QAnon

QAnon is a network of false conspiracy theories centered on the belief in a Satan-worshipping pedophile sex ring run by Democratic politicians and other powerful figures and opposed by former US president Donald Trump. It grew out of previous conspiracy theories, including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory popular during the 2016 presidential election, and messages from an anonymous figure known as "Q" who claimed to have access to classified information. The conspiracy theory was developed in online message boards and spread primarily through social media, giving it a reach far wider reach than older examples. In 2020 Facebook and Twitter removed thousands of QAnon groups and pages for violating their terms of service, though experts suggested that the movement was by then too widely established for such actions to prevent its spread.

The FBI released a report indicating that the QAnon conspiracy theory could lead to acts of violence and even help to destabilize American democracy. Indeed, QAnon supporters backed Trump's efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, and were among those who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, an attack that left five people dead. The movement saw turmoil after Trump left office without exposing any cabal or making mass arrests, but it retained many adherents. Some authorities have considered QAnon to be a cult.

Background

QAnon, like many other conspiracy theories, focuses on belief in a powerful group of elites who control information and the government. Researchers suggest that feelings of disempowerment can drive people to engage with conspiracy theories. The social and economic changes of the early twenty-first century, including financial crises and the rise of new forms of mass media (especially social media), have been credited with contributing to a rise in such false beliefs. Political disagreement has also historically fueled conspiracy theories, and political partisanship in the United States increased sharply from the 1990s on.

QAnon has roots in conspiracy theories that came before it. For example, the fear of an evil cabal of elites is seen in longstanding rumors of groups such as the Illuminati and the New World Order. More recently, right-wing groups spread many false ideas about US president Barack Obama in an effort to undermine public support for his administration. Perhaps most prominent was the "birther movement," which claimed Obama was not born in the United States and won support from some mainstream Republican politicians and other figures (including Donald Trump). After declaring his presidential candidacy, Trump frequently suggested that he stood against the "establishment" and that mainstream media outlets could not be trusted. Many of his supporters turned to online outlets that trafficked in various conspiracy theories, including the anti-vaccination movement and deep-rooted anti-Semitic tropes.

The most direct ancestor of QAnon was a conspiracy theory called Pizzagate, which developed in 2016 and included many of the same elements as other popular conspiracy theories. It held that a particular pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, was the center of a child sex trafficking ring, led by Hillary Clinton and other Democratic politicians. In 2017 a man broke into the restaurant and shot a locked door, which he believed led to the basement and the reported headquarters of the sex-trafficking ring. The door led to a closet; the building had no basement. This outcome helped quash some of Pizzagate’s popularity. Nevertheless, many continued to believe that elites, particularly Democrats, ran a worldwide pedophile ring.

Overview

The QAnon conspiracy theory originated on a controversial internet message board called 4chan in 2017. An anonymous person started posting as “Q Clearance Patriot.” Q level clearance is a real information clearance level in the Department of Energy. It is among the highest levels of security clearances and comes with access to nuclear weapons. This clearance level was meant to suggest that the poster had access to a great deal of classified information.

Q, as the poster would come to be known, created a thread called “Calm before the Storm,” which was a reference to a remark President Trump made while in a room filled with many military generals. Trump’s mention of a “calm before the storm” raised questions about what possible “storm” he could be referencing. Some in the mainstream media believed Trump may have been indicating that he was thinking about ending an agreement with Iran created by his predecessor, President Barack Obama. Nevertheless, Q’s post indicated the reference might mean something very different. The user indicated that Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election, would be taken into custody for crimes she committed. The poster also indicated that Clinton’s allies would generate protests because of her arrest and that civil unrest might ensue. "The Storm" became a central feature of the conspiracy theory.

Followers called Q’s hints “Q drops” or “breadcrumbs.” In 2017 and 2018, Q made numerous predictions about the fate of Clinton, her allies, and other Democratic politicians. The posts also indicated that President Trump was fully aware of, and helping with, any investigations or criminal proceedings against these Democrats. The ideas in these posts merged with ideas from Pizzagate to create the underlying belief of the QAnon theory: Clinton and countless other Democratic politicians and other elites were involved in a worldwide child sex trafficking ring. The other key belief was that the American government was controlled by a “deep state,” but Trump and the military would stop all the nefarious activity and arrest thousands of people.

Many of Q’s specific predictions never came true, though supporters attempted to back up the poster’s claims. For example, Q indicated suspects had already been apprehended, but they were not being publicly charged because of fears of civil unrest. People on 4chan found pictures of Clinton and others wearing long pants, and they claimed the individuals wore tracking ankle bracelets under their pants so the authorities could track them without raising suspicion. Eventually, the conspiracy theory spread to other parts of the internet, including the message board Reddit and the social media site Twitter. The slogan "WWG1WGA," for "Where we go one, we go all," became a rallying cry of the movement.

Q’s failed predictions did not dissuade believers, who claimed that Q had to post some misinformation to confuse the deep state. Furthermore, QAnon believers began developing their own ideas and theories. Many believed that Trump was working with the military but could not yet take action against the pedophile cabal because its deep state protectors were so powerful. Other people developed the idea that Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, worked with Trump to investigate the supposed pedophile ring.

QAnon theorists developed countless other false claims, many of which were even contradictory to each other. Examples of these baseless allegations included that mainstream US media outlets receive emails each morning from members of the deep state indicating what topics they need to cover for the day. Another popular and disturbing belief that many QAnon supporters held was that members of the supposed pedophile ring rape and eat babies—an idea that evokes centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Another false claim was that John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, had faked his death and was working to help destroy the deep state. In 2020 QAnon supporters helped popularize the idea that online retailer Wayfair was trafficking children by selling products online at inflated prices.

