like the view of QAnon on this thread. They seem absurd and destructive, but also relatively unimportant except in the imaginings of extreme conservatives for whom they are convenient bogeymen.

Tina Trent said...

@Gusty Winds: I know Loretta Ross. I worked in coalitions with her for years. She says a lot of things that aren’t true, but I believe her when she says she wants to eliminate us from society. She was with the nefarious Center for Democratic Renewal, which pretended to do “opposition research on white supremacist attacks” but ended up just amplifying insurance fraud and predictably collapsed in bitter infighting while accusing other “opposition research” groups of bias. I do have to credit her with one crucial insight into my own work on hate crime hoaxes: it was her organization that first got me wondering why so many incidents of arson/graffiti hate crime that turn out to be hoaxes are limited only to the garage doors of the homes owned by the people perpetrating the hoax. I have cleverly named this The Garage Door Theory.

She isn’t just any nutbag PhD: she is showered with prizes and positions at elite universities. So are scores of leftist murderers, terrorists, cop-killers, judge-killers, serial bombers, not a few people who didn’t merely invade the Capitol briefly but bombed it. That’s my point.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Crack is right about the new age crap people buy.

But is Q-anon dangerous? Compared to what? Is Q scary because some might be... icky scary Trump supporters!? If Bidenists believed any of Q's conspiracy theories... what do we suppose would be the result? Q would be fine and dandy. No harm found here. Nothing to see here, actually.

The rest of us see something much more sinister going on, and it's not Q-anon's numerology. It's not Q's idea that a secret cabal of sex trafficking goes on, run at the highest levels of government and by the ultra elite. or any other Q conspiracy.
And seriously - what's the difference between any of that & ASTROLOGY?

Hundreds of news papers and glossy magazines print ASTROLOGY charts. Talk about a bogus conspiracy right under our noses. I bet Bidenists read astrology charts. Freaking nutters. Who honestly believes the silly notion that someone STOOD there on vantage point earth, and connected the dots between stars - created some symbols and creatures - and these symbols and creatures are a guiding force to our personalities and fortunes! and there are only 12 personalities to boot. That's nuts. Millions buy it. I'll bed Bidenists do, for sure.

Back to the real threat to our freedom and democracy.

Reality - Ideological Alignment Pushing America Toward Totalitarianism, Experts Warn Concerns over the nexus of big tech, big media, and big government.

Interested Bystander said...

To use a phrase used by John McCain: wackadoodle!

Let’s hope they don’t go the way of Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate. Woooooooooo-oooooh.

narciso said...

unlike the danchenko dossier, which sufficed for a fisa warrant, loonie louies rants, max boot, a whole host of crazies still given bylines, so the post is the blind man looking for an eye, kind of like rocket raccoon,

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Leland said...

It seems to me they are groups of losers who are addicted to conspiracy theories, like playing dress up games with their guns and flags and when they get together in a large group like on Jan.6th

If they're such losers, then why does it take two fucking divisions of NG to stand between them & the losers you helped put in office?


I think a better question is if it is the losers the believe the conspiracy theories; then why is the government ordering two divisions of the NG based on perceived threat from the conspiracy theorist QAnon. Most of the comments here suggest those who may have voted Trump don't buy into QAnon. And then there are a few commenters (ok, one) here that believe QAnon is real and thus support the government locking down DC. It seems the later are the believers.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The corrupt left are so frightened of Animal Fur Guy - they had to turn DC into Nazi Germany.

Inga said...

“I'm not saying those cases didn't happen. But that's not the standard anti-vaxxer demographic. Those are outliers. There's an awful lot more white suburban women than megachurchers or Hasids in this country.”

The Anti-Vaccine Movement in 2020The popular depiction of antivaxxers as “earthy-crunchy” doesn’t tell the whole story. Anti-vaccine sentiment is strongly associated with conspiracy thinking and protection of individual freedoms, traits that are finding a home among far-right groups.

