QAnon has increasingly drawn the attention of mainstream media due to a great uptick in followers over the course of 2020, and reactions have been varied across the political spectrum. The Republican response has ranged from feigning ignorance, as Trump did in a press conference, to showing outright support, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Typical leftwing commentators, such as those at the podcast QAnon Anonymous, will condemn it strongly while making light of and pathologizing the absurd beliefs of its followers — of which there are many, from JFK Jr. faking his own death to celebrities being arrested and replaced with body doubles. However, since QAnon has the support of numerous government officials and is covered incessantly by the corporate media, perhaps QAnon has a system-justifying function that should be explored in greater detail by asking why this movement exists in the first place. To this end, an analysis of what QAnon is and how it benefits the ruling class can help us look more critically at the effects QAnon has had on American politics and society as a successful method of promoting politically convenient misinformation. This is especially important considering the possible effects of the January 6th capitol riots that were fueled by QAnon narratives.
QAnon may have started out as a group of people following the posts of the anonymous 8chan-poster Q, but the narratives this poster has propagated have managed to mutate and diffuse to other areas of the internet. People trying to characterize QAnon often end up creating a large diagram resembling a cloud with numerous connected conspiracies, as pictured below. Understanding this structure is important when thinking about why QAnon has been able to spread like wildfire since it appeared in late 2017. While the rapidity of its spread is often portrayed as unique and dangerous, QAnon actually makes use of the same tools, like hashtags, memes, and influencers, as modern social movement organizations that also garner followers online.
As the word cloud of conspiracies suggests, QAnon has managed to subsume various conspiracies within itself because it is an extremely flexible and decentralized movement, both features adding to its popularity. Thus, for example, a right-winger interested in learning about Jeffery Epstein might join a Facebook group related to QAnon, which would allow them to further fall down a rabbit hole. Members of the group would follow Q’s slogan “Do your own research,” and work collaboratively to decode Q’s messages. In this way, they create an alternate universe of seemingly fantastical information that they believe is backed up by hard facts. Since Q says, “Symbolism will be their downfall,” people also try to decipher the speeches and actions of politicians and celebrities for clues of Q’s predictions coming true. Like a group of fans being invested in crafting elaborate theories about the outcome of a TV show, QAnon followers build friendships with fellow decoders and feel personally invested in the movement. Pick a conspiracy, and you will likely be able to find a QAnon sect dedicated to studying it. Like with any movement, making people feel actively involved and emotionally invested adds to its followers’ fervency.
QAnon also operates with a certain paranoia and urgency that fuels it. Many followers literally believe that they are in an apocalyptic, quasi-religious struggle against the epitome of evil. According to them, all institutions (except for Donald Trump and the people who take orders from him) are run by canabilistic pedophiles. Once one understands the urgency many QAnoners feel, it is easier to see why they are so compelled to create their own alternative information space. Figures Praying Medic, the QAnon Shaman, and a host of Instagram influencers have gained an instant passionate fanbase just by promoting the conspiracies. QAnoners are not alone in using a perceived systemic threat to spread movements, as it encourages people to spread information online outside of traditional media outlets. Just as with personalized slogans, this method is not an inherently bad thing; for example, it is used by Black Lives Matter activists who encourage people to share instances of police violence that would not otherwise receive media coverage.
However, the same trait that makes it easily spreadable also allows it to have a hidden institutional backing and for QAnon narratives to dissociate with Q itself. QAnon is not, of course, the first movement to take advantage of anonymity and the decentralized nature of internet interactions. Many online-based movements associated with Occupy Wall Street purposely hid their association with traditional brick and mortar organizations because it made them lose their anti-establishment credentials. One could then see how someone could easily publicly disavow QAnon while supporting or contributing to it in some covert way. For example, in the Save the Children rallies this summer, the main organizer of many of the rallies, Scotty “The Kid” Rojas, officially disavowed QAnon but would still promote fallacious information about child sex-trafficking that had its orginins with QAnon narratives. As for more explicit institutional backing, there is currently no way to directly link the government to Q drops, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility. As Robbie Martin reported in his investigation of QAnon on the podcast Media Roots Radio, some people responsible for popularizing Pizzagate, a conspiracy predating QAnon but with similar themes, did have intelligence connections — like Erik Prince and Steve Pieczenik. Historically, the government has infiltrated and manipulated movements they felt were dangerous or could serve a strategic purpose, such as the Blank Panthers and the American Communist Party, as the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the CIA’s CHAOS no doubt show. Just like 9/11, one does not have to prove government involvement in its orchestration in order to prove that the government and media have used the movement to push specific agendas that have long term effects.
