Anonymous ID: 9d6aae Oct. 18, 2020, 10:01 a.m. No.11137577   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>7763 >>7982 >>8106 >>8222

The 31-day campaign against QAnon

Author: Stephanie McCrummen

Updated: 1 hour ago Published 1 hour ago

 

There was a time when Kevin Van Ausdal had not yet been called a “loser” and “a disgrace” and hustled out of Georgia. He had not yet punched a wall, or been labeled a “communist,” or a person “who’d probably cry like a baby if you put a gun in his face.” He did not yet know who was going to be the Republican nominee for Congress in his conservative district in northwestern Georgia: the well-known local neurosurgeon, or the woman he knew vaguely as a person who had openly promoted conspiracies including something about a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

 

Anything still seemed possible in the spring of 2020, including the notion that he, Kevin Van Ausdal, a 35-year-old political novice who wanted to “bring civility back to Washington” might have a shot at becoming a U.S. congressman.

 

So one day in March, he drove his Honda to the gold-domed state capitol in Atlanta, used his IRS refund to pay the $5,220 filing fee and became the only Democrat running for a House seat in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which Donald Trump won by 27 points in the 2016 presidential election.

 

He hired a local campaign manager named Vinny Olsziewski, who had handled school board races and a couple of congressionals.

 

He came up with a slogan - “Save the American Dream” - and posted his first campaign ad, a one-minute slide show of snapshots with voters set to colonial fife-and-drum music.

 

He gave one of the first public interviews he had ever given in his life, about anything, on a YouTube show called Destiny, and when the host asked, “How do you appeal to these people while still holding onto what you believe in?” Kevin answered, “It’s all about common sense and reaching across the aisle. That’s what politics is supposed to be like.”

 

All of that was before August, when Republican primary voters chose the candidate with the history of promoting conspiracies, and President Donald Trump in a tweet called her a “future Republican Star” and Kevin began learning more about Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose first major ad featured her roaring across a field in a Humvee, pulling out an AR-15 rifle and blasting targets labeled “open borders” and “socialism.”

 

He read that she was wealthy, had rented a condo in the district earlier in the year to run for Congress, and that before running she had built an online following by promoting baseless, fringe right-wing conspiracies - that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been involved in murders, that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and more recently, about the alternate universe known as QAnon.

 

“I’ve seen some mention of lizard people?” Kevin said, going through news articles to learn more about QAnon. “And JFK’s ghost? Or maybe he’s still alive? And QAnon is working with Trump to fight the deep state? I’m not sure I understand.”

 

He plunged deeper, reading about a world in which a cryptic online figure called Q is fighting to take down a network of Democrats, Hollywood actors and global elites who engage in child-trafficking and drink a life-extending chemical harvested from the blood of their victims. He read about an FBI memo warning that QAnon followers could pose a domestic terrorism threat, and the reality sank in that the only thing standing between Marjorie Taylor Greene and the halls of Congress was him. Kevin.

 

“I’m the one,” he said. “I’m it.”

MORE AT LINK:

https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/10/18/the-31-day-campaign-against-qanon/

Anonymous ID: 9d6aae Oct. 18, 2020, 10:04 a.m. No.11137626   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>7765 >>7982 >>8017 >>8106 >>8222

Republican National Committee chair says QAnon is 'something the voters are not even thinking about'

Yelena Dzhanova 2 hours ago

 

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel dismissed the QAnon movement Sunday, saying the "fringe group" isn't an issue Americans are familiar with and don't care about.

In a recent poll, most voters who said they were familiar with QAnon characterized the movement as "very bad" for the country.

When asked if she'd condemn the group, McDaniel said, "It's a fringe group. It's not part of our party."

 

There is a growing list of Republican politicians who have either backed or avoided denouncing QAnon.

 

Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, dismissed the QAnon movement Sunday, saying it's an issue Americans aren't familiar with and don't care about.

 

QAnon is a baseless far-right conspiracy theory that claims President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a "deep state" cabal of satanic pedophiles and cannibals.

 

"It's something the voters are not even thinking about," McDaniel said on ABC News' "This Week" Sunday, when asked if she'd condemn QAnon.

 

"It's a fringe group," she added. "It's not part of our party. The vice president said, 'I dismiss it out of hand.' The president said, 'You know what, I don't know anything about this group.'"

 

"But of course you're going to ask me about that," McDaniel said to "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. "Because it has absolutely nothing to do with this election. Antifa is burning down cities right now."

 

Last year, the FBI designated QAnon as a domestic-terrorism group, saying it's filled with "conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists" and citing it as a growing threat.

 

McDaniel suggested that voters are not concerned about QAnon and would rather focus on developments concerning the upcoming coronavirus stimulus package.

MORE AT LINK:

https://www.businessinsider.com/rnc-chair-qanon-is-something-voters-are-not-thinking-about-2020-10