Today was supposed to be THE DAY for QAnon true believers, the day that Donald Trump and his secret military allies would swoop down upon the inauguration, arresting Biden and the Clintons and Lady Gaga and many others. in a swift and brutal crackdown on an evil cabal of politicians and billionaires and celebrities who murder children and drink their blood to get high.
The mass arrests would be followed, perhaps only hours later by mass executions of these traitorous cannibals. And then Donald Trump would be proclaimed president once again.
If you watched the inauguration today you may have noticed that precisely none of these things happened. The QAnon people noticed this too, and they weren’t exactly happy about it. Some were sad, others furious, and all of them were baffled by what turned out to be a surprisingly uneventful inauguration ceremony.
Jesselyn Cook of the Huffpost described what happened in the QAnon chat rooms on Telegram:
as noon arrived, and a grinning Biden placed his hand on a Bible to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, reality came crashing down.
“I can’t stop crying. Fuck. Why?” one person pleaded. “It’s over,” another conceded. Some wondered how they could possibly mend their broken relationships with the loved ones they’d pushed away over their obsessions with Q.
Like a flipped switch, the attitude inside online QAnon communities shifted from glee to shock and misery: “NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED!!!”; “So now we have proof Q was total bullshit”; “I feel sick, disgusted and disappointed”; “Have we been duped???”; “You played us all”; “HOW COULD WE BELIEVE THIS FOR SO LONG? ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?”
And there were plenty of other QAnoners feeling the same way.
So is this the end of QAnon? I doubt it. While some of the people who feel like they’ve been duped may drop out, others may respond by simply coming up with a new explanation for the events that transpired (or didn’t tranpire) today.
Apocalyptic cults tend to survive the “great disappointments” that happen when predictions of the end of the world don’t pan out. The predictors just come up with new predictions, as well as explanations as to why the older predictions didn’t come to pass. It’s not like QAnoners have any trouble believing things that are completely bizarre and obviously untrue.
Indeed, some have already started to explain away why Trump is stepping down.
While some of the disillusioned QAnoners may retreat from politics for a while, others who want to stay involved may find themselves being energetically recruited by other groups on the far right.
The relative peacefulness in D.C. today, as well as the fizzling of protests at state capitols, shouldn’t be taken as a sign that we’re “safe” from QAnon or other groups on the far right. These people won’t go away, and if some of the disaffected QAnoners end up in Nazi accelerationist groups we could end up seeing a great deal more violence that we would have seen if they had simply remained QAnoners doing little more than working through the puzzles that are Q Drops and “trusting the plan.”
Whatever pleasure you take today in the collective disillusionment of so many QAnoners may come back to bit you, and the rest of us, in the ass.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
@Dalillama
I am aware of the Republican Party, but as far as I can tell Trump’s fans are angry at that party for not doing enough to steal the election. If someone within it were to create a new name but keep the same ideas, they could potentially make a grift of it.
The difference between the americans parties is mostly that Democrat want to keep up appearance and placate people ; traditional republicans don’t care about the appearences ; and trumpist republicans actively want to antagonize people and revel in their edginess. So there could be three parties in theory, albeit the traditional republicans would probably disappear rather fast.
Trump capsizing the republicans with his new party would be on brand for him.
Honestly, the main argument against the likelihood of Trump starting his own party is that it would require actual work, and Trump has never shown much interest in that. If someone else starts it and puts him at the head for all the adulation, sure, he’ll be in for that. But he’s not likely to start it himself, especially not so soon while he’s still sulking.
It’s not even as if he’s shown any indications of understanding why the bully tactics that have mostly worked for him all his life haven’t worked this time.
Crip Dyke had an interesting take on that last bit.
Semi O/T; but mainly posting this became someone is finally explaining things…with puppets!
[It’s a good summary of a topic we’ve been chatting about in legal circles.]
Absolutely NO ONE I know (that includes no “conservatives” at all, now) is in any way complacent about what we face in the near future.
A popular suggestion among people I do talk with is that this election was like Gettysburg or Guadalcanal – a battle that signaled a clear and essentially final turning of the tide towards our eventual victory.
I see it more positively than that, as the Battle of the Bulge (a metaphor that has many additional similarities). The strength of the fascists has been exposed and largely depleted, and only their most fanatical have any intention of fighting to their own deaths.
As (nice racist) Eisenhower said at the beginning of that battle: “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table.”
We won, at great cost, and there’s lots more to be done.
Let’s agree to kill or harm nobody, though, even given the excuse of “self-defense.”
Naglfar: an awful lot of people vote GOP because that’s what they’ve always done, and they view politics as a team sport where you can’t change teams. Forced to actually evaluate whether to vote Qanon, GOP, Democrat, or Libertarian they’d probably end up splitting up.
