{"id":101904,"date":"2018-08-02T21:36:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T01:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=101904"},"modified":"2018-08-02T21:37:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T01:37:35","slug":"mainstream-media-flips-out-over-qanon-afraid-of-qs-real-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=101904","title":{"rendered":"<i>Mainstream Media<\/i> Flips Out Over QAnon, Afraid of Q&#8217;s Real Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong>QAnon is terrifying. This is why.<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/video\/c\/embed\/69978c64-956b-11e8-818b-e9b7348cd87d\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5>During President Trump\u2019s rally on July 31, several attendees held or wore signs with the letter \u201cQ.\u201d Here\u2019s what the QAnon conspiracy theory is about. (Amber Ferguson\/The Washington Post)<\/h5>\n<p>By Molly Roberts<br \/>\nThe Washington Post<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"1\">\u201cThe Storm is coming,\u201d say the conspiracy theorizers whose grotesque imaginings\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/the-mystery-of-q-how-an-anonymous-conspiracy-monger-launched-a-movement-if-he-even-exists\/2018\/08\/01\/6d10f5b4-95a3-11e8-80e1-00e80e1fdf43_story.html?utm_term=.ec2de7625ef5\">terrified<\/a>\u00a0the country to attention this week. Maybe they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"2\">QAnon adherents\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailydot.com\/unclick\/follow-the-white-rabbit-conspiracy-theory\/\">encourage<\/a>\u00a0those seeking the truth to \u201cfollow the White Rabbit,\u201d but it\u2019s hard to hop down this hole without getting totally lost in their horrorland. The simplest description of the plot line goes something like this: President Trump isn\u2019t under investigation; he is only pretending to be, as part of a countercoup to restore power to the people after more than a century of governmental control by a globalist cabal. Also, there are pedophiles.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"3\">A figure named \u201cQ,\u201d who supposedly possesses Q-level security clearance,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/ywex8v\/what-is-qanon-conspiracy-theory\">disperses<\/a>\u00a0\u201ccrumbs\u201d that \u201cbakers\u201d bring together to create a \u201cdough\u201d of synthesized information. (This is not how baking works, but that seems the least of our worries.) Because Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet and 17 is also a number Trump has said a few times, among other clearly-not-coincidences, he is the real deal, not an Internet troll engaged in an elaborate example of live-action role-play.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"4\">It\u2019s obvious that this is scary, but it\u2019s less obvious exactly why. To start, the sheer scope of the supposed conspiracy should cause alarm. By combining the tales tinfoil-hatters have told over time, these truthers have packaged everything attractive about this type of propaganda in one tantalizing product. And that means more and more people will buy what they\u2019re selling.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"5\">Then there\u2019s QAnon\u2019s path to prominence \u2014 from 4chan to 8chan to more mainstream sites such as YouTube and Twitter and, finally, to a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2018\/08\/01\/we-are-q-a-deranged-conspiracy-cult-leaps-from-the-internet-to-the-crowd-at-trumps-maga-tour\/?utm_term=.7a1ac0e0b8ea\">Florida Trump rally<\/a>\u00a0and television screens across the nation. In the cesspools where the theory first flourished, registration is either not required or not possible, and the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.4chan.org\/rules\">rules<\/a>,\u201d such as they are, look nothing like the terms of service for a site like Facebook. The intelligentsia is already at odds over how the more-established entities should regulate themselves, or be regulated. It\u2019s even harder to have that conversation about a site like 4chan or 8chan that eschews responsibility for its content entirely.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"6\">Now that it\u2019s clear that what starts on the fringe doesn\u2019t stay there, it is a real concern. QAnon\u2019s lurch from online to off hasn\u2019t manifested only in T-shirted ralliers wielding weird signs. Last week, a \u201cbaker\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/avenatti-targeted-in-person-by-qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-theory\">appeared<\/a>outside Michael Avenatti\u2019s office because Q sent him there. Others have started\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/zm8ww8\/qanon-conspiracy-theorists-are-hunting-for-child-sex-camps-in-the-arizona-desert\">searching<\/a>\u00a0for child sex camps in the desert outside Tucson. A man in an armored truck\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-melts-down-over-oig-report\">blocked<\/a>\u00a0a bridge near the Hoover Dam demanding the release of a report that Q claimed the government was withholding. He had two guns.