Trump and Qanon’s shaping of the conspiracy media landscape is one important consideration in terms of strategic purposes QAnon may have. The greatest example of this is of right-wing broadcaster Alex Jones’s marked change in messaging over the past few years. Twenty years ago, Jones gained fame as a boisterous “9/11 truther” and for his hyperbolic claims that martial law would ensue in 9/11’s aftermath. Overall, he was very distrustful of large government, albeit in a libertarian, as opposed to socialist, way. However, in the wake of Trump coming to power, Jones swooped in to support him and the popular Pizzagate conspiracy, having Trump-surrogate Roger Stone appear on his show nightly. While Jones has had a “love/hate” relationship with the QAnon movement itself, he still supports QAnon narratives by having an almost worshipful attitude towards Donald Trump and promoting election conspiracies from people like Steve Pieczenik. As Jones has one of the largest platforms promoting right-wing conspiracies, his lean towards QAnon and Trump certainly had had an effect on the community as a whole. This shift turned people who follow this media sphere from being suspicious of the government to demonstrating complete devotion to the Trump administration, which one could certainly see as a strategic benefit.
Trump’s presence on the political scene has also created a stigma around conspiracy theories in general. When pedophile and billionaire financier Jeffery Epstein was arrested in July of 2019, the country was made aware of the actual global sex trafficking scandal. Epstein committed these crimes with those like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and other powerful people who were accused of complicity. However, QAnon has completely twisted this very real conspiracy to make it seem as though Trump were fighting against Epstein and other pedophiles. They also take the accusations to hyperbolic and ridiculous places like cannibalism and satanism, when the true horror of reality is really bad enough. The fever pitch at which these passions are misplaced has had tangible impacts on people actually trying to help victims of sex trafficking and shed light on the crimes of Epstein and his circle. People participating in the worldwide QAnon-adjacent Save the Children protests this past summer overloaded sex trafficking hotlines with hysteric false claims. A fake list of Epstein’s flight logs for his plane, the Lolita Express, that included people that QAnoners typically love to hate — including Oprah and Ellen Degeneres — was spread around the internet. It’s hard to miss the benefit of this falacial conspiracy for the elite who actually are complicit in this institutionalized exploitation, as QAnoners misdirect their anger in a direction that does not actually threaten the system of exploitation.
Similarly, conspiracies surrounding the CIA, which largely used to be the Left’s prerogative, since leftwing groups were and still are most often the subject of CIA surveillance, are now espoused by Trump conservatives as well. One notable example is the murder of a Gambino family mob boss by a QAnon follower because of the Italian mob’s connections with the CIA — which QAnoners believe is part of the purported pedophile cabal. The CIA has wreaked havoc around the world and did historically work with the Mafia; however, and this should go without saying, not as part of a liberal cabal of pedophile cannibals. However, incidents like these allow for glaringly false, dangerous narratives to be propagated by the liberal media. It allows the CIA to receive a rosy rebranding as defending American norms against Trump’s instability with many ex-CIA analysts receiving positive press condemning the former President in some way. On top of that, Trump’s anti-“deep state” bluster blatantly contradicts the truth of his relationship with the CIA. Trump has proven again and again that he bows to the pressure of the national security state. His first day in office, he paid a visit to the CIA headquarters and sang their praises, even secretly allowing them to authorize their own drone strikes. This pattern continued over the course of his presidency as he also allowed them to authorize their own cyber attack operations, for instance. It is also significant that the former director of the CIA and later Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spearheaded America’s current unjust offensive against Julian Assange. The Left needs to reject the stigma and lies that QAnon has brought to what are considered conspiracy theories but are actually real atrocities committed by the American government.
