Conspiracy theory“A Small Group of Manipulators, Operating in the Shadows, Pull the Planet’s Strings”

In May 2019, The FBI, in an assessment of security threats to the United States, said that the QAnon conspiracy theory is a domestic terrorist threat: “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.”

QAnon is a broad-scale internet-based conspiracy theory begun in early 2017. It is based on a belief that there is a high-level government official — “Q” — who sprinkles clues on internet message boards like 4chan and 8chan about a massive “deep state” conspiracy (or series of conspiracies) at work in the country. QAnon backers believe that Donald Trump was recruited by the military to run for president in 2016 because he alone wasn’t beholden to the secret power brokers of the world, and he alone could break the hold that they have on American society.

One of the QAnon conspiracies of which the general public became aware was the assertion that Hillary Clinton, Senator Chuck Schumer, and other leading Democrats were running a child-sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria (this particular story was circulated by both former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his son to their Twitter followers).

QAnon’s conspiracy theories may appear bizarre and unhinged to most people, but a few QAnon adherents have gained entry into mainstream politics. Six GOP Congressional candidates in the November election openly embrace QAnon, and one of them, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon true believer, last week won the Republican primary in Georgia’s 14th District, and is likely to win the safe Republican seat in the November election.

President Donald Trump has retweeted to his millions of followers dozens of the more outlandish postings by QAnon adherents, and yesterday (Wednesday) had this exchange on the subject with a reporter:

Reporter: QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that?

President Trump: Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world.

One of the more insightful, and disturbing, investigation into QAnon and the subculture which offers it support was written by Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic. The article, entitled “The Prophecies of Q: American Conspiracy Theories Are Entering a Dangerous New Phase,” is part of “Shadowland,” an Atlantic project about conspiracy thinking in America.

Here is the opening paragraph (italics in the original).

If you were an adherent, no one would be able to tell. You would look like any other American. You could be a mother, picking leftovers off your toddler’s plate. You could be the young man in headphones across the street. You could be a bookkeeper, a dentist, a grandmother icing cupcakes in her kitchen. You may well have an affiliation with an evangelical church. But you are hard to identify just from the way you look—which is good, because someday soon dark forces may try to track you down. You understand this sounds crazy, but you don’t care. You know that a small group of manipulators, operating in the shadows, pull the planet’s strings. You know that they are powerful enough to abuse children without fear of retribution. You know that the mainstream media are their handmaidens, in partnership with Hillary Clinton and the secretive denizens of the deep state. You know that only Donald Trump stands between you and a damned and ravaged world. You see plague and pestilence sweeping the planet, and understand that they are part of the plan. You know that a clash between good and evil cannot be avoided, and you yearn for the Great Awakening that is coming. And so you must be on guard at all times. You must shield your ears from the scorn of the ignorant. You must find those who are like you. And you must be prepared to fight.

You know all this because you believe in Q.