QAnon and on and on
Now that Trump did not root out the deep state -- now that many formerly faithful QAnon believers think Trump got swamped by the swamp he claimed he would drain -- some adherents are emerging from the cloaking air of Foggy Bottom to see a little light.
The hole was deep and fully absorbed many now struggling to get out
Ceally Smith spent a year down the rabbit hole of QAnon, devoting more and more time to researching and discussing the conspiracy theory online. Eventually it consumed her, and she wanted out.
To get out, Ceally turned to therapy and yoga.
Others, however, have "concocted ever more elaborate stories to keep their faith alive" now that they see Trump failed to bring "The Storm" they prophesied would take out the Satan-worshipping pedophiles who dominated Hollywood and feast on babies in a pizzeria.
"The Plan," "The Storm," The Great Awakening," they called it. The plan was known because "Q" -- who shall remain nameless because none of the believers ever met this person -- told them so. Thus, will people believe absolutely anything they want to believe if it gives them hope against the oppressions or injustices, real or perceived, they have long felt.
QAnon was a belief they hoped could make an actual difference:
Backers of the movement were vocal in their support for Trump and helped fuel the insurrectionists who overran the U.S. Capitol this month.
Giving up such a last-ditch hope, some concede now is like kicking an addiction. Former devotees to the wide-ranging beliefs of QAnon describe the experience of belonging as one describes a cult:
QAnon, they say, offers simple explanations for a complicated world and creates an online community that provides escape and even friendship.
To leave the community because one sees the light through the parting fog is to betray the perceived reality of a group of comrades who gave you hope, albeit a hope that was always soaked in violence. You are likely to be eschewed by the group if you become a disbeliever.
Reflecting on how she got to where she is, Ceally says,
she fell for QAnon content that presented no evidence, no counter arguments, and yet was all too convincing.
For her, the prophecies -- as a narrative that was constantly being invented by its many adherents because it had no foundational center -- became too dark. She felt enveloped by it all and became terrified.
In hindsight, her fear was not misplaced because the narrative, itself, gave rise to a violent insurrection against the nation's Capitol by a huge torches-and-pitchforks linch mob that sought to hang the vice president of the United States and put a bullet through the head of the speaker of the house, according to some the very people who went there equipped by their own admission to carry out such acts.
Leaving the faith before the Kool Aid is served
It becomes a little easier to leave when the faith clearly fails to materialize at its appointed time; but, as with all false prophecies, there are always adherents willing to push the dates along in order to sustain their faith or avoid admitting they were simply wrong.
Thus,
Some now say Trump’s loss was always part of the plan, or that he secretly remains president, or even that Joe Biden’s inauguration was created using special effects or body doubles. They insist that Trump will prevail, and powerful figures in politics, business and the media will be tried and possibly executed on live television, according to recent social media posts.
Even if you finally see the light through the fog that envelopes you, it is still never easy to leave a cult. In Ceally's case, her boyfriend saw her unfaithfulness to the narrative as a personal betrayal. In fact, leaving often requires support groups:
Another ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, now moderates a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as the relatives of people still consumed by the theory. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 119,000 members.... “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult.â€
Even those who have left disillusioned see the QAnon phenomenon as a "death cult." There were and are people in it willing to die for ideas that to many of us appear as a strange cloud of barely organized and unsubstantiated beliefs.
His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take deep breaths, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Where did they all go?
Disillusionment became possible when the inauguration of Joseph Biden and the final (overdue) walkaway by Donald Trump made it clear to many that Trump had no masterplan to overturn the deep state. Reality encroached like a rising river and gnawed at the bank of their beliefs.
But where to do the eroded believers go? Some back to their homes, like Ceally. Others may move to more intentionally radical militia groups to carry out the agenda with or without Trump's help or in response to his continued rallying cries. Some may even magnify the man as a martyr.
Sometimes the revisions take unexpected turns:
Several large QAnon groups discussed on Wednesday the possibility that they had been wrong about Mr. Biden, and that the incoming president was actually part of Mr. Trump’s effort to take down the global cabal. “The more I think about it, I do think it’s very possible that Biden will be the one who pulls the trigger,†one account wrote in a QAnon channel...
Didn't see that one coming. Yet, the revised theory took hold with a remnant, who regarded the new twist something like the two popes, where one has abdicated the surface forms of power but is believed to retain the machinations of power behind the scenes.
Some just smartened up, souls deep in sadness: (Reality can be a cold bitch.)
“A lot of YouTube journalists have just lost one hell of a lot of credibility,†wrote a commenter in one QAnon chat room.
or
“It’s over,†one QAnon chat room participant wrote, just after Mr. Biden’s swearing-in.
or
“Wake up,†another wrote. “We’ve been had.â€
Indeed, but the usual timetable shifting was adopted by others to avoid the sadness, even as late as the actual moment of Biden's swearing in:
“Don’t worry about what happens at 12 p.m.,†wrote one QAnon influencer. “Watch what happens after that.â€
And after that ... and after that ... and after that.
Even the world-infamous shaman of Q with the bull horns finally admitted he was deeply disappointed by Trump's failure to come through.
Q, himself (or herself), must also have become disillusioned because the prime Q account went into radio silence after the inauguration, even as many kept praying into the air, "Show us, Oh Q, what all of this means. What is happening? Where is the Great Awakening?"