The pharmacist in Wisconsin that destroyed 500 doses of vaccine was one of the sorts of people described in this article. Get with the times YH, you are behind.

Mr. D said...

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied
Straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe


Tim Hardin was on this one a half-century ago.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

anti-vaxxers started with Jenny McCarthy - Hollywood.

Hollywood is predominately white and Leftist.

YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

Losers can’t be violent

Stop being a putz, Inga! The whole fucking Mall was under lockdown, with walls all up & down the Mall. First amendment rights of free assembly suspended and are still so. Huge, huge loses for restaurateurs & hotels because of the lockdown. And, for what, Inga, for fucking what? Some vague "chatter on the internet"?

You're awful fucking cavalier about what these clowns are doing to my town, Inga. Where was all this concern about "violent losers" when Antifa rioted on Inauguration Day in 2017? Where were those two goddamn divisions of NG then? Where was the request from Nancy Pelosi for machine gun nests on the streets then? And how many of those Antifa clowns went to jail? Zero. So don't tell me about "violent losers".

Narr said...

I am Qanon! There, it's out. It's a relief, really.

But seriously, all I know about Qanon is what I've read here, and an occasional reference to him/her/it/xit on the TV news or NPR.

I think the security theater yesterday just goes to show how we've gone to rule by The Hindmost at last. When the most powerful country in the world has to lock down a ceremony like that because some anonymous yoyos say some shit on the internet, don't think the populace and other countries don't notice.

Narr
The DC'ers are rank with fear

Ken B said...

When my son was 5 he was terrified of Goldars. I had to search under his bed.

Tinderbox said...

They do love to fixate on fringe entities of varying levels of reality (QAnon, Proud Boys, "white supremacists", etc.) and turn them into Marvel villains.
Not that I'm closed minded to the idea of an organized Democratic ruling-elite pederast ring. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Ken B said...

I still don’t know what QAnon is, or is supposed to be. It’s used like “God’s will”, a vacuous explanation for anything.

DavidUW said...

That is baloney. There were mega churches in Texas and Hasidic Jew communities in NY, who are conservatives, who had large outbreaks of measles because they were anti Vaxxers.
>>
Inga, measles is a reportable disease, and your lies are easily checked.

The states with infections in 2019

Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Colorado, California and Georgia.

The WA state outbreak was quite large, across the river from Portland in Clark County. As was the SoCal outbreak.
All stupid white suburban liberal women who don't get their kids vaccinated because reasons.

wendybar said...

Inga said...
“So the inaguration of Biden went off without a hitch despite the imaginings of many. What does this mean?”

It means that the fools who stormed the Capitol on the 6th are getting arrested and the rest of the fools know there were 25,000 NG troops in DC. That’s sort of a duh.

1/21/21, 1:23 PM

But notice, that the Kamala funded Antifa is STILL out there violently damaging cities in the country.....They aren't afraid, because they work for the DCCC

Chuck said...

"QAnon-enthusiast Lauren Boebert had won the Republican primary for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District. Consensus in the room was that Boebert's victory was a stunner. The president then addressed McConnell. 'You know she’s a believer in that QAnon,' he said. 'Are you familiar with that, Mitch?' McConnell sat there stone-faced. He didn't move a muscle.

"'You know, people say they're into all kinds of bad things and say all kinds of terrible things about them,' Trump added. 'But, you know, my understanding is they basically are just people who want good government.'

"The room fell silent. Nobody knew how to respond.

"Then all of a sudden Meadows burst out laughing. 'I have heard them described a lot of ways, but never quite like that,' he said. The meeting participants broke down laughing. 'In terror, quite candidly,' said a source in the room."


Jonathan Swan, writing for Axios.

https://www.axios.com/trump-off-the-rails-descent-into-madness-fd169833-9052-473d-87f5-7a1a4ffffb8f.html

Joe Smith said...

"There were mega churches in Texas and Hasidic Jew communities in NY, who are conservatives, who had large outbreaks of measles because they were anti Vaxxers."