Several news stories and social changes helped further popularize the theory in 2019 and 2020. In 2019 Jeffrey Epstein—an ultra-rich financier with ties to Clinton, Trump, and other elites—was arrested on sex trafficking charges. He soon died in prison, raising questions about a possible cover-up. In 2020—a year marked by civil unrest, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increased election year political tension—the conspiracy theory gained traction, with social media sites such as Facebook reporting exponential growth of QAnon posts and beliefs. Many platforms enacted policies to remove QAnon content, though with limited success. Numerous Republican candidates for Congress in the 2020 election cycle expressed support for QAnon.

As QAnon grew more and more prominent, experts suggested it could have significant impact in the United States. The FBI released a report in 2019 about the likelihood of the QAnon conspiracy theory fomenting violence. The report also detailed incidents of violence that had already occurred because of the conspiracy theory. The FBI report further indicated that QAnon beliefs could undermine Americans’ trust in democracy. Meanwhile, researchers began to investigate how the movement had become so successful despite its outlandish claims. Some observers compared it to a religious movement, with Trump hailed as a messiah, while others noted similarities to massive multiplayer online games that craft an elaborate alternate reality.

QAnon supporters generally believed Trump would win reelection in 2020 in a landslide and subsequently complete his plan to destroy the deep state and expose the pedophile ring. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, most QAnon believers latched on to Trump's baseless claims that the election had been stolen. The idea that Trump would declare martial law and the military would conduct mass arrests on or before Inauguration Day became a key tenet of the conspiracy theory. Trump himself urged his followers to "fight" to overturn the election results, and after a rally on January 6, 2021, a crowd of supporters marched to the US Capitol and stormed the building where the US Senate was meeting to formalize the Electoral College results. This violent insurrection, which resulted in five deaths, prominently included many rioters donning QAnon clothing or banners.

The Capitol riot was unsuccessful in overturning the election results, and Trump was widely condemned across the political spectrum. Biden was inaugurated and Trump left office on January 20, 2021, with no declaration of martial law or mass arrests. Reports indicated many QAnon supporters were confused by this development, and some admitted they must have been wrong. Even a few high-profile figures in QAnon message boards suggested people should move on, and posts purportedly from Q became much less frequent. However, many other believers contorted their theories to incorporate the events. For example, some claimed Biden had been working with Trump all along. Others suggested Trump would dramatically return to power.

Meanwhile, controversy continued to surround prominent figures who espoused QAnon and the movement's influence in the Republican Party in particular. Much media attention surrounded Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican US representative from Georgia who took office in 2021. She had previously expressed support for QAnon, though she sought to distance herself somewhat before and after the 2020 election. Her many inflammatory comments drew bipartisan condemnation, and in February 2021 the US House of Representatives voted to remove her from committee posts.

Bibliography

Allyn, Bobby. “Twitter Removes Thousands of QAnon Accounts, Promises Sweeping Ban on the Conspiracy.” NPR, 21 July 2020, www.npr.org/2020/07/21/894014810/twitter-removes-thousands-of-qanon-accounts-promises-sweeping-ban-on-the-conspir. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

“Anti-Government, Identity Based, and Fringe Political Conspiracy Theories Very Likely Motivate Some Domestic Extremists to Commit Criminal, Sometimes Violent Activity.” Federal Bureau of Investigations, May 2019, www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/420379775-fbi-conspiracy-theories-domestic-extremism.pdf. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

Forrest, Brett. "What Is QAnon? What We Know About the Conspiracy-Theory Group." The Wall Street Journal, 4 Feb. 2021, www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-qanon-what-we-know-about-the-conspiracy-theory-11597694801. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Johnstaff, Arit. “Satanism and Sex Rings: How the QAnon Conspiracy Theory Has Taken Political Root.” LA Times, 15 July 2020, www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-15/qanon-conspiracy-theory-congressional-candidates. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

Kight, Stef W. and Sara Fischer “QAnon’s 2020 Resurgence.” Axios, 4 Aug. 2020, www.axios.com/qanons-2020-resurgence-41759d2b-7d08-4d6e-bad0-d2a63b6285ad.html. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

LaFrance, Adrienne. “The Prophecies of Q.” The Atlantic, June 2020, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

Miller, Ryan W. “What is QAnon? What to Know About the Baseless, Far-Right Conspiracy Theory Connected to Marjorie Taylor Greene.” USA Today, 4 Feb. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/04/what-qanon-marjorie-taylor-greene-and-false-conspiracy-theory/4385690001/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Miller, Ryan W. “What is QAnon and Where Did It Come From?” USA Today, 22 July 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/22/what-is-qanon-conspiracy-theory/5486724002/. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

Ohlheiser, Abby. “It’s Too Late to Stop QAnon with Fact Checks and Account Bans.” MIT Technology Review, 26 July 2020, www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/26/1005609/qanon-facebook-twitter-youtuube/. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.

Roose, Kevin. "What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory?" The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Stanley-Becker, Isaac. “How the Trump Campaign Came to Court QAnon, the Online Conspiracy Movement Identified by the FBI As a Violent Threat.” The Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-trump-campaign-came-to-court-qanon-the-online-conspiracy-movement-identified-by-the-fbi-as-a-violent-threat/2020/08/01/dd0ea9b4-d1d4-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21‗story.html. Accessed 7 Aug. 2020.