Octopus Overlords

QAnon is a sprawling, shifting conspiracy theory that began life as an ultra-fringe concoction in the online message boards beloved of the alt-right but is now present in more mainstream platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit.

It is anchored in the baseless assertion that the all-seeing, all-powerful President Trump deliberately manipulated the Mueller investigation to target top Democratic politicians and Hollywood stars for their alleged involvement with pedophile rings, the "Deep State" and pharmaceutical companies aimed at enslaving the American people.

Followers believe that "Q," the alleged deep-throat highly-placed national security source, gradually reveals the extent of the conspiracy that is confirmed by a bizarre parsing of the president's own words.

The Q community believes that "the solution to the country’s problems is a brutal authoritarian crackdown against Trump’s enemies," View told me in a recent phone interview. At the same time, View notes, the Q community may just be attempting to bridge the ever-widening gap between what Trump supporters believed Trump would do and what he is actually doing.

It's a continuation of the "Lock her up!" chant at Trump rallies, when supporters hoped he would throw his opponents in jail - even execute them for treason. Rather than acknowledge the hyperbolic unreality behind Trump’s vitriol, the Q community simply maintained a narrative through-line, giving vent to their revenge fantasies and overcoming the cognitive dissonance that nothing of the sort has actually occurred.

The evocation of an eschatological break from perceived reality marks the basic essence of the Q phenomenon. There is a reckoning coming, referred to in places as the "reverse rapture": a revelation that means not only the end of the world but a new beginning. Constituents often withdraw from their lives and recount stories of fighting with their families over the existence of Q, anxiously awaiting the next "Q drop."

Holman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:15 pm I'm surprised we don't have a thread on the QAnon madness sweeping MAGAland.

Grand Rapids is absolutely shocking

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:05 pm this is how religions are born?

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:26 pm This thread title made me wonder who was quitting Q-anon.

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:21 pm Totally fucked up my commute home.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:29 pm

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:26 pm This thread title made me wonder who was quitting Q-anon.

I just keep seeing this:

Holman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:01 pm The fun/scary question is "Who is Q?" (or, really, who is in a position to post as "Q"?)

Somebody is, and he or she has a huge following. Whoever it is, they've got incredible influence in the Deplorablesphere.

The True Believers buy that Q is a highly-placed Trump administration officer (probably someone we've never even heard of, because Top Secret) tasked with apprising the Trump faithful of the progress of the eventual purge that will save America from Obama loyalists, Clinton partisans, Hollywood libruls, Feminazis, treasonous intellectuals, secret Muslims, voter frauds, and other non-White non-Right non-Americans. The drama they're expecting is one of mass arrests, literally in the tens of thousands.

The most plausible theory (based on the origins of the phenom) is that Q is a 4chan or other shitposter (or a cabal of them) who has crafted the greatest hoax in internet history.

If so, we're looking at a home-grown social-media propaganda operation to rival the Russians' own. It's kind of terrifying to believe that this is possible, but it's impossible not to.

We definitely weren't ready for what the internet can do to us. We never were, and probably never could be.

QAnon is emblematic of modern America’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and its enthusiasm for them. But it is also already much more than a loose collection of conspiracy-minded chat-room inhabitants. It is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values. And we are likely closer to the beginning of its story than the end. The group harnesses paranoia to fervent hope and a deep sense of belonging. The way it breathes life into an ancient preoccupation with end-times is also radically new. To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.

Republican Jo Rae Perkins, now the official challenger to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) in November, acknowledged her Tuesday night primary win with a proclamation of her solidarity with acolytes of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

“Where we go one, we go all,” she says in a Twitter video, brandishing a “#WWG1WG” sticker with the group’s motto in hashtag form.

“I stand with President Trump, I stand with Q and the team,” she continues. “Thank you anons and thank you patriots. And together, we can save our republic.”

gbasden wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 6:32 pm At least some cultists snap out of it when the date for the rapture comes and goes.

gbasden wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 6:32 pm I have a former coworker who is all in on Q, and I just can't fathom it. None of the things being proved untrue phases him at all. Not the fact that Comet Pizza doesn't have a basement, not the fact that Muller didn't somehow work with Trump to bring down the deep state, nothing. At least some cultists snap out of it when the date for the rapture comes and goes.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:45 pm Meet QAnon Karen... She walked into Target and filmed herself dumping every facemask on display to the ground, claimed Trump sent her, claims to be wearing a $40K Rolex Watch, claims to be a QAnon spokesperson... and basically rants incoherently to the staff, then left.

She then filmed the cops who went to her home and arrested her.

You let everybody else do it. But I can't do it because I'm a blonde white woman?

Holman wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 10:21 am Oh hey look: Michael Flynn is QAnon.



(I guess he would be a fool to let the grift pass him by.)

Facing questions about its use of the slogan “We Are the Storm,” a rallying cry for QAnon adherents, the Texas Republican Party is defending its adoption of the language, saying it was drawn from a poem and had nothing to do with the internet-driven conspiracy theory that claims President Trump was elected to save America from pedophile Satanists.

The state party was responding to a report in The New York Times on Thursday about how a small but growing number of Republicans nationwide have signaled support for QAnon, a movement that the F.B.I. has warned could inspire domestic terrorism. The Texas Republican Party’s use of the slogan was cited by some prominent Republicans there as an example of how some in the G.O.P.’s leadership are opening the party to QAnon followers by adopting language used by the movement.

West, a former Florida congressman, indicated he drew inspiration for the slogan from an unattributed quote that he likes: "The devil whispers to the warrior slyly can it withstand the coming storm. The warrior responds, 'I am the storm.'"

The “We Are the Storm” poem is one of Chairman West’s favorite quotes to use in speeches. He and the entire Texas GOP will not be bullied by partisan leftists in the media into ceding powerful phrases with biblical roots — taken from Psalm 29 — to Internet conspiracy groups.

$iljanus wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 2:36 pm They're like troopers...in the storm.

Carpet_pissr wrote:The neighbor behind me has a workshop/garage/"entertaining" area that abuts my fence, and I noticed he put up this huge flag last week, which I didn't recognize. It was blue and had some writing around the logo which I couldn't make out without going to my fence and just gawking (thankfully it's hidden from view from my yard unless you are real close to the fence). I finally made out a huge "Q" in the middle. I don't even want to know what the phrase around the Q is.
Probably E Plurubus Anus (Anum?)