While it’s hard to prove a premeditated planning of the QAnon movement, there are dozens of instances of Trump and his officials approving of QAnon in some tacit way or at least not outright condemning its existence, which has gone a long way to promote it as well especially after the 2020 election. Specific examples include Trump remarking, in reference to QAnon followers, that “they love me very much, which I appreciate” and that he agrees with their anti-pedophile views. There is one both funny and alarming story of QAnon followers telling Trump to somehow insert the phrase “tippy-top” into one of his speeches if QAnon is real. Subsequently in a speech on Easter in 2019, Trump does say the phrase while standing next to a white rabbit, a QAnon symbol, though no one quite knows if it was on purpose. It is even more illuminating to look at the views of those in Trump’s circle. After Michael Flynn left the Trump administration, he assumed a new role as a prominent QAnon promoter, taking the Q oath and going on popular QAnon supporting or adjacent media outlets and podcasts. Donald Trump, Jr. once posted and then deleted a QAnon meme to Twitter as well.
In the aftermath of the election, the Trump administration’s use of QAnon narratives became even more blatant, doing much to blur the lines between the average Trump supporter and a believer of QAnon. Donald Trump along with his legal team tasked with overturning the election, Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, and Rudi Guiliani, all propagated conspiracies surrounding election fraud that were very popular in QAnon communities. This shows that even if Q isn’t posting and Trump doesn’t have a dominant place in culture like he did four years ago, these alternative media spheres, ideas, and willingness to accept them are still there. The afterlife of news platforms and social media personalities that have received such a large following because of identifying explicitly with QAnon or promoting QAnon narratives is an important thing to keep an eye on.
In the aftermath of Trump losing the election and using QAnon conspiracies to his advantage, many waited for the other shoe to drop, fearing widespread unrest driven by Trump followers who wanted to see him in office another four years. And to some extent, the events of January 6th represent this long-awaited backlash; however, this event should not be taken at face value. Through the confusion of the day, it was difficult to see that the riot wasn’t composed of a uniform group but multiple different types of people with different goals inside the capitol. Some protesters, like the man who sat at Nancy Pelosi’s desk, seemed to come in with few real plans, and likely just wanted to make a scene for media attention. However other people acted like they already knew exactly where different lawmakers’ offices were. Rep. Ayanna Pressely’s staff even shared with the media that the panic buttons in her office had been ripped out before the riot. Videos have surfaced of gates being opened to allow protesters to come through as well. Many pro-Trump people had been discussing some action at the capitol days before, which the FBI were no doubt aware of. This implies that perhaps the attention-grabbing figures like the Q Shaman were a cover for another plot with unknown aims. Whether the government is responsible for this through negligence or through explicit involvement in planning we will hopefully find out soon, as much of the details of January 6th are still being suppressed over national security concerns.
Additionally, the media coverage of this event has been disappointing, as many liberals are reverting back to the same language and rhetoric that characterized the early 2000’s, completely contradicting the anti-police sentiment that was so clearly on display this summer. Now people are proudly ratting out protesters to the police, calling on social media companies to bring down the ban hammer, and calling for increased domestic surveillance. Don’t be surprised when giving more money and power to the FBI and other police organizations, which are historically racist and anti-communist, doesn’t do much to curb the violence of right-wingers. Social media companies are wholly unaccountable private corporations; it is frightening that they have so much power over political discourse. Biden passing a second Patriot Act to surveil so-called domestic terrorism will just harm people who actually challenge the American empire, and that is the Left. The police obviously knew that some assault of this type would be happening that day, and the fact that they let the insane spectacle continue means that it served someone’s interests. Perhaps if one subscribed to the idea that QAnon is some sort of psyop, they could see how manufacturing a situation like this one through harnessing the energy of the QAnon movement could be useful to ruling class interests.
The true implications of what happened on January 6th, the future of QAnon, and the ideas it has propagated is still very much a mystery. However, I think that it is proof of the extent to which people can be manipulated and whipped up into a frenzy over something completely manufactured, as there was no way the protesters could have prevented Biden from taking office. The fallout of that day has only served to benefit the ruling class on both sides of the aisle. Republicans are being forced to distance themselves from the chaoticness of the Trump movement, but they can now appear reasonable in comparison even though their opinions have not changed. But Democrats might benefit even more, because they can sanctimoniously claim they are solving a dangerous problem by passing more surveillance laws and bringing out the National Guard. I really don’t think there could be a more perfect set up for the Biden presidency than this.
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