Why did conspiracy theorists believe that JFK Jr was going to become Trump's new running mate?

Posted 5 hours ago by Greg Evans in news

Images began circulating on Twitter from QAnon accounts that the president was going to sensationally announce at a rally in Dallas, Texas on Saturday that he was replacing Mike Pence as his running mate with John F. Kennedy Jr.

There are several problems here.

Firstly, Trump didn't hold a rally in Dallas on Saturday. He was actually at a rally in Janesville, Wisconsin instead.

Secondly, it would be against the law to announce a new running mate in the election as millions have already cast their votes.

Finally – and this is the biggest problem of them all – JFK Jr has been dead since 1999. The son of the former president died in a tragic plane crash on 16 July.

Kennedy was flying the light aircraft which crashed into the Atlantic ocean, a tragic accident which also claimed the lives of his wife Carolyn Bessette, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette.

Obviously, JFK Jr wasn't announced as Trump's new choice for vice president because that would have been impossible but QAnon followers seem determined to believe this otherwise ludicrous theory. There are even pieces of merchandise that have been created for the very unlikely Trump Kennedy partnership.

So where does this bizarre theory come from?

Well, according to Rolling Stone this conspiracy first started to do the rounds in June 2018.

Apparently, posts began appearing on the notorious 8Chan messageboard suggesting that JFK Jr had faked his death and had gone into hiding over fears that he was going to be targetted by the same deep-state conspiracy that QAnon believes has also been targetting Trump since he moved into politics.

The theory reportedly picked up momentum when the right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin told YouTuber Jenny Moonstone that she believed that the person behind Q was actually JFK Jr because of how lovingly they spoke of the former president. Rolling Stone quotes her as saying:

The way that Q talks about JFK Sr. in the posts, it is with such love and passion, it makes me think that it is someone that is close to him. If JFK Jr. faked his death and was alive, it would make sense that he was Q.

Daily Dot also reported in April 2019 that QAnon believers had tried to link JFK Jr's death to the start of Hillary Clinton's political career as she had run for the New York senate seat that he was allegedly running for, despite never announcing his intention to run for office during his lifetime.

Another claim trying to link JFK Jr to Trump is a quote from supposedly from the June 1999 edition of George magazine, a publication that Kennedy Jr was the editor-in-chief of. The quote, which is said to be from Kennedy Jr says:

If my dear friend Donald Trump ever decided to sacrifice his fabulous billionaire lifestyle to become president he would be an unstoppable force for ultimate justice that Democrats and Republicans alike would celebrate.

The fact-checking website Snopes has completely debunked this quote as not only did JFK Jr never say this, it was also never printed in the magazine.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that Trump and JFK Jr were friends. There are photos of the two together which QAnon have used for their memes but they look to be from Trump's time as a New York socialite when he pretty much ran into anybody.

Another bizarre link to JFK Jr is a well known Trump supporter called Vicent Fusca who has been frequently spotted at Trump rallies. Despite having zero resemblance to Kennedy Jr, QAnon followers have been claiming that Fusca is Kennedy in disguise and has used plastic surgery to alter his appearance.

More at link:

https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-john-f-kennedy-jr-qanon-conspiracy-theory-running-mate-9723033

>>11168874

more:

It can't be said how many members of the QAnon community believe in this conspiracy but they have twice suggested, prior to last weekend, that Kennedy was going to come out of hiding and side with Trump.

At Trump's 4 July celebration in 2019, they believed that JFK Jr was going to make it public that he was still alive. They had also looked very deeply into the 55th anniversary of the assassination of JFK and claimed that JFK Jr would reemerge on 22 November 2019 and 'usher in the storm' and help Donald Trump rid the world of the global Satanic paedophile rings that QAnon is so firmly against.

Not even a smidgen of this has ever happened and it appears to be another prime example of a conspiracy getting way out of hand and people wanting to believe something that clearly isn't true.

That being said, although it's unlikely that Trump believes in the JFK Jr theory, he has refused to disavow himself from the community. During a recent town hall event on NBC, Trump claimed to not know anything about the conspiracy before he started to praise them, saying:

I do know they are very much against paedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it … I just don’t know about QAnon.

Whether this theory continues to gather pace remains to be seen and with just a few weeks to go until the US election it will be interesting to see what the future of this wild conspiracy theory and its followers will be.

https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-john-f-kennedy-jr-qanon-conspiracy-theory-running-mate-9723033

From 4Chan to Facebook to Ferryville, QAnon is spreading offline to rural Wisconsin

By Henry Redman -October 20, 2020

In Ferryville, a small town of less than 200 people along the Mississippi River in Crawford County, stepping out of the car brings a strong scent of fresh river water. The local gas station displays photos of former Minnesota Viking Brett Favre getting sacked by a Packer.