Even united, the GOP wasn’t able to win. They got more votes out than anyone else ever got by a long shot … except Biden did even better.
@[email protected]
Flat earthers being part of QAnon does not surprise me. Many of them already think that NASA and any one else who knows the world is round are part of a cabal
of Freemason pedophile satain worshipers. Thy even got their fair share of Holocaust deniers.
Trump wants people to believe that he’ll start his own party, but I suspect this is a grift. He wants to use the prospect of splitting the vote as leverage against the Republican establishment. He’ll want a quid pro quo for not going ahead with it.
@ moggie
Yeah. I can see a trade off. Don’t vote to impeach or he’ll take his base with him.
Doesn’t matter whether he can win or not on his own; would be enough to split the GOP vote.
@moggie, Alan Robertshaw:
And reading that, the first thing that came to mind:
Nice voting bloc you got there. Be a shame if something were to… happen to it.
Which is pretty much along with Trump’s line of thinking, even if I’m not sure he’s got the creativity to come up with it now.
When I see talk of Trump starting his own party, all I can think of is this: https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1999/12/09
@numerobis
Already we’re seeing something to that effect: in a number of swing states the number of votes that went to Libertarian Jo Jorgensen was greater than the margin between Trump and Biden.
Serves them right, for believing in some nonsense that came from 4chan (!).
@Alan (well, & everyone who liked the puppet)
One thing not covered is the issue of state criminal liability.
While the 5th cannot be used in contemplation of those federal charges for which he has been pardoned, to the extent that the underlying criminal behavior implicates him in state crimes, he has a justification for use of the 5th (and thus refusing to testify).
This could be sidestepped through a grant of immunity by the relevant states, of course, but it’s a non-trivial (potential) hurdle.
Of course, I haven’t even read the indictment here and therefore have no idea what Bannon’s potential exposure to state criminal liability might be, but it is worth noting that in the US federal system, presidential pardons have no effect on state prosecutions or convictions.
So… they’re going to have to deal with that. But since he’s already gotten a pass on the federal crimes, if there are any serious threats of state prosecution, giving Bannon (further) immunity makes much more sense than making a deal with some other individual involved in the conspiracy.
Plus, the biggest thing, he’s on record (or will be) as admitting participation in the fraud.
The wonderful thing will be when the victims decide to sue Bannon’s ass off and/or the new AG decides to pursue civil forfeiture.
CF is independent of conviction, Bannon! Suck it!
Naglfar:
Wonder if those would have been Trump votes if the Libertarian Party didn’t exist.
@Robert Baden
I think it’s likely that most would have been.
Did anyone else here have to deal with the LaRouche PAC on their college campus? The guys with provocative signs that read:
“Do you think Cheney belongs in Prison?” Yes I do!
“Do you think investment in infrastructure is a good idea?” Darn tootin!
“Are you willing to completely trust a vague demagogue that you’ve only anecdotally heard of and who is completely off his rocker?” And ya almost had me.
Would it be easy for Trump to gather like 10 or 20 true believers to organize some fringe political party like that and keep at least some minimal scam/”political” money machine alive?
I’d actually like it if they became despondent and proved wrong of their multiple ways
Trump could always start a party the same way a lot of his development deals work these days — someone pays him to put his name on it and pretend like he is invested in it while not particularly involved in the project.
Presumably because I comment here, the internet algorithms suggested this to me.
https://themarshallreport.wordpress.com/2021/01/20/trump-ode-to-the-corporation/
It’s a Q site explaining that the inauguration was some sort of pagan ritual and it’s all part of the plan.
But what I like best is how supposedly the City of London is the secret capital of the world and the source of ultimate power.
That will be news to anyone actually in the City. Which currently seems to be full of bankers screaming ‘f***ing Brexit’, updating their CVs, and reading the Lonely Planet Guide to Frankfurt.
@Alan Robertshaw
Well, that was something. They don’t seem to understand that DC not being a state does not mean it’s not part of the US. The brief bit about Zionists doesn’t surprise me, but I confess it was unusual to see that much about Catholics, it’s been a while since I heard a conspiracy theory about Jesuits.
Do some of these QAnoners believe in lizard people? Seems like that idea would be easier to rationalize if you believe in shape-shifting aliens who could change their voice and body type at will.
Sorry to necro; but this seems the most appropriate thread.
Another “ex” qanon aficionado suddenly (and conveniently) realising it’s all BS.
So 9/11 wasn’t faked, and school shootings are real. No news on space lasers though.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/02/04/marjorie-taylor-greene-school-shootings-9-11-q-anon-henderson-king-ip-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/
She still got voted off the committees though; so wonder how long her change of heart will stick.
@Alan Robertshaw
Knowing how the right wing operates, she doesn’t mean a word of what she’s just said and is trying to save face.