QAnon vigilantes patrolling the Arizona border reflect how deeply conspiracism infects movement

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

David Neiwert
@DavidNeiwert
The appearance of QAnon influencers among the vigilante border watchers in Arizona was inevitable: conspiracists attract their own kind.

A little more about this particular QAnon figure, Jason Franks, and his Arizona activities. Thread 1/10

dailykos.com
QAnon vigilantes patrolling the Arizona border reflect how deeply conspiracism infects movement
Since its beginnings in the early 2000s, the vigilante border-militia movement has been driven by conspiracy theories, its leading figures all conspiracists of various stripes: American Patrol foun...
5:30 PM · May 10, 2022

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/10/2097184/-QAnon-vigilantes-patrolling-the-Arizona-border-reflect-how-deeply-conspiracism-infects-movement


Since its beginnings in the early 2000s, the vigilante border-militia movement has been driven by conspiracy theories, its leading figures all conspiracists of various stripes: American Patrol founder Glenn Spencer claimed immigration was part of a globalist “Reconquista” plot to return the American Southwest to Mexico. Minutemen cofounder Chris Simcox liked to claim that blue-helmeted U.N. troops were helping to prepare for an invasion over the Mexico border. Murderess Shawna Forde claimed the New World Order was working with the cartels. It’s in their DNA.

The central player in this scenario is a QAnon influencer from Las Vegas named Jason Frank, who became a celebrity of sorts within the ranks of the cult’s believers when he helped lift an elderly World War II veteran onto the stage to join Donald Trump at one of his rallies in Phoenix in February 2020 while wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large “Q.” He produces a steady stream of far-right conspiracist rants and memes for his large audience of thousands of followers on Facebook—which promptly removed Frank’s Facebook page on Monday, after the Times published Jordan’s story.

In recent months, Frank had focused heavily on conspiracy theories claiming that the Walt Disney Co. was run by pedophiles, and that its output is “grooming” children into LGBTQ “lifestyles.” But in late April, he suddenly shifted gears, and moved down to the Sonoran desert in Arizona with a trailer and his teenage son, set up a sunshade and some chairs and began posting photos and videos as he scouted for border crossers—particularly those with children. And particularly groups of children.

“They are being trafficked, sex trafficked. That’s the number one trade,” Frank told Jordan. “The money, that’s where it’s at now.”

Frank, who favors Q T-shirts and a black American flag ballcap, set up shop in the Altar Valley outside of Sasabe, a small border village in a stretch of the Sonoran where there has been a border fence since the mid-2000s, long preceding Trump; the nearest town to Sasabe on the American side is Arivaca, where Forde, a far-right militia leader, masterminded the murder of a local Latino family in 2009—including a 9-year-old girl. Locals view activists like Frank with extreme wariness, for good reason.

*snip*

[Runningdawg]

1. They do more than patrol the American side.

They love to brag on forums about going "hunting" across the border and leaving poison jugs of water and food in the desert.