Trump tacitly endorses baseless QAnon conspiracy
theory linked to violence
President says followers of movement, which claims
Trump is fighting ‘deep state’ paedophiles, ‘love our country’
David Smith
in Washington and Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
Thu 20 Aug
2020 02.25 BSTFirst published on Thu 20 Aug 2020 01.58 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/19/trump-qanon-praise-conspiracy-theory-believers
Donald
Trump has tacitly endorsed QAnon, a baseless rightwing conspiracy theory identified
as a potential domestic terrorism threat by the FBI, claiming its followers
“love our country” and “like me very much”.
Followers
of the QAnon movement believe without evidence that Trump is fighting a Satanic
“deep state” of global elites involved in paedophilia, human trafficking and
the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused
children.
Yet asked
about the theory at Wednesday’s White House press briefing, the US president
failed to condemn it. “I don’t know much about the movement other than I
understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” he said. “I have heard
that it is gaining in popularity.”
Supporters
of QAnon share Trump’s concerns about rising crime in Democratic-led cities,
the president continued. “These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going
on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and New York and other
cities and states. I’ve heard these are people that love our country and they
just don’t like seeing it.”
A reporter
followed up, pointing out that QAnon supporters believe Trump is “secretly
saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals”. The
president replied flippantly: “I haven’t heard that but is that supposed to be
a good thing or a bad thing?
“If I can
help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it, I’m willing to put
myself out there and we are, actually. We’re saving the world from a radical
left philosophy that will destroy this country and, when this country is gone,
the rest of the world will follow.”
The evasive
remarks and implicit support were reminiscent of Trump’s reaction last week
when he praised the author of a magazine article floating the equally preposterous
notion that Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of colour born in California, might
be ineligible for the vice-presidency.
His latest
remarks were greeted with jubilation within QAnon communities online, including
remaining Facebook groups that are scrambling to deal with a crackdown
announced by the platform on Wednesday. QAnon followers have long awaited
acknowledgement from Trump and will likely view it as confirmation of their
worldview.
Brian
Friedberg, a senior researcher at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media,
Politics and Public Policy, who has followed QAnon closely for years, said:
“This moment was an inevitability. The only real hope now is for a large group
of Republicans with power – and with power among Republicans – to come out
against this despite what Trump said today.”
But Trump’s
comments also earned fierce condemnation. Tommy Vietor, a former spokesman for
Barack Obama’s national security council, tweeted: “This QAnon answer is a
fucking disgrace. It’s a death cult. The FBI identified QAnon as a violent
domestic terrorism threat and Trump is pretending not to know what it is while
absolutely encouraging them and incentivizing more insane behavior.”
QAnon was
identified as a potential domestic terrorism threat by the FBI last year and
has been linked to numerous attempted acts of violence. Yet last week Trump
praised Marjorie Taylor Greene, a supporter of QAnon who won the Republican
nomination in Georgia’s 14th congressional district, describing her as a
“future Republican Star”.
Joan
Donovan, research director at the Shorenstein Center, said: “People should
realize that QAnon isn’t just this outlandish conspiracy theory about
child-trafficking and satanism. It is incredibly antisemitic ... It’s driven by
tropes about Jewish people and the one world government narrative.”
Anti-Muslim extremist and conspiracy theorist
wins Republican primary
Laura Loomer, a provocateur banned from social media
for hate speech, will challenge a Democratic incumbent for Congress
Associated
Press and Guardian staff
Wed 19 Aug
2020 23.10 BSTFirst published on Wed 19 Aug 2020 15.19 BST
A
anti-Muslim extremist and conspiracy theorist whose hate speech got her banned
from multiple social media platforms won her Republican primary on Tuesday and
will challenge the Democratic representative Lois Frankel for Congress in
November.
Laura
Loomer, who has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe”, won praise from
Donald Trump early on Wednesday, who tweeted that she had a “great chance”,
despite her Florida district being deep blue. The president shared multiple
tweets celebrating Loomer’s victory, and called her opponent, a Democrat who
has served in Congress for seven years, a “puppet”.
Loomer has
called Muslims “savages”, described Islam as “a cancer”, and said on Instagram
that Muslims should not be allowed to run for political office in the United
States.
In 2017,
Loomer was banned from using ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft after she
posted a series of tweets blaming all Muslims for terror attacks and saying
that someone should create a ride-sharing service that did not employ Muslims.
In 2019,
she wrote that she did not care about the white nationalist terror attack on
two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 51 people dead.
The
far-right provocateur has also spread conspiracy theories about the 2017 mass
shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, and about the 2018 pipe bomb plot targeting
prominent critics of Trump.
Loomer has
been a political fixture for years in the Palm Beach county district, which is
firmly Democratic. After trying to hoax journalists with Project Veritas,
Loomer moved to direct confrontations with public figures in recent years,
disrupting interviews and news conferences.
Loomer has
built her public profile through vicious attacks against Muslims and
immigrants, followed by public claims that she is being censored when social
media companies take action against her.
Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter, Medium, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Uber and Lyft have banned
her, but her communications get out through tweets by supporters and other
workarounds, the Palm Beach Post reported.
After being
banned from Twitter in 2018, which reportedly followed a series of tweets
attacking Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, Loomer
handcuffed herself to a door at Twitter’s headquarters in New York.
In 2017,
she was arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing after disrupting a
production of Julius Caesar in New York City, and shouting “This is violence
against Donald Trump!”
In 2018,
she was escorted out of a federal courthouse in Florida after harassing the
family of Noor Salman, the widow of the Pulse Nightclub shooter Omar Mateen,
Huffington Post reported.
In 2019,
she was handcuffed after trespassing on the grounds of the California
governor’s mansion in an anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican protest, the
Sacramento Bee reported. Loomer, who wore a sombrero during the incident,
claimed that her protest was meant to demonstrate that governor Gavin Newsom
“cares more about illegals than Americans”. Loomer’s associates later staged a
confrontation at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Sacramento, and called the
restaurant “un-American”, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Loomer has
been a guest on Fox News and alt-right programs after gaining followers by
ambushing journalists and politicians in stunts posted online. Her campaign
adviser is Karen Giorno, a political strategist who worked for Governor Rick
Scott and Trump’s 2016 campaign in Florida.
Donors have
contributed millions to her campaign.
Elsewhere
in Florida, Ross Spano, a Republican congressman dogged by ethics
investigations, lost his primary challenge on Tuesday, becoming the eighth
incumbent House member to be defeated in party primaries this year.
Scott
Franklin, a former navy pilot, business owner and Lakeland city commissioner,
won a contest shaped by the coronavirus pandemic.
The US
Department of Justice is investigating Spano for alleged campaign finance
violations. The House ethics committee was looking into allegations that Spano
borrowed more than $100,000 from two friends and then loaned the money to his
campaign. But it paused the review when the criminal investigation began.
The
district sits east of Tampa in central Florida and has traditionally voted
Republican. Franklin will face Democrat Alan Cohn, a former television
journalist who had raised about $600,000 for the race as of 29 July.
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