Trump isn't secretly winking at QAnon. He's
retweeting its followers.
There were 14 retweets on July 4th. And those around
Trump are even more explicit. It’s giving a boost to the sprawling,
Trump-centric conspiracy movement.
By TINA
NGUYEN
07/12/2020
06:50 AM EDT
On July
Fourth, before President Donald Trump spoke to the nation from the White House
lawn, he spoke indirectly to another community on Twitter: QAnon.
That
afternoon, he retweeted 14 tweets from accounts supporting the QAnon conspiracy
theory, a sprawling and ever-mutating belief that a mysterious government
official who goes by “Q” is leaving online clues about a messianic Trump’s
secret plan to dismantle a cadre of Washington elites engaged in everything
from pedophilia to child sex trafficking.
It wasn’t
the first time Trump has nodded — accidentally or not — to QAnon followers on
Twitter. But Trump's QAnon-baiting has gone into overdrive in recent months.
According to a Media Matters analysis, ever since the pandemic began, Trump has
retweeted at least 90 posts from 49 pro-QAnon accounts, often multiple times in
the same day.
Those
around Trump have followed suit. Eric Trump, the president’s son, recently
posted a giant “Q” on Instagram as well as the hashtag version of the
community’s slogan: “Where we go one, we go all.” White House deputy
communications director Dan Scavino sparked glee on Facebook when he posted a
photo with Q symbology in it back in March. Over on Parler, the niche Twitter
alternative and MAGA hub, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, one of Trump’s most
strident congressional defenders, directed people to The Dirty Truth, a video
producer who has promoted QAnon-related conspiracies in the past.
And over
that July Fourth weekend, Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security
adviser, recorded a video of himself taking the QAnon loyalty pledge, a
slightly altered version of the U.S. oath of office.
All this
has occurred with barely any pushback from Trump or Republican leaders — or
even much acknowledgment that the phenomenon exists. And the engagement has
continued even as the FBI has labeled the amorphous online community a
potential source of domestic terrorism after several people radicalized by
QAnon have been charged with crimes, ranging from attempted kidnapping to
murder, inspired by the conspiracy theory.
To Trump’s
critics, the reason is simple enough: QAnon followers are some of Trump’s
biggest boosters. They show up at rallies. They promote the president’s
narrative online, even coming up with their own conspiracy theories to protect
him. And as the president struggles in the polls amid criticism over his
handling of the coronavirus pandemic and response to nationwide protests over
police killings, there are political benefits to engaging Trump’s most fervent
fan base.
“It's easy
enough for them to say OK, well, because of that, we can accept this other
crazy level of behavior because those people love the president,” said Rick
Wilson, a former GOP strategist and co-founder of the Trump-critical Lincoln
Project. “They unequivocally support Donald Trump.”
For the
uninitiated, QAnon refers to a conspiracy theory centered on the existence of a
shadowy government official known simply as “Q,” who communicates with his
followers through various online channels, dropping cryptic, Nostradamus-esque
notes hinting at the elite’s secret machinations. QAnon alleges that the global
elite, all part of a pedophile sex trafficking ring in Washington, are
responsible for an amalgamate of baseless conspiracies, ranging from the murder
of a Democratic National Committee staffer to widespread satanic worship and
deliberately spreading the novel coronavirus.
In the
QAnon mythos, Q and Trump are working toward an event called “The Storm,” the
day that he finally arrests thousands of these elites and ships them to
Guantanamo Bay. Occasionally, QAnon followers see various setbacks as The Storm
in action; others have attempted to explain the lack of mass indictments
through science fiction.
“Supposedly,
I'm already in Gitmo and my clone is speaking to you right now,” Wilson said.
QAnon
followers are hungriest for signs that the Trump administration is watching
them — an errant hand-wave, for instance, can result in hundreds of followers
insisting that Trump had drawn a “Q” to acknowledge them. But rather than leave
it in the realm of “Da Vinci Code”-esque symbology, Trump’s actions, as well as
his repeated insistence that the “deep state” is conspiring against him, have
given them even more reason to believe in him.
