How the Trump campaign came to court QAnon, identified by the FBI as a violent threat

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-trump-campaign-came-to-court-qanon-the-online-conspiracy-movement-identified-by-the-fbi-as-a-violent-threat/2020/08/01/dd0ea9b4-d1d4-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html


QAnon supporters wait for a military flyover at the World War II Memorial during Fourth of July celebrations in Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein/for The Washington Post)

By Isaac Stanley-Becker

August 2, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, Kayleigh McEnany raised a microphone to a mega-fan and asked what it felt like to be acknowledged by President Trump at his February rally in Sin City.

At the time a spokeswoman for Trump’s reelection campaign, McEnany nodded as the supporter said the shout-out was most meaningful because of the words on the shirt he was wearing, which he read aloud: “Where we go one, we go all,” the motto of QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe Trump is battling a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex.

McEnany, who has since become the White House press secretary, continued, asking the supporter, “If you could say one thing to the president, what would you say?”

“Who is Q?” he replied, inquiring about the mysterious online figure behind the baseless theory. McEnany smiled and said, “Okay, well, I will pass all of this along.”

The little-noticed exchange — captured in a video posted to YouTube — illustrates how Trump and his campaign have courted and legitimized QAnon adherents.

The viral online movement, which took root on Internet message boards in the fall of 2017 with posts from a self-proclaimed government insider identified as “Q,” has triggered violent acts and occasional criminal cases. Its effects were catalogued last year in an FBI intelligence bulletin listing QAnon among the “anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories” that “very likely motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent activity.”

</snip>

The video described in the story:

We ignore them at our peril.

[Docreed2003]

1. I just can't comprehend that so many people are dumb enough to believe this crap

If anything, the last four years has taught me never to underestimate the stupidity of some folks.

[blue cat]

4. Me either

Until it showed up in my family, younger generation white females, educated. They don’t believe anything on the media and do Facebook. It has made me give up on them changing because I don’t want to fight with my nieces.
This should distress everyone because it’s becoming more main stream and acceptable.

[Docreed2003]

10. The mainstream aspect of this is most concerning, I agree

That people can be so willful in their ignorance and beliefs in crazed conspiracies and that be widely accepted by members of a political party in this country is a huge problem.

[underpants]

7. It's booming during the pandemic too

A big increase in views from several reports I’ve seen. Lots of people with lots of spare time. Granted some of this could be people looking into what exactly this nonsense is about.

[JHB]

13. I can: several decades of wild promotion of bullshit scandals...

...in order to hobble Democratic administrations.

Gosh, there's so many! Where there's smoke there must be fire, right? Yet the Democrats keep skating off scot-free! It's gotta be a conspiracy!

It never occurs to them that the "smoke" was just the great fogbank of steam rising from the mountainous dung heap left from the constant barrage of turdballs Republicans throw but have nothing real to stick to. These people aren't exactly looking for a standard of evidence that will hold up in court.

[FM123]

2. And those Q Anon crazies are everywhere, even in the police department.

When Pence came down to Ft Lauderdale and was met by a group of local police officers at the airport, one of them (who was actually a SWAT team leader) proudly wore his Q Anon patch on his official uniform. Crazy and licensed to kill.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/broward-south-florida-cop-wore-qanon-patch-with-mike-pence-10938571

[KatyaR]

3. A Q-ster has come to light in a very public way here in OKC.

There's a small advertising firm here whose owner is a Trumper. She caused quite a stir a couple of years ago when she moved into a building in a quiet neighborhood (across from an elementary school) and painted over a protected piece of art on the side of her building and basically told everybody to f--k off from her tropical vacation spot.

Now she's moved into a different space next door (still across from the elementary school) and painted a big Q American flag on the window. She's professed her beliefs to the world. Yesterday there were a bunch of "patriots" "protecting" her business. A few were on the roof with guns. And no police anywhere.

Oh, and this building shares the neighborhood with several churches and a synagogue which is a block away.

You can't make this shit up.

[colsohlibgal]

5. Insanity

These people have gone full bore nuts. The Clintons and other Dems running a child sex ring in the basement of a Pizzeria that doesn’t actually have a basement.

If Biden wins how do we go about starting to bring at least some of them back to Earth?

[underpants]

6. His middle son, Eric, who is 36

I took that as the writer giving a “grow up!” Smack to the back of Eric’s head.

[JDC]

8. The Q believers believe because it gives them some sort of explanation as to why they are so

Stupid. If there wasn't some crazy explanation for their stupidity, they would be stuck just being a complete idiot, and that is a hard thing for even a complete idiot to want to accept.

It's the professional wrestling of the modern politic. But far, far more dangerous.

[MartyTheGreek]

9. When will Journalists Connect the Q Dots to Podesta's Hacked Emails?

Nearly four years ago when it was reveled that Podesta's emails were hacked, I read somewhere that the Ruskies inserted FBI documented "code words" used by pedophiles in their communications to each other. They used Pizza as code for children and various ways to prepare pizza in their sick fantasies.

From there, Q-Anon made up the Global Dark State pedophile cabal STORY that included Hillary, Bill, Podesta and his brother, and other political operatives.

When will Journalists connect these dots and report on it? This is the heart of Q theory and it was all fabricated from the hacked Podesta emails and the Conspiracy theory that Q lives under. The Ruskies created Q!

[Midnight Writer]

11. I thought this Qanon thing was super fringe until I started seeing the hats and t-shirts around town

I assume that the ones wearing the gear are only the most committed to this nonsense. There must be a lot of sympathizers flying under the radar.

[Celerity]

12. kick for visibility