Let's blame Christians and Joooos.

Nice religious bigotry right there.

Doesn't DBI have a job?

Inga said...

“Where was all this concern about "violent losers" when Antifa rioted on Inauguration Day in 2017?”

You didn’t hear me praising anyone for rioting. I did however praise the massive pussy hatted demonstrations world wide the day after Trumps inauguration, which were non violent.

effinayright said...


twhp said...

.... are substantially responsible for the fact that the US has had a lot more illnesses and deaths per capita than many other developed countries. Not totally responsible--the US is uniquely hard to govern because of its combination of geographic spread and diversity of jurisdictions. But substantially responsible.

**************************
Of ten developed countries with large populations and covid deaths above 1,000/million, the US is fourth, after the UK, Belgium, and Italy. Smaller developed countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovenia also have death rates above 1,000/million.

So your premise is incorrect.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Jim at said...

Once again, I wouldn't know a damn thing about this q stuff if not for the left constantly screeching about it.

Jim at said...

You didn’t hear me praising anyone for rioting.

No. You blamed the right wing for it. And still do.
Fuck off.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
YoungHegelian said...

@Inga,

I did however praise the massive pussy hatted demonstrations world wide the day after Trumps inauguration, which were non violent.

The 2017 March was peaceful. The 2018 March pretty much did at the Capitol what the 1/6 rioters did, but that was different, because...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

didn't Kamala say she would never take the Vaccine if Trump was president.

Kamala = Q anon.

Inga said...

“Doesn't DBI have a job?”

Who is DBI? If you are referring to me, no don’t have a job. I’m a 69 year old retired grandma who gets Social Security, staying home because of Covid. You got a problem with that?

Begonia said...

Follow up thoughts on my post about the two smart kind ladies who are Qanon believers:

1) The two smart kind ladies I know were independent/conservative-leaning small government types before getting sucked in by the Qanon conspiracy theory. They live in southeast Wisconsin, not Madison. I know them from my friendship circle in the mountain biking scene. Another right-leaning friend who lives in the northern Chicago suburbs, who we also know from mountain biking also told my husband the whole thing was a conspiracy and warned us about the microchip in the Bill Gates vaccine last May or June, but he has dropped off of facebook completely and I have no idea if he still believes those things so I didn't include him in my tally of two. And then I have my friend's father, who is also a conspiracy theorist but since he is not directly a friend of mine and I have not directly seen what he posts, I didn't include him. But if I do include them, that's 4 people who were conservative who got sucked into Qanon. And no liberals.

2) What about liberals I know? Do I know any crazies on the left? I couldn't think of a single person I know who identifies as Antifa or posts anything that supports Antifa. I do know--friends of friends--people who thought the property damage in downtown Madison was justified. So yes, I know extreme people on the left. But while those BLM protesters are clearly removed from reality, they don't beleive in a wacko conspiracy theory. Take of that what you will.

3) I am a liberal but I follow conservatives and conservative media to try and get out of my bubble. I do not believe all conservatives have lost touch with reality, only the ones who believe in conspiracy theories. See also: people who beleive in the September 11 conspiracy theories, and people who believe the Area 51 crap. My cousin (a liberal dude) believes in that crap, and I also think he has lost touch with reality.

Gusty Winds said...

Tina Trent said...She isn’t just any nutbag PhD

I was just assuming they were all nutbag PhDs.

Appreciate your first hand insights. I don't think people have yet accepted how serious these people really are.

I think Shouting Thomas realizes it, and perhaps that's why he has softened his tone a bit.


Inga said...

“I couldn't think of a single person I know who identifies as Antifa or posts anything that supports Antifa.”

Me neither. They take issue with being lumped in with Q or other fringe groups, yet they continually lump all liberals in with Antifa. Double standard on steroids.

Mikey NTH said...

I have heard more about Q Anon from Althouse linking to the New York media than anywhere else. I am wondering if it is something that exists only in the imaginations of the members of those publications and shows and their readers and audiences.