(O.K. I made the last words up, but not the radio-silence part or the fact that many were imploring Q to fill the void with new information. (I will abstain from calling it "intelligence," even though Q was often believed to be an intelligence agent or chief.)
Some accepted the inevitable, which means they accepted reality:
Ron Watkins, a major QAnon booster whom some have suspected of being “Q†himself, posted a note of resignation.... “We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution,†he wrote.
Q's info "drops" stopped happening.
The replacement theories got even kookier
As soon as President Trump left the presidency "his way," the new Q theories picked up steam.
Some cultists just could not accept that it was over or turn to the new hope expressed by the guy who said Biden was "The Plan" for bringing in The Awakening.
“This will never happen.†“Just stfu already!†“It’s over. It is sadly, sadly over.†“What a fraud!â€
Others believed Trump had just upped the game to 4,000-D chess, tricking all his enemies one last time by letting Biden take power so The Storm would hit with even greater surprise in a few more months.
They were not inclined to resignation like that of the moderator at the 8Kun forum used by many Q-ers, who wiped the site clean, leaving the following epitaph:
I am just performing euthanasia to something I once loved very very much.
For his troubles, other zealots resurrected the site and then ordered his death.
Naturally, those who decried the fact that their voices were silenced on Twitter and Facebook and some other public forums, made sure to silence dissent on their own forums:
ANY dooming or negative comments clogging up the site pertaining to current situation will result in removal and ban if repeated.
Clearly, new theories were needed immediately to fill the void and stem the bleeding; so, of course, they were forthcoming as the remaining Q-crowd reorganized among those not so ready to leave the Q-cult:
Some followers noted that 17 flags — Q being the 17th letter of the alphabet — flew on the stage as Trump delivered a farewell address. “17 flags! come on now this is getting insane,†said one post on a QAnon forum.... “I don’t know how many signs has to be given to us before we ‘trust the plan....’â€
Apparently seventeen. I mean what are the odds that the number of flags would exactly match up with Q's place in the alphabet?
Even First Lady Melania's black-and-white dress was viewed as a cleverly coded message, as one Q follower, desperate for new meaning, suggested it represented the TV static that would accompany the media blackout that was certain to accompany Trump's military storm as he placed the country under martial law.
No good coincidence goes to waste, even in the Great Pumpkin's exit:
He is metaphorically walking away in slow motion while the explosions go off behind him.
And yet, the only explosions were the staged explosions. Nothing that mattered happened, except Trump's defeated exit.
QAnon’s unidentified online prophet, had promised that Trump was secretly spearheading a spiritual war against an elite cabal of child-eating Satanists who controlled Washington, Hollywood and the world.
They had counted down the days to when Trump would release The Storm. Many expected it to happen on the day that would "be wild" during the storming of the Capitol. I'm sure before that inauspicious day, some had hoped The Storm's alias would be "The Kraken," but the kraken died in its own swamp.
Military tribunals and mass executions were supposed to follow the insurrection. Maybe that is what the Pence gallows was ready for. What had become of these predicted events?
Searching for answers to those questions, Q cultists pored back through Q's old posts to try to decipher further codes they hadn't seen before, just as people starved for prophecy do with the Nostradamus quatrains.
Some may have just been trying to find ways to keep profitably selling Q-aphernalia, which had been a "prophetable" revenue stream.
Thus,
One QAnon channel on Telegram with 40,000 subscribers noted that the last sentence of Eric Trump’s farewell tweet — “ … the best is yet to come!†— was also a common slogan for QAnon adherents, failing to mention that the phrase is a commonly used cliche.
In other words, "stay tuned."
Looking for a messianic resurrection to keep the hope alive, another site noted Trump's parting words:
“We will be back in some form — Have a good life. We will see you soon.â€
A second coming!
“It’s something that has long been true of conspiracy theories: When they don’t come to fruition, they shift their delusions to the next thing,†he said. He noted how some comments posted below Trump’s farewell video suggested that “it wasn’t quite time for the Great Awakening, but it’s coming soon and this is how.â€
After all ...
“It simply doesn’t make sense that we all got played,†one QAnon channel on Telegram said.
No, the obvious would never make sense. Trump didn't float off in a cloud. Angels did not herald a future coming. But a man raised into place by so many clearly false prophets owed them a return at least as big as McArthur's.
Those who await the last Trump hunker down now in bunkers, waiting for their persecution to calm, regrouping in secret chat rooms for a new higher power to descend upon them, inspiring new ideas to catalyze. Their online chatter has moved from revolution or insurrection to Armageddon -- not some Christian form of Armageddon, but a more secularized, generalized apocalyptic collapse.
The movement has metastasized into a global mist that moves along a lengthening axis now through Germany and Japan. It lurks barely out of the shadows in the US, cautiously making the world aware that the war is not over ... just underground, and it abides in the halls of congress (in the human forms of Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene).
On Tuesday night, a small crowd of picketers rallied with signs urging “Repent or Perish†outside Comet Ping Pong, the D.C. pizzeria at the center of Pizzagate — the 2016 conspiracy theory from which QAnon was born.
You can read a list of past QAnon crimes and violence in The Guardian: "QAnon: a timeline of violence linked to the conspiracy theory."
And, because a couple of people who criticized my last article on ZH claimed I was making up the "baby-eating" sector of Q conspiracies, here is a recent source (besides the Q aficionado who told me that months ago over the phone):
You see, I don't even have to make this stuff up. It's just that crazy.