QAnon conspiracy craziness. Trump is actually working with Mueller!

Qanon orthodoxy is that Mueller is a good guy who is working with Trump.

So, no. On prime-time Fox News, they’re not going to mention any theories that posit that Mueller is a good guy.

I mistakenly but perhaps presciently took this to mean that Trump supporters would say “That’s ridiculous! Trump wouldn’t have any good guys working with him!”. :slight_smile:

I suspect that’s one too many levels of abstraction for the average Trump supporter. :frowning:

Alex Jones and his “Washington Bureau Chief”, Jerome Corsi - had a little dust-up with QAnon. Because Q said something bad about Alex Jones. Q claimed Alex Jones made them look crazy. You can’t make this stuff up.

https://thewashingtonreporter.com/q-anon-disavows-alex-jones-chaos-ensues/

So Jones started claiming that “Q” has been compromised and was no longer the person behind the “Q” missives.

Great. Now the conspiracy theory has its own conspiracy theory.

Even though I’ve been milking this for laughs, it’s kind of scary. Probably over a million of my fellow citizens believe that virtually every liberal and anti-Trump conservative politician, actor and journalist in the country is LITERALLY sexually torturing and murdering children. Plus being directly responsible for every bit of humam suffering in the world for the last 50 years.

And they are patiently waiting for the glorious day when their fat orange superhero makes everything right with the world - and exacts horrible revenge on the liberal child molesters.

And that day will never dawn. And at some point,these people may decide to start doing stupid and dangerous stuff.

I am reminded how as with even normal political movements, it is the few-but-loud ones who get conspicuous visiblility, but many of the people who are casting actual votes are oblivious to what are the loud fringe screaming about unless someone actually points it out to them.

And the thing is, QAnon/Pizzagate are particularly far out even by usual CT standards; I mean, they are at the level of Reptilians. The bulk of the actual supporters on the street are more likely to have more conventional suspicions about what “The Others” are up to. I imagine the larger bulk of Trump *voters * are more influenced by Limbaugh and Hannity than by QAnon or Jones. This may explain River Hippie’s brother’s lack of exposure.

Plus of course, the Troll Factor as in “oh, this pisses off the libtard pundits; let’s make a t-shirt, they will HAVE to put us on camera!”.

Also as mentioned Fox is not going to be pushing a narrative that in effect says *even **they *are meaningless. For the people behind Fox there is no profit in the world devolving into an anarchic state where there is no way to keep people on the same page even if the page is bogus.

This kind of reminds me of the Slender Man stabbings in Wisconsin. Two girls stabbed a third girl 19 times to prove themselves worthy to a fictional hero called Slender Man. While I agree that some may wait until their hero fails before taking matters into their own hands, I am not sure that everyone needs to wait until their hero proves himself a fraud. Some may start volunteering to assist their hero early.

Like self-investigate a pizza parlor child sex ring?

When I said this, I should have been clear that the hosts also give a rather useful summary of the QAnon stuff itself–at least, up until the point of the tweet. So you might find it useful even if you aren’t interested Roseanne Barr or laughing at the ridiculousness.

For one thing, they discuss how it’s pretty clear that Q went from putting out things with clear meaning that linked to things that they would expect might happen to just putting out nonsense and letting his “interpreters” make it into something that makes sense.

Buzzfeed: What Is QAnon? Here’s What You Need To Know About The Baseless Mega-Conspiracy Theory - Aug 2, 2018

Buzzfeed: It’s Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters - Aug 6, 2018

Think Progress: After mainstream exposure, Q-Anon is starting to fracture

More from the entertainment pages: MSN

Yes, this story has prank plastered all over it.

The 2nd article digs up a 1999 book which the QAnon seems to riff off of. The name of the book is -wait for it- Q. It was published in Italy under the pen-name Luther Blissett; there were many authors.

Some News Dude (Cody Johnston) does a great (and funny) video covering QAnon.

- YouTube)

Update of Aug 2018 thread

QAnon provides us with a fascinating window into a slice of the modern conservative mentality. QAnon has made specific predictions which have failed to take place: his followers are afflicted with cognitive dissonance, the psychological pressure produced when beliefs pull one way and real world experience pulls another. The classic solution to this, applied by apocalyptic millennialists and UFO cults, is to reinterpret the timeline and reinterpret the predictions themselves. Problem solved.

Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science at Syracuse University, runs through the diagnosis over at Foreign Policy. Recommended reading for students of human abnormal political psychology. Failed Prophecies Won’t Stop Trump’s True Believers – Foreign Policy