DavidUW said...

Flu deaths in the 57-58 pandemic varied 70 fold, seventy-fold among countries across the globe, with such countries as Egypt having a very low death rate, not exactly a highly-developed or rich country then.

I bring this up to point out that a very large component of death rates are likely to be random chance.

I don't think Belgium's or Italy's health care system is 5x or whatever as bad as Germany's but you're seeing such wide variances.

pacwest said...

Gotta have a boogieman. The Qanon thingy fills a lot of bills. Mobilize the military. Intensify the white supremacy notion. Republicans are nutso evil. Trump is the leader of a cult.

effinayright said...

twhp said..

"As for Russian actions in the 2016 election, I think that the Mueller report had it about right--that the Russians acted concertedly and intensely to influence the election on Trump's behalf, that members of the Trump campaign team had many contacts with Russian operatives though with no provable coordination or conspiracy, and that the Russian efforts probably had a marginal effect on the election outcome."
**********************

Oh sure, the Russians got a lot of favors in return for their Trump support. Like Trump expanding NATO in Poland and the Baltic. Like Trump putting the kibosh on that German-Russian pipeline deal. Like Trump killing 400-odd Russian mercenaries in Syrian in a lopsided battle using our vastly superior air power. Like Trump killing their client state Iran's chief terrorist. Like Trump pushing and achieving American energy independence.

And, of course, you conveniently forget that it was Hillary money that paid for the fake Trump dossier and got the FBI to use it smear Trump.

As for the "many contacts" Trump's people had with the Russian: can you name the people involved? Of course you can't.

So, no, Mueller didn't establish that Trump's people worked in concert with the Russians to get Trump elected, and Russia didn't benefit from his win.

Wince said...

Does an FBI informant provide Q-tips?

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Just a friendly reminder that Epstein didn't kill himself.

Joe Smith said...

DBI...Dim Bulb Inga.

Retired? Nice. Me too. No Government $ because I'm too young by a decade+

But nice to know grannies can be bigots too...

Drago said...

twhp: "For the record, I'm a life-long liberal with mostly liberal and left-of-liberal friends, and nobody I know thinks that Trump is responsible for all COVID deaths"

Someone should introduce you to the entire democratical leadership and political teams that have explicitly stated precisely that and that message was amplified by 98% of the legacy media just about everyday for over a year as well as amplified by almost the entirety of the entertainment industry personalities and pushed relentlessly across all platforms controlled by Big Tech.

So, given all that, let me be the first to welcome you home as I must assume you had been stranded on another planet for the past 13 months and have just returned.

I hope it is not taking you too long to readjust to Earth's gravity.

Rick said...

Begonia said...
So yes, I know extreme people on the left. But while those BLM protesters are clearly removed from reality, they don't believe in a wacko conspiracy theory.


Really? Let's test that.

Do you or they believe more than 1 in 5 women on campus are sexually assaulted during a 4 year term?

Do you or they believe half of personal bankruptcies in America are caused by medical bills?

Do you or they believe Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election?

Drago said...

“I couldn't think of a single person I know who identifies as Antifa or posts anything that supports Antifa.”

Try Keith Ellison and his son for starters.

Then move on to Kamala herself helping to bail them out of jail, which was always unnecessary because no democratical or DOJ personnel would ever prosecute them.

Inga said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Inga said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drago said...

Inga: "Joe Smith could be a dog on the internet for all I know..."

You are the self-declared mind-reader, so you tell us.

Inga said...


“Retired? Nice. Me too. No Government $ because I'm too young by a decade+“

That’s nice Joe, thanks for sharing, but I couldn’t care less what you do or don’t do, you could be a dog on the internet too.

pacwest said...

Indeed, the view of Antifa in my liberal bubble is a lot like the view of QAnon on this thread. They seem absurd and destructive, but also relatively unimportant except in the imaginings of extreme conservatives for whom they are convenient bogeymen.