In October, the Crawford County village attracts plenty of passers-by enjoying the fall foliage along the National Scenic Byway.

There’s also the chance of coming across a giant symbol of a far-right conspiracy theory that’s been labeled a domestic terror threat by the FBI.

QAnon

QAnon is a baseless far-right conspiracy theory that claims Donald Trump is fighting a deep state cabal of pedophiles that includes Democrats and celebrities. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Ferryville’s Main Street doubles as part of Wisconsin’s Great River Road. On Main Street, across from a mechanic and a photography studio, is an abandoned schoolhouse with a large retaining wall in front.

On that retaining wall, in white paint are eight letters. The first letter, and the largest, is a giant “Q.” The other seven, “WWG1WGA” represent the call sign of QAnon.

QAnon is the catch-all name for a baseless set of conspiracy theories that, among other things, claim President Donald Trump is fighting a war against a deep-state cabal of Satan-worshipping, sex trafficking, pedophilic cannibals that includes Democratic politicians, the media and left-leaning celebrities.

Trump himself has winked at the conspiracy theory through retweets on Twitter and refusals to condemn the far-right movement — most recently in a televised NBC town hall last week.

Closer to home, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany was one of 18 members of the House of Representatives who voted “no” on a bipartisan resolution to condemn the conspiracy earlier this month. Sen. Ron Johnson appeared on Fox News on Oct. 18 to claim Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, was in possession of child pornography — a claim CNN’s Jake Tapper interpreted as a nod to QAnon’s focus on child sex crimes.

Ferryville residents have a hard time placing exactly when the graffiti went up. Many said one day they noticed some strange initials on a wall and didn’t know what they meant. The village clerk thought it was advertising a radio station.

The graffiti’s sudden appearance in Ferryville mirrors the conspiracy’s sudden appearance online a few years ago.

“[The graffiti] is a perfect analogy for how it spread online,” says Brian Friedberg, a researcher for the Technology and Social Change Project at Harvard University. “The phrases, the use of Q and WWG1WGA, were both used as really unique keywords to help spread the movement on social media and in real life.”

The theory started on the forum 4chan in 2017 with anonymous posts about the “deep state” from someone called “Q” who claims to have high-level government security clearance. The movement quickly developed its own language and keywords. It moved to Youtube and Facebook, along with specific websites to track “drops” and other obscure forums such as 8chan that house the most radical elements of internet culture.

“The uniqueness of the keyword makes it an easy search query to fall into a data void,” Friedberg continues. “Similar things happened with a lot of other slogans in the community. These were all things that didn’t take up a lot of space on the web. The presence of those things in real life do similar services to being online.”

By 2020, the theory had multiplied, devolved and split into factions. It had gained the support of health and fitness accounts on Instagram and — notably — suburban women.

More:

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/10/20/from-4chan-to-facebook-to-ferryville-qanon-is-spreading-offline-to-rural-wisconsin/

The Right’s Disinformation Machine Is Getting Ready for Trump to Lose

QAnon has become a linchpin of far-right media—and the effort to preemptively delegitimize the election.

6:00 AM ET

Renée DiResta

Technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory

Whether president donald trump wins or loses, some version of QAnon is going to survive the election. On the day of the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the individual or group known as “Q” sent out a flurry of posts. “ONLY THE ILLUSION OF DEMOCRACY,” began one. “Joe 30330—Arbitrary?—What is 2020 [current year] divided by 30330? Symbolism will be their downfall,” read another, darkly hinting at satanic numerology in Joe Biden’s campaign text-messaging code. Vague, foreboding messages that could mean anything or nothing—these are the hallmarks of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory, built around Q’s postings on internet message boards, in which Trump is heroically battling a global cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles. But something noteworthy lurked in Q’s final post of the night: “SHADOW PRESIDENT. SHADOW GOVERNMENT. INFORMATION WARFARE. IRREGULAR WARFARE. COLOR REVOLUTION. INSURGENCY.”

Color revolution. This was the first time Q used the term. Originally a reference to mass protests such as the one in Ukraine in 2004, when citizens wearing orange clothes and carrying orange banners rallied to bring down a government, it became a catchphrase that authoritarian governments use to discredit pro-democracy movements as the handiwork of the CIA. Q was using color revolution in just that way.

