The Daily Beast here tries to explain the bizarre conspiracy theory behind QAnon.
“As The Daily Beast’s own Will Sommer recently explained, QAnon is a grassroots conspiracy theory that originated on 4chan and its fringe companion 8chan last year. An anonymous person or persons, going by the pseudonym “Q,” has been posting a vague series of what supporters (the “Anon” part) call “breadcrumbs,” helping them piece together a completely bizarre plot line in which President Trump was secretly appointed by the U.S. military to take down a cabal of global banking fat cats, Hillary Clinton-led murder squads, deep-state actors, and Pizzagate-like pedophile rings that have long controlled the “criminal presidency.”
“Trump and his allies will eventually send all of these supposed enemies of freedom—including Clinton, Barack Obama, and Tom Hanks (wtf?)—to prison at Guantanamo Bay. That great reckoning is called “The Storm.”
“Further complicating an already-insane narrative, QAnon disciples have been told that Special Counsel Robert Mueller—who is currently probing alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia—is actually working hand-in-hand with the president to take down this shadowy cabal of pedophiles.”
Well, now that we know Trump and Mueller are allies, we can rest assured that Trump won’t fire Mueller.
Hey, did any of you teachers out there teach civics or critical thinking to these folks?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No they were all home schooled!!!
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My initial take on the appeal of this bizarre story (along with most conspiracy theories) is that they enable fanatical thinkers to be right about their beliefs, at a time when they are being challenged with facts that erode their position. In this case, the benefit of being a part of the Q movement, is that you get to maintain your steadfast support of Trump, without having to do the hard work of analyzing new information, updating and evaluating events, and untangling your beliefs from the facts. It’s hard work on the intellect, but also (too often), on the ego as well.
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And even more appealing, you get to hide your denial behind a mask of superiority, as you are now one of the few people who understand what’s ‘really going on’ (wink, wink)
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“. . . is that they enable fanatical thinkers to be right about their beliefs,”
Just like the fanatical thinking Jehovah’s Witness who interrupted my reading and responding a couple of minutes ago. Nice little old lady who couldn’t get away fast enough from me. Been known to engage these folks, in a nice way, just to see what they say. Mainly they understand rather quickly that I ain’t buying what their selling/marketing. I sent her away with a jar of my homemade bread and butter pickles.
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I tell them that I’m Jewish (my husband is…I am not) and they don’t know how to respond to that. They usually leave very quickly.
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Once I had a visit when I lived on the mountain. Always a social person, I had been isolated from people for almost a week when he showed up at my apartment to convert me. His poor wife had to rescue him. And I had no pickles.
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Bizarre indeed! However, I worry about how to balance attention what is out there on the Internet with giving too much attention to stuff that is bizarre (out there stuff). Social media, as we are keenly aware magnifies fringe stuff and makes it seem more prevalent than it actually is. Nonetheless, it certainly underscores the vitalness of teaching evidence-based reasoning in a curriculum that engages kids in investigating and evaluating how values (including their own) affect decision making. These instructional issues deserve as much attention as pushing back against misuse of assessment and privatization. After all, influencing people’s values and beliefs is our only way to support equity, social responsibility and democracy and push back against the tide of fear- and hatred-supported authoritarianism.
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It’s all true. But it leaves out a fact well-known by DJT and the Mull. Trump is also going to disinter his dead political enemies and dump their remains in the ocean not far from Coney Island.
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Truly Bizarre! What I don’t understand about one of their theories….If Trump was appointed by the military to take down the global banking fat cats, why is Trump making those fat cats even fatter with his policies? These people are crazy.
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“…why is Trump making those fat cats even fatter with his policies?”
Obviously, to throw them off the track, so they’ll be totally unprepared when he makes his master move! 🙂
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The mysterious STORM!!!??? Oh….now I get it, makes the other theories seem SO much more normal (SMH)
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“Hey, did any of you teachers out there teach civics or critical thinking to these folks?”
How do we know the teachers aren’t IN ON IT?? 🙂
>
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Sometimes it’s hard for teachers to overcome what students learn at home.
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Sometimes it’s hard to cope with the fact many teachers are into this sort of thing and continue to celebrate Trump. Most of my colleagues voted for this.
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Desperation, paranoia and loss of stabilizing mechanisms.
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Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist, was on Bill Maher last week. He has walked away from the Republican party, who according to him, has become a cult. He said that crazy has always been about twenty-five percent of the population. He mentioned the “Know Nothings” of the mid 1800s. Social media gives them a much bigger platform and access to more people that may be inclined to believe in weird conspiracies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-1984-fake-news-media-2018-8
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It’s really hard to keep up with all the crazies and lunacy. This from Newsweek about the sick Alex Jones: Quote – Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ramped up threats against special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday, calling him a “monster” and described shooting the former FBI Director.
Jones’ nearly 3-hour July 23 InfoWars broadcast ranged from rants about Hollywood pedophilia to social media “shadow bans” to outlandish allegations Mueller was personally involved in a child sex ring composed of left-leaning political figures.
[snip] Jones took on a particularly insidious tone during his Monday show, accusing Mueller of violent child sex acts before dramatizing a hypothetical “wild west” shootout with Mueller, a Republican appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to lead the Russia investigation in May 2017.
End quote
It gets even crazier. Looks like Jones and Q have different but equally insane narratives.
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Maybe Alex Jones is Q.
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Q is Rasputin reincarnated.
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Maybe Q is Dr. Strangelove.
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Hence all the Russian connections!
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No, Doctor Who is definitely Q.
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Is Q the CEO of SMERSH?
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Their ultimate patriot is an actual alien who looks like a white guy, sounds like someone from northern UK, and the clue is embedded is our genre term Who Dunnit.