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"7\">What\u2019s scariest of all, though, might be what motivates Trump\u2019s base to believe in so byzantine a conspiracy. QAnon isn\u2019t your average story of all-powerful actors exercising complete control over a helpless populace. This time, the heroes are already in charge and, still, the theorists see themselves as victims. Why, even with their man in the Oval Office, do they feel embattled?<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"8\">One explanation has to do with the on-the-ground reality of this presidency. Perhaps the men and women who buy into this gibberish aren\u2019t so\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/04\/06\/opinion\/qanon-trump-conspiracy-theory.html\">confident<\/a>\u00a0that they\u2019re in charge at all. The special counsel looks ever closer to proving ties between Trump and Russia and, in the meantime, Trump appears more erratic. If he really is under investigation and not just pretending to be, all his supporters\u2019 hopes evaporate.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"9\">But this anxiety also ties into a more amorphous sense among these voters that, though the Republican Party controls Congress and the executive, the country is still rigged against them. Trumpism has always been about insecurity: As a candidate, the president played on the paranoia of Americans who thought the country they knew was being\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/04\/24\/us\/politics\/trump-economic-anxiety.html\">taken away<\/a>\u00a0from them \u2014 by immigrants, by an overreaching government, by adversaries overseas.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"10\">The \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-fix\/wp\/2017\/08\/02\/trump-the-forgotten-men-and-women-and-the-white-house\/?utm_term=.2460c78419e4\">forgotten men and women of our country<\/a>\u201d didn\u2019t stop feeling forgotten when their self-proclaimed avatar walked into the White House. There was too much dissent, too much doubt cast on his (and, by extension, their) legitimacy and ability to lead. Now, they\u2019ll only be assuaged by the destruction of everything and everyone that stands in their way, through the mass\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/selectall\/2017\/12\/qanon-4chan-the-storm-conspiracy-explained.html\">arrest<\/a>\u00a0of those who they say connived against them and the installation of a state filled only with loyalists.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"11\">That\u2019s what QAnon followers really want, after all. That\u2019s where their \u201cstorm\u201d motto comes from. Most Americans were puzzled when, in a meeting with military leaders months ago, Trump said, \u201cYou know what this represents? Maybe it\u2019s the calm before the storm.\u201d But these theorists thought they knew exactly what he was talking about. Trump was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/the-mystery-of-q-how-an-anonymous-conspiracy-monger-launched-a-movement-if-he-even-exists\/2018\/08\/01\/6d10f5b4-95a3-11e8-80e1-00e80e1fdf43_story.html?utm_term=.6b95f28a3db6\">pointing<\/a>\u00a0at the officers\u2019 uniforms.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"12\">The storm QAnon truthers predict will never strike because the conspiracy that obsesses them doesn\u2019t exist. But while they wait for it, they\u2019ll try to whip up the winds, and the rest of us will struggle to find shelter. QAnon is scary because it\u2019s getting bigger, it\u2019s scary because we don\u2019t know how to stop it, and it\u2019s scary because the people behind it\u00a0<em>won\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>be stopped, and, until their illusory storm arrives, they won\u2019t be satisfied.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"12\">___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-partisan\/wp\/2018\/08\/02\/what-makes-qanon-so-scary\/?utm_term=.24aa90c9731c\">http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-partisan\/wp\/2018\/08\/02\/what-makes-qanon-so-scary\/?utm_term=.24aa90c9731c<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>QAnon is terrifying. This is why. During President Trump\u2019s rally on July 31, several attendees held or wore signs with the letter \u201cQ.\u201d Here\u2019s what the QAnon conspiracy theory is about. (Amber Ferguson\/The Washington Post) By Molly Roberts The Washington &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=101904\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}