After flirting with QAnon for years, Donald Trump has openly embraced this baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of terrifying events related to it increases in real life.
On Tuesday, using his platform Truth Social, the former Republican president forwarded another person’s message, which featured a photo of himself wearing a Q badge overlaid with the phrase “The Storm is Coming.” ”).
In the phraseology of QAnon supporters, the “storm” refers to Trump’s final victory, when he will supposedly retake the White House and his opponents will be put on trial, and potentially executed live on television.
At a time when Trump is considering running for president again and is participating more and more proactively in the Republican Party primaries ahead of next November’s legislative elections, his actions show that, instead of moving away from marginality policy, he is adopting it.
Trump has recently posted dozens of QAnon-related messages, in contrast to 2020, when he just said that while he didn’t know much about QAnon, he couldn’t refute its conspiracy theory.
When asked what he thought about QAnon theories, which say that the former president is saving the country from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, Trump replied that he didn’t know anything about QAnon, but quickly asked, “Do you Is that supposed to be bad?”
“If I can save the world from trouble, I’m willing to do it,” he added.
Trump’s most recent messages have included images of himself as a martyr fighting criminals, psychopaths and the so-called “deep state.” In a now-deleted message from late August, Trump repeated a “q drop,” one of the cryptic messages that QAnon followers claim came from a suspected anonymous government worker with access to top-secret information.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment seeking his views.
Although his messages have not directly referred to that conspiracy theory, Trump has amplified the voice of those users who do. An Associated Press analysis found that of nearly 75 accounts whose posts Trump has repeated on Truth Social in the past month, more than a third have promoted the QAnon theory, sharing the movement’s slogans, videos and images. Approximately 1 in 10 contain QAnon phrases or links in their biographical profiles.
This month, Trump chose a QAnon song to close a political rally in Pennsylvania. The same song appears in one of his recent campaign videos and is titled “WWG1WGA,” an acronym used as a rallying cry by QAnon adherents and meaning “Where One Goes, We All Go.”
On the internet, QAnon supporters bask in the attention Trump has given them.
“Way to go haters!” wrote one commenter on an anonymous QAnon internet forum. The word “hater” describes someone who expresses unpleasant things about another or who criticizes their achievements, especially through social networks.
“Trump reposted Q memes and will do it again, more and more of them, one more time, until the whole world finely understands it. Make fun of us all you want, it doesn’t matter. Soon, Q is going to be everywhere,” he added.
A QAnon-linked account on Truth Social wrote: “He forwarded this for a reason.”
The former president may be trying to rally his most stalwart supporters as investigations into his conduct intensify and as he runs up against potential rivals within his own party, according to Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University. and who has studied QAnon. The specialist recently wrote a book about the group.
“These are people who have elevated Trump to messiah status, and right now only he can stop this plot,” Bloom told the AP on Thursday. “That’s why you see a lot of images (in QAnon spaces on the internet) of Trump depicted as Jesus.”
On Truth Social, QAnon accounts praise Trump as a savior and hero and vilify President Joe Biden, comparing him to Adolf Hitler or the devil. When Trump shares the messages, they congratulate each other for getting his endorsement. Some accounts proudly show how many times Trump has repeated his messages.
By using the language of QAnon to speak directly to the group’s supporters, Trump is basically telling them that they are right and that he shares their secret mission, explained Janet McIntosh, an anthropologist at Brandeis University who has studied the language and symbols of QAnon. QAnon.
That also allows Trump to back up his beliefs and his hope for a violent uprising without saying so flatly, McIntosh added, citing his recent message about “the storm” as an especially terrifying example.
“It’s a way to be able to target violence without explicitly asking for it,” he added, citing his recent post about “the storm” as an especially terrifying example.
“The ‘storm is coming’ is a clue to something really scary that he doesn’t say outright,” McIntosh warned. “It’s a way for him to point to violence without explicitly calling for it. He is the prince of plausible deniability.”
Bloom predicted that Trump might then try to promote QAnon-related merchandise or perhaps ask QAnon supporters to donate to his legal defense fund.
Regardless of the motive, Bloom said, it’s a foolhardy move that fuels a dangerous movement.
A growing list of criminal incidents has been linked to people expressing adherence to this conspiracy theory, which intelligence officials say could spark more violence.
QAnon supporters were among the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In November 2020, two men traveled to a vote-counting site in Pennsylvania in a vehicle adorned with QAnon stickers. Prosecutors said the individuals were trying to interfere with the election.
Last year, a California man who told authorities he had been “grown” by QAnon was accused of killing his two sons because he believed they had snake DNA.
Last month, a woman in Colorado was convicted of trying to kidnap her son, who was living with a foster family, after she began associating with QAnon supporters, her daughter said. Other adherents have been accused of environmental vandalism, shooting paintballs at military reservists, kidnapping a child in France and even killing a mob boss in New York.
Last Sunday, police shot dead a man in Michigan who authorities said had killed his wife and seriously injured their daughter. Another daughter told The Detroit News that she believes her father was motivated by QAnon.
“I think he was always prone to that (mental issues), but reading these weird things on the internet really depressed him,” she told the newspaper.
The same weekend, a man in Pennsylvania who had repeated QAnon content on Facebook was arrested after he allegedly stormed into a Dairy Queen restaurant with a gun, saying he was going to kill all Democrats and bring Trump back. to the power.
Social networks such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have banned content associated with QAnon and have suspended or blocked accounts that try to spread it. That has pushed many of the group’s activities onto platforms with fewer moderators, including Telegram, Gab and Trump’s own platform, Truth Social.