And to
QAnon followers, Trump’s regular retweeting of their messages indicates that he
or someone on his team is acknowledging their work.
What’s
more, his staffers have indicated their familiarity with QAnon content, too.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale retweeted content from The Dirty Truth in
the past. Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has retweeted posts with actual
QAnon hashtags. Prominent QAnon boosters have made their way into the White
House as well, such as Bill Mitchell and Michael William Lebron.
The White
House did not comment. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for
comment.
Over the
destabilizing crises of the past several months — Covid-19, mass protests over
racial injustice and a divisive conversation over removing symbols honoring
Confederate leaders — QAnon’s influence in Washington has tracked upward. At
least two GOP congressional candidates with histories of promoting
QAnon-related claims on social media are likely headed for a seat in Congress.
Notably,
the Republican Party has not addressed those claims. Lauren Boebert, a
restaurateur who won an upset victory over a five-term GOP incumbent in
Colorado’s 3rd District, garnered the National Republican Congressional
Committee’s endorsement, despite previously saying that she had “hope” that
QAnon was “real”. She has declined to disavow that statement.
And when
several House Republicans withdrew their endorsements of QAnon supporter
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who beat her nearest primary opponent in Georgia's
heavily Republican 14th congressional race by over 20 points and is headed
towards a runoff, they cited her racist attacks on Muslims and Black activists,
as well as her anti-Semitic remarks — but not her belief that QAnon is a real
person. Other Trump defenders in the House GOP caucus, like Jim Jordan of Ohio
and Andy Biggs of Arizona, did not pull their endorsements after her racist
comments surfaced.
Travis
View, a researcher who tracks conspiracy theories and hosts the QAnon Anonymous
podcast, called their approach a “middle way” in the conservative world,
navigating the gray zone between Q debunkers in Trump’s orbit, like Sebastian
Gorka, and Q acolytes like comedian Roseanne Barr, who has tweeted her belief
that Trump was breaking up child sex trafficking rings.
“They've
done absolutely nothing to discourage QAnon followers from believing as they
do,” said View — a position that only stokes the community’s fervor more. “I
mean, QAnon is premised on the idea that there is a secret plan to save the
world, so they take the silence more as part of that secrecy.”
Then again,
going on the offensive against Q might not do much. Gorka, a former White House
official and Trump loyalist, himself became the target of QAnon attacks after
he called the community “garbage” in 2019. Q followers started posting his home
address and claiming, without evidence, that he had engaged in various crimes.
Even top conspiracy figures like Alex Jones of Infowars, who claims QAnon is
actually a deep state disinformation plot to mislead Trump voters, are not safe
from the QAnon community’s wrath.
“The whole
community is volatile,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for
America, who has tracked QAnon since its beginning in 2017. “They expect not
just loyalty, but they have expectations in terms of behavior that are
extraordinarily suspect and susceptible to feeling like they're being betrayed
— or alternatively, feeling like there’s some shadowy puppet master rigging
things.
Denials,
too, won’t be enough to shake QAnon followers. View brought up Flynn’s recent
oblique oath to Q, in which Flynn declared “where we go one, we go all.”
Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell insisted after that her client was making a
reference to John F. Kennedy’s yacht, not courting QAnon.
“This is
such incredible bullshit, but even though she's attempting to distance herself
from it in these public statements to the media, QAnon followers, they won't
take that as an explicit denial,” Carusone said. “They'll think that this is
just part of the game.”
View
admitted that the GOP’s “strategic silence” was an unexpected development.
“I always
thought that it would be possible for QAnon to reach a boiling point, where it
becomes so prominent and gain such influence and get promoted by people in high
level of power or people who are slated to reach a high level of power, that it
would demand a response from other high-level Republicans,” he said.
But
ultimately, the only person who needs to stoke the QAnon community, other than
whoever is controlling the Q account, is Trump himself.
“If Trump
feels like these people support him 100 percent, he’s gonna protect them and
that’s it,” Wilson said.
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