My team’s research at the Stanford Internet Observatory tracks the way malign narratives spread online. The notion that so-called deep-state insiders and Democrats are orchestrating a color revolution against Trump had been rippling across various factions of the stridently pro-Trump media ecosystem since mid-August. Early claims appeared in pronouncements by the firebrand conservative blogger and former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, which were then repeated and shared by prominent right-wing influencers on Twitter and YouTube. These powerful voices claimed that street protests, ballot-mishandling incidents, and the like were not spontaneous or disparate events; rather, they formed a pattern of evidence revealing a plot to steal the election from Trump. Even presidential-debate commissioners were supposedly involved.

The theory leapt from blogs and a podcast with Steve Bannon to Fox News, where Beattie pushed it out to Tucker Carlson’s audience—4 million viewers on a typical night. The conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck dedicated entire episodes of his talk show to solemnly diagramming how the color revolution might unfold. Other conservative blogs, influencers, and YouTube channels began to broach the idea. So did ordinary people, who shared this media content on social networks, spreading the narrative across dozens of large right-wing interest groups on Facebook. Q was merely appropriating and amplifying a conspiracy theory invented elsewhere. But by picking it up, Q ensured that it would reach many more people.

Renée DiResta: The conspiracies are coming from inside the house

All of this revealed a couple of things: First, the machine that moves information through the far-right ecosystem is preparing its audience for the very real chance that Trump will lose. Its goal is simple—to preemptively delegitimize any outcome but a clear victory by the incumbent. Second, QAnon, whose adherents have deep ties to countless other large communities, has become a linchpin in that ecosystem, and the absurdity of its claims in no way reduces its political influence.

QAnon is pure fantasy, but, when asked about it during his NBC town hall Thursday, the president of the United States conspicuously declined to condemn it.

Influence is now a function of the brute ability to propel information between broadcast and social-media channels, and across online factions. By that measure, QAnon is remarkably effective. Its supporters turned out for the Georgia congressional hopeful Marjorie Taylor Greene and other primary candidates who endorse it—a sign that QAnon’s influence has extended to conferring political power. And, as the general election approaches, the people behind QAnon are taking steps to ensure the continuation of this influence in some way.

MORE HERE:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/the-rights-disinformation-machine-is-hedging-its-bets/616761/

Half of Trump supporters believe QAnon’s imaginary claims

October 20, 2020

A full 50 percent of President Trump’s supporters now believe the bizarre, false claims about an international ring of child sex traffickers at the core of the extremist conspiracy theory known as QAnon, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll — a disturbing sign of how susceptible partisans have become to bogus stories in an age of rampant polarization and unbridled social media.

The survey, which was conducted from Oct. 16 to 18, shows that most registered voters (55 percent) say they’ve never heard of QAnon, including 44 percent of Trump supporters. And 59 percent of voters who have heard of QAnon describe it as “an extremist conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.”

Yet these numbers understate the degree to which awareness and even acceptance of QAnon’s underlying falsehoods have permeated the right, regardless of how many unwitting adherents explicitly realize such fictions originate with QAnon itself.

Trump himself demonstrated this dynamic during his NBC town hall event last Thursday when he refused to disavow the conspiracy theory even after moderator Savannah Guthrie told him that it involves baseless lies about “satanic” Democratic pedophile rings.

“I know nothing about QAnon,” Trump insisted — except that “they are very strongly against pedophilia and I agree with that.”

For the most part, Trump’s supporters respond the same way. Even when asked for their “opinion of QAnon,” very few of them — just 16 percent of those who say they’ve heard of the movement — are willing to call it an extremist conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. Larger numbers, meanwhile, say “it goes too far but I believe some of what I’ve heard” (22 percent) or that they’re “not sure” what to believe (47 percent). A striking 15 percent openly say “I think it’s true.”

In fact, many registered voters, including those who don’t support Trump, are unsure about QAnon or even accepting to some degree, with 7 percent of those who’ve heard of it saying it’s true; 11 percent saying “it goes too far but I believe some of what I’ve heard”; and 23 percent saying they aren’t sure.

MORE:

https://sportsgrindentertainment.com/half-of-trump-supporters-believe-qanons-imaginary-claims/

How QAnon uses satanic rhetoric to set up a narrative of 'good vs. evil'

Paul Thomas, Radford University Oct. 20, 2020

(THE CONVERSATION) In front of a TV audience on Oct. 15, President Donald Trump declared that he knew “nothing about” QAnon, before correcting himself to say: “I do know