Interesting thinking process. I guess it works if you ignore the burning buildings and dead cops. Nothing to see here, move along. One step away from thought crimes = looting and rioting.

Nonapod said...

I think it's safe to say that if it were a contest between who has actually done more real physical damage in terms of lives and poperty between Q-Anon and Antifa, Antifa would win by a country mile.

stevew said...

Nah, that doesn't sound crazy at all. Not a smidge.

Meanwhile the non-existent Antifa and BLM are trashing Democrat property in Portland. Sane, rational, and healing behavior.

mockturtle said...

Does an FBI informant provide Q-tips?

Good one, Wince! ;-D

stevew said...

Sounds a bit like the Heaven's Gate folks, aside from the target of the killings.

mockturtle said...

It's safe to say that the new Administration has more to fear from the Left than from the Right. Face it: Anarchists aren't going to be happy under any government.

YoungHegelian said...

I couldn't think of a single person I know who identifies as Antifa or posts anything that supports Antifa.”

Me neither. They take issue with being lumped in with Q or other fringe groups, yet they continually lump all liberals in with Antifa. Double standard on steroids.


No good liberal knows or supports Antifa. Of course not.

It's because of all the anarchists & commies in local & state government. That's it. That explains why so few ever get charged for any of their crimes.

Pull the other one, ladies.

Michael K said...

But that's not the standard anti-vaxxer demographic.

You find them clustered around "Whole Foods" stores ion lefty neighborhoods.

West LA is rank with them.

Inga said...

“No good liberal knows or supports Antifa. Of course not.”

No good Trumpist knows or supports Q or other fringe groups, of course not. Didn't Trump say that no good Trumpist would be among those who stormed the Capitol in one of his little speeches after the riot? Oh my how wrong he was.

Inga said...

Heard among the rioters at the Capitol...

“Trump invited us here, your boss!”

Rabel said...

Begonia:

At 2:23 in part 1 of your comment you give examples of 4 people that you are loosely acquainted with repeating examples of conspiracy gossip over the internet.

Without citing direct references to QAnon and without evidence you assign these gossipers to membership in the QAnon group.

In doing so you have placed yourself in the position of being a conspiracy theorist yourself.

Rick said...

Inga said...
“So the inaguration of Biden went off without a hitch despite the imaginings of many. What does this mean?”

It means that the fools who stormed the Capitol on the 6th are getting arrested and the rest of the fools know there were 25,000 NG troops in DC. That’s sort of a duh.


It's revealing leftists in government suddenly re-discovered how to stop riots from recurring isn't it. All last year leftist politicians fretted that any reaction might make things worse so the best solution was nothing.

But suddenly the day after the election Portland called for a massive police presence, and after Jan 6 we see another large scale escalation. Suddenly those old justifications are revealed for what we always said they were: efforts to keep the riots going to for political reasons.

It seems we do know how to address riots, the politicians in control just didn't want to.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Much more credible evidence exists for space aliens than Q-Anon. Tell us of your journey Inga

Roughcoat said...

So all this talk of Q makes me wonder, whatever happened to 4chan and Christopher Poole? 4chan had such a fearsome and sinister reputation. But you never hear about it anymore.

Maybe Q is Poole's repackaging of 4chan. Yeah, that's the ticket.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ken B said...

Inga
Joe could be a dog on the internet, but he rarely aims that high.

Skeptical Voter said...

The big bad bogeyman that the Dims were bloviating about it didn't bother to show up at the Inauguration and say "boo". Dim fantasies fail to be fulfilled.

rcocean said...

Another fake "extreme right wing group" made up by the media. Just like the Boog-aloo boys. But Antifa? Hey they STILL don't exist. Just an idea my friends. No matter how many buildings they burn down.

Anybody who believes what the WaPo and NYT's write is a gullible rube. Goobers who would buy the Brooklyn bridge.

JaimeRoberto said...

"But while those BLM protesters are clearly removed from reality, they don't beleive in a wacko conspiracy theory. Take of that what you will."

