Wikipedia defines QAnon as ‘an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in the American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on false claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as “Q”.’ Apparently Q no longer posts, hasn’t for a while, but while Q hasn’t others have, making up QAnon the cult.

It is assumed that QAnon originated in the far-right, it is assumed that it is American. These assumptions are based on the perception that all their conspiracy theories are focused on supporting the right winged agenda. Everything is anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, therefore they support the totalitarian ideologies of the Right so must be a far-right organization. All their theories have concerned themselves with America, no-one else, just the USA, so ergo, QAnon must be American in origin.

Why does this strike me as being ingenuous rubbish? Why do these simple assumptions have credibility when there is absolutely no published evidence to support them? QAnon supporters and influencers are open, usually, yes, are Right-wing Americans, but where does QAnon actually originate from?

Why is there no evidence of the origins of QAnon? Someone has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover their tracks. Yet it is political movement, why does it not register itself as such? Perhaps it can’t, under US law. Perhaps it is not a US originated movement. Perhaps QAnon had its beginnings in the Kremlin.

Why would I suggest that? The Russians have a long and murky history of inventing conspiracy theories. The prime example is “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, still a staple of antisemitism today. The fact that the Protocols were exposed in 1921 as a parody of a lampooning of Napoleon III it’s ignored by many people. Later investigations in Russia found the Protocols were forgeries written up by the Tsarist secret police, Okhrana, forerunner to Cheka, the NKVD and ultimately the KGB who made faking news an art form. That tradition is carried on by Putin’s FSB, as seen in Russia today.

There is no real evidence that QAnon is in any way American in origin.

So the questions are why has Q kept their anonymity and how have they done it? Q’s identity has been closely held by the few who would know it. Jim and Ron Watkins the father and son team who owned and operated 8chan, along with Paul Furber a 4chan mod and booster of Q, have each been identified as Q but they have each denied it. Jim Watkins gives the impression he knows, but given Q’s obsession with anonymity, it is more likely that he knows a fake identity.

The question now though, is not about Q but about QAnon. Why has QAnon been so successful in spreading its faked news?

Brandolini’s Law applies here, “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” QAnon fits into this category neatly and likely why it has been so successful.

Where I have a real problem is that QAnon’s assertions, theories, statements have consistently proven to be false, have no real evidence to support them. Yet they still circulate as “factual”. Why? Abe Lincoln may, or may not, have said “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Clearly, QAnon has reached fever pitch with the “some”, but why do they keep falling for it?

Fact checkers should be consulted regularly, but they are not. Why? I suspect that to protect themselves, the QAnon boosters are screaming that fact checkers are in the pay of the very organizations who don’t want you to know the “truth”. It becomes a circular argument. The only places you can confirm the “truth” of the latest piece of nonsense is on sites that support QAnon. The places that deny that “truth” are spreading fake news. The supporting QAnon sites are usually linked, so make it easy to “confirm” the original “truth” from QAnon.

This is a self supporting strategy that can be very successful especially when the originator, Q, has clearly said that sometimes it is necessary to deliberately publish misleading or false information. That is, truth doesn’t matter, lie to your hearts content and claim it all has a basis in truth. Just ask Alex Jones how successful that strategy has been for him.

The Clintons, George Soros, the Rothschilds, have often been targets of QAnon’s “truths”. One of the earliest posts from QAnon was an announcement that Hillary Clinton was going to be arrested in October 2017. The Clintons, Obama, along with Soros were planning a coup during Trump’s presidency, guess that happened, but let’s call it an election shall we.

“Pizzagate” was an absolute disgrace. That alone should have discredited QAnon, but no, it seems it only meant that the Clintons were better at hiding their tracks than QAnon supporters thought. 5G Chips in Covid vaccines is another alarming QAnon story. Why on earth would governments, especially governments devoted to freedom and honesty and justice as the Trump Administration so clearly was, want to put tracking chips into vaccines? Why would they bother when your cell phone can do it for them? Apple phones, and I suspect Android phones too, have the capability of discretely tracking you, even if you turn tracking off. So why bother with chips in vaccines?

The biggest and most disturbing lies promoted by QAnon’s followers are all around pedophiles. Apart from Pizzagate, we also have “adrenochrome” and Trump’s exposure of all the Democrats who are pedophiles and those who are in a child exploitation ring.

==============

Certainly, there are always child abusers. To put this into some sort of perspective though is not easy. The definitions of “child” and “adult” have always been dependent upon prevailing cultural norms. In a traditional village, “adulthood” for males comes at puberty and is often accompanied with some sort of “manhood” test. For females, it is usually at menarche. Many societies would separate girls from their families during their period until they found a husband, which usually didn’t take too long. The Book of Mary in the Christian Apocrypha gives her age as fourteen years when giving birth to Jesus. In most modern societies the age of consent for both males and females varies still; some are at fourteen, some, like the UK, are sixteen, but most are around eighteen years. The problem then is how do we define pedophilia? In this case, here, I am suggesting that pedophilia is usually referred to by QAnon as anyone under the age of consent, but really implies pre-pubescence. Oh, and believe it or not, there was, I believe, more child brothels in London during the Victorian era than before or since. No wonder we have a legacy of child abuse.

________________________

Getting back to Trump exposing the Democrats pedophilia ring. Obviously not happened, but there is no explanation of why it hasn’t happened, ergo, the whole thing was typical QAnon lies. What makes this particular pack of lies horrendous is that part of the story was that not only would Trump expose the child eating criminals, and ‘drain the swamp’ there would be mass arrests and executions. Trump’s “Kristalnacht”, only this time against pedophiles and other enemies of the State, not Jews and other enemies of the State.

This normalizes violence against those perceived as “pedophiles”, making it acceptable. A lot of Democrats were named, and many others too. They were a mixed bag of actors, writers, socialites and independent politicians all accused of being involved. Nonsense of course, but the outrageous and salacious claims made by QAnon made little difference to followers, just fired them up even more. A lot of innocent people were harassed, even attacked without any proof to substantiate claims, yet the belief continues.

Q made his last known post in 2020, but the damage has been done. The Cult of Q has arisen, it was officially empowered by Trump and the Republican Party, given a credibility to QAnon that really makes Republicans look like idiots- if you bother to actually look under the hood. There is no need for Q now, it is rolling along under its own power. Crazies are in control of it and each conspiracy theory is more outrageous than the last.

Honest people care about the truth. It informs them, it directs them, giving their lives meaning and substance. A liar, believe it or not, also cares abut the truth. Liars need to follow truth too, because truth forms the shell around which their lies seem credible. That is why we often fall for lies because the truth also informs a liar’s lies. Bullshitters don’t care for truth at all. Their bullshit is completely divorced from truth. This is why we have Adrenochrome, 5G covid vaccines, Pizzagate and a lot of other unrealistic and fanciful bullshit. It is also why we need Brandolini’s Law to explain how we are overwhelmed by bullshit. Look at the bullshit and go to any number of fact checking sites. Get to the truth of matters.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/202008/brandolini-s-law-why-bullshooters-outperform-bull
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161924