Since 4chan in 2017 the QAnon conspiracy has been going strong,
Though the theory of a cabal of cannibal pedophiles could be wrong.
But now the facts emerging from the Epstein files
Have us starting to question our wits and wiles,
And beginning to wonder if the QAnon believers were right all along.
“People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.”
“Some 22% of Americans believe that a ‘storm’ is coming, 18% think violence might be necessary to save the country and 16% hold that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshipping pedophiles.” A new study finds the QAnon conspiracy movement continues to thrive and has even strengthened more than a year after Donald Trump left the White House, The Guardian reports.
— Amount QAnon darling Ron Watkins has raised for his run for Congress in Arizona. Watkins filed his first campaign finance report just before the deadline passed at midnight on Monday, revealing that in the three months to the end of December, he raised just $30,588.22 in small donations from supporters.
Ad for ‘America First Rally’ with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz
The Daily Beast: “At the height of the controversy surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and the revelations that he’s under investigation for sex trafficking, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) bet big on a nationwide joint fundraising tour with her embattled colleague. But new campaign filings show that not only did the gamble not pay off, but that the much-maligned Republicans actually spent four times as much as they raised.
“Greene, the House GOP’s top fundraiser, is now faced with a decision: She can continue to join forces with her beleaguered ally at the expense of her campaign war chest, or she can cut bait and let Gaetz fend for himself.
“Since Gaetz and Greene kicked off their joint fundraising committee with a May 7 event at The Villages in central Florida, their campaigns and joint fundraising committee have posted a combined loss of $342,000. And according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, that joint fundraising effort, ‘Put America First,’ reported only $59,345.54 in contributions.”
Left: Lahmeyer, center, with Q conspiracists disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn, left, and pillow grifter Mike Lyndell; right: Lahmeyer’s daughter in red shoes
Things have been spinning out of control since the first week in July for Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, a 29-year-old Qanon-courting candidate from Tulsa who’s running to oust Oklahoma’s apostate Republican senator, James Lankford.
After aggressively courting leading Trump/Q propagandists – he’s been photographed with disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn and pillow-grifter Mike Lyndell – Lahmeyer suddenly found himself the target of Q conspiracist madness that has put his once-promising campaign in jeopardy.
It all started when Lahmayer posted a photo of his very young daughter posing in front of a huge campaign photo of himself, proudly showing off her red shoes. What Lahmeyer (and 99.999999 percent of the world) did not know then is that, according to Q fabulism, children who wear red shoes are part of sex trafficking rings.
Since then, Lahmeyer has been on the defensive, fruitlessly attempting to reason with the same hardcore Q cultists whose votes he’d hoped to win. On July 7, he issued this meekly defiant plea for sanity, via Twitter:
The fact is that QAnon is far from gone,
And don’t let its believers put you on.
Their sly denials
And wiley smiles,
Are code that Q’s conspirators doth carry on.
QAnon supporter: “I just listened to it again and I have to agree it doesn’t really sound like him. Whoever it was was very good at imitating him though.”
— Newsweek: “With Trump contradicting QAnon theories that the vaccine is dangerous and the coronavirus is a hoax, many of its supporters came up with ways to cope with the latest cognitive dissonance, including suggesting it was not actually Trump speaking to Fox.”
Image: Yahoo.com
Vox has an interesting piece on the future of QAnon as described by journalists and researchers who have covered and studied the group. While the entire article makes fascinating reading, here is a crystallization of the experts’ thinking:
QAnon should be thought of as a religion, not a political movement.
Its religiosity enables it to survive, despite its prophesies failing to materialize.
To the QAnon devout, Q’s true identity does not matter.
The recent purging of QAnon believers from mainstream social media has reinforced their self-perception as persecuted renegades.
Democratic lawmakers should be careful about framing the GOP as the “QAnon party” because it could drive the GOP deeper into the fringes.
Violent extremists are actively working to radicalize QAnon believers for their own purposes.
Even in the absence of Trump and regular messages from Q, the tagalong theories — 5G, vaccines and alternative medicine — represent significant risks to the public.
For Donald Trump, media manipulation is almost a reflex,
Which is how we got to his latest diversion: TrumpRx.
It’s certainly not an affordability solution,
But it is a rather effective prescription
To divert attention away from the Epstein files and illegal sex.
“Whether you liked Ms. Harris or not, this last election was a choice, a very simple one. You had the choice between the Constitution and the criminal. And this country chose the criminal. You put a criminal at the top of America. A convicted felon.”
— Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (I), on a podcast.
“I did this to go on offense. And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”
— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Trump has publicly pushed, the AP reports.
“President Donald Trump’s tariffs cost the average American household $1,000 last year, according to new research from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation,” ABC News reports. “The cost is set to go even higher this year to $1,300 per household, assuming the existing tariffs stay in place.”
“Less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses,” CBS News reports.
Chasity Verret Martinez (D) won Saturday’s special election for Louisiana State House District 60, defeating Brad Daigle (R), 62% to 38%, the Baton Rouge Advocate reports. The Downballot reports it was “a massive 37-point overperformance compared to the 2024 presidential result.”
Employers laid off 108,435 people last month, the highest January number since 2009, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. At the same time, hiring intentions haven’t been lower since then.