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Alex Jones could be helping Q:
Alex Jones, Quincy Jones, Davy Jones Locker, The Joneses, Bridget Jones, Jonesy from Alien and Josie and the Pussycats, all in the same collection of shadow Twitter bots.
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I think James Bond is Q. He is really American but he always gets the beautiful women. That is his connection and the reason he works undercover for Trump.
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Yes, corporate education reform is partly to blame. Yes, we stopped teaching civics and critical thinking a while ago. We instead taught people to use the web: search engines, social media, cloud storage, YouTube, etc. We Moodled about Google and TedTalked about Khan. We closed our libraries and bought computers instead. We threw the baby out and bought the bath water. Is it any surprise that Twitter and 4chan have supplanted thought and reason? Not to me it’s not.
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With all the emphasis on science and math, social studies, already considered of little value by too many, has been left out in the cold. Even Fareed Zakaria, in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, explaining how important such is says he advocates this, not for K-12 but only for college level. As much as I admire Fareed for his thoughtful approach to many issues, he is wrong on this. Citizenship education, practicable and intellectual is just as important as hard science.
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“Q is supposed to be revealing this top-secret information via the clues, which QAnon fans have dubbed “breadcrumbs.” They’re written in a short bursts, in a reference-heavy style that’s part poem, part ransom note. Here’s one example from June:
Think SC vote to confirm (coming).
No Name action.
Every dog has its day.
Enjoy the show.
Q”
We have here proof of re-incarnation: QAnon = Rasputin
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Critical thinking among adults has been disabled by Trump and his propagandists, including Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting puppets, the latter enabled by Trump. https://www.new-poll-43-of-republicans-want-to-give-trump-the-power-to-shut-down-media&usg=AOvVaw2pTFWa9D0Aa7iNFB8dD9W5
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We’re gonna need more tinfoil before this is all over.
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Didn’t Trump put tariffs on aluminum imports? What will that do to the cost of tinfoil?
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Since there will probably be a shortage of aluminum foil, there is another option. An RF shielded cap to protect brains from radio-frequency radiation. I don’t think there is any aluminum in one of these. They use silver-coated nylon.
This one is called a Brain Coat.
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QAnon has one dark, twisted imagination.
But what swims in the sludge of QAnon’s mind is insignificant compared to the “faithful” followers that swallow that toxic brain virus designed to destroy civilization and democracy.
On that note, a “former” friend of mine, we “were” friends since grade school for almost sixty years, followed at least one anonymous internet sockpuppet that called itself “rabbit” out of Berekely California, and that former friend of mine believed similar sewer sludge that “rabbit” pumped out that is close to what QAnon cooks up.
How many people fall for this brain virus?
Answer: It only takes one hate-filled nut case to go out and slaughter dozens of people.
That fact reveals QAnon’s bloody agenda. Stir up just enough crazy people to spread rabid fear and bring down civilization.
On second thought, I think that points an arrow at the real QAnon: Steve Bannon.
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Canard spelled QANARD.
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Qute and Qatchy.
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Not as Qatchy as SQERSH
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I knew homeschooling had a downside– KIDDING! This would be almost funny, if not for the fact that it is so embraced by a chunk of the US citizenry
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Last I heard, about 2 million children are home schooled.
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We were too busy hiding during the Alice drill to teach civics.
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Speculation has it that the designation “Q” is related to a government agency top security clearance level that has the “Q” designation. However, considering the prevalence of Christian Nationalism in the movement, it is more likely that the “Q” is taken from the “Q” that is the unknown source for much of the Gospels. The “Q” comes from the first letter of the German word “Quelle” which means “source”.
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Tom Hanks landing on that deserted island wasn’t an accident. I think Wilson is Q.
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Even my bi-polar un-medicated delusional son threw Alex Jones aside as a phony. What does this say about those who still follow?
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What do collective delusions say about a society? How do healthy societies view conspiracy that is real (the communist international was working to destabilize governments in their day) from conspiracy that is fanciful (MCCarthy famously accused almost anyone of working for the communists)?
When the puritans bought into the collective delusion during a real witch hunt, it was at least partly because the underpinnings of their society had begun to give way. Change was in the air. A tense attitude pervaded the community. This was also the atmosphere that led mobs during the French Revolution to rove about during the Great Fear. In that same incident, the September Massacres were prompted by the threat of Austrian troops marching into Paris.
Numerous collective delusional behavior incidents are evidence that society is feeling free-floating anxiety borne of a loss of societal control. Who knows where this is all going, but it benefits those who stir this feeling.
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There is a non-zero possibility that the origin of Q Anon was originally a pranking of the Right Wing by leftists, perhaps anarchists. This them was put out there on Buzzfeed by the very well documented <a href=”https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/its-looking-extremely-likely-that-qanon-is-probably-a”It’s Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters by Ryan Broderick, who takes you to the possible original source of the idea, a novel by Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi, and Luca Di Meo, who writing under the name “Luther Blissett,” published an Italian novel called Q in 1999. The plot of the novel apparently tracks very closely to what Q Anon has been putting out. The authors belonged to an Italian leftist activist collective called the Wu Ming Foundation, somewhat like Anonymous, and used Luther Blissett as a nom-de-plume in communicating with one another.
I am going to quote an extensive passage from the article
The article goes on to provide detailed evidence to support its contention
<a href-"https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/qanon-elaborate-leftist-prank-targeting-right-wing-boomers"Alternet also published an article referring to the Buzzfeed piece.
I strongly suggest reading to the end of either article, because three of the authors of the Italian novel are quite convinced that while Q Anon may have started as a prank, it has now become something far more dangerous.
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More evidence of gullibility
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Crazy and more crazy. What drives the people that drink the Koolaid
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