Do they believe that Michael Brown said "Hands up, don't shoot"?

Fernandinande said...

"They" still can't stop bloviating about Trump, one way or the other.

Earnest Prole said...

supporters saying they felt fooled by Trump and felt sick

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

effinayright said...

BUMBLE BEE said...
Much more credible evidence exists for space aliens than Q-Anon. Tell us of your journey Inga
****************

Don't get her started! She might begin to babble on at length about...shudder...their rectal probes.

Browndog said...

*NPR

I can't believe Althouse blogs this utter bullshit.

Fits what she wants to believe, I guess.

Francisco D said...

Heard among the rioters at the Capitol...

Uh Oh. The Resident Idiot is hearing voices now.

Maybe she always was. That may explain a few things.

Joe Smith said...

"Heard among the rioters at the Capitol..."

What were the Antifa and BLM rioters/looters saying this summer?

Or did they not exist...you know, 'mostly peaceful.'

Michael K said...

Meanwhile, when fools are going on about Q and Qanon, Antifa is attacking the DEMOCRAT offices in Portland and yelling "Fuck Biden."

Interesting times. Georges Danton might be able to explain it if someone had a time machine.

Interesting that the blog now demands I click that robot thing to post a comment.

Sam L. said...

QAnon: That insidious mind grab that's now imbedded in Leftist's brainnnnnnnnnnnnsssss. Knawing at them.

Joe Smith said...

Ken B...

You're Canadian so your opinion on USA affairs is meaningless and beyond annoying.

If you want to opine about toques, Molson, Tim Hortons, or poutine, please feel free to chime in.

We welcome your Great White North (that's racist!) expertise, eh.

5M - Eckstine said...

A 30 minute read on Q

https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5

Q is a game designed to push a person down a rabbit hole.

Apophenia is : “the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)”

Q is structured trolling short of mass hysteria.

5M - Eckstine said...

The broad issue is mental health. A mental virus. TDS matches perfectly with Q.

Institutions think they ought to be graced with the power to manipulate and solve this problem. But effectively it is best if a person solves it themselves. They gain some wisdom then. Don't lets Gates hog all the wisdom in his contained system where a bug is a feature.

You get out of the rabbit hole by being disappointed or disillusioned. And yet there are still a few who like a weed dig in deep and need repeated illusions. Some illusions become realities but they need to be tested. At least three times. Against three different scenes.

So much sci fi about this. It makes Q seems like Q is escapist fantasy.

JaimeRoberto said...

I skimmed the Medium article on QAnon. It seems like a lot of what he describes could be applied to the Russia Hoax (connecting unrelated dots, finding clues that don't exist), "anti-racism" (do the research = do the work), and the talk about white supremacy (the OK sign is a secret symbol).

5M - Eckstine said...

Jack Dorsey is the problem. I've seen him make the OK symbol. Seen his beard lately?

He could have helped everyone out by cloning Twitter into a duplicate service called Qwitter.

Did he? No... that proves it all.

5M - Eckstine said...

It is all about pattern recognition. I would say HRC is one of the worst recognizers out there. And one of the worst actors in making bad patterns.

The pattern people in the majority want is a continuous peaceful transition of power. The pattern of fraud was manipulated against that desire. Sort of good versus evil patterns. One expects the good patterns to rise to the top as the evil ones lack creativity.

Earnest Prole said...

Antifa is attacking the DEMOCRAT offices in Portland and yelling "Fuck Biden."

No shit, Sherlock -- it's not like there's a Republican Party to attack in Portland. Antifa's revolt has been against the establishment, capitalist wing of the Democratic Party in the most Democratic cities in this country.

MayBee said...

It means that the fools who stormed the Capitol on the 6th are getting arrested and the rest of the fools know there were 25,000 NG troops in DC. That’s sort of a duh.

Huh. I wonder why those NG troops couldn't have been deployed with similar success to save people and businesses in Minneapolis, Kenosha, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington DC, Portland, Seattle.....

Remember the conspiracy this summer that un-named government forces were going around kidnapping rioters off the streets?

MayBee said...

Does comparing Antifa to D-Day soldiers count as supporting Antifa? If so, there is a lot of mainstream support for Antifa.

Don said...

Witches caused the Little Ice Age, Kennedy Assassination, Trilateral Commission, Never landed on the Moon, 9/11 was an inside job, Climate Change, and QAnon.

The Best Humanity has to offer.


Don said...

Maybee,

Because Government and Politicians are more important than the little people. You haven't learned that yet?

Drago said...

Inga: "Heard among the rioters at the Capitol..."

Recall that for over 5 years Inga claimed to be a svengali who could read the deepest innermost thoughts of Trump, Mueller and countless others.

Inga would hold court at Althouse where she would spend weeks regaling us with tales of the inner workings of government employees, foreign dignitaries, etc.

It was all quite illuminating....just not in the way Inga thought...

Browndog said...

Trying to reduce the sum total of Trump supporters to "Q" people isn't going to work.

Pretty obvious what they are trying to do.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Ah, yes, planned parenthood, selective-child, the wicked solution, human sacrificial rites. The Progressive Church is long established, and now they have a forward-looking consensus, perhaps after consultation with Biden, with the CCP. Semantic, conceptual, and quasi-religious ("ethical") unity. Send in the underaged girls (and boys?) with "benefits".

daskol said...

Critical Race Theory/Critical Social Justice Theory is a nuttier conspiracy than Qanon. Yeah.

n.n said...

Trying to reduce the sum total of Trump supporters to "Q" people isn't going to work.

You're all White... White White, White Hispanic, White Black, White Orange 1/2 American color supremacists. Diversity and inclusion.

n.n said...

Social Justice Theory

Social (i.e. selective, opportunistic, relativistic, politically congruent) justice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

walter said...

"[E]ven late on Wednesday morning, QAnon groups were still hopeful that the mass arrests would materialize. But after noon, 'the mood changed quickly'... with supporters saying they felt fooled by Trump and felt sick"

I know one person who was into Qanon discussions. He had some reservations initially, admitting to lots of noise vs signal, but just days before inauguration exhibited a desperate hybrid of Q and God's plan.
What I got from him over the months was that it was less a radicalization to action(s) and more a pacifier..with a repeating allusion to being patient and awaiting the amazing grand strategy reveal.

Kansas Scout said...

These Q people were never more than a small number of loonies. I have yet to encounter one online for in person. Its just another straw man to smear conservatives and Libertarians with lies piled on lies. I hope Ann understands how stupid it was to vote for an aspiring authoritarian who will be replaced by an enthusiastic authoritarian. I hope she realizes when the Civil War begins that she helped bring it on by supporting a 78 Senile white man bought and sold by Wall Street and China.

Drago said...

I actually went looking for these Q cats and I cant find them.

Is this like a dark web thing?

Note: I fully expect a call from our democratical praetorian Stasi-FBI over my mere searching.

walter said...

Drago,
You might have had better luck a few weeks ago..

Rusty said...

I don't know. I've never heard of it. But if it drives the left batshit crazy I'm all for it. Look what it's doing to Inga.

Douglas B. Levene said...


“This is the new straw man for the leftist media. Not saying there aren't some people who follow this stuff but they are certainly unrepresentative of Trump supporters and the media well know that.” I don’t know if that’s true everywhere. Erick-Woods Erickson, a conservative, Christian radio guy in Georgia ( who also has a substack newsletter) says that the Q-Anon buffs are the predominant force among those in Georgia who thought Trump actually won the election. So maybe there are regional variations.

Lurker21 said...

Q is not an organization. It's a channel of communication. Is there really is a canonical or authoritative Q orthodoxy? Or is it like an onion with different layers and levels? Or maybe like algae or barnacles or coral, a collection of cells and organisms congregating in the same place and making up a mass that isn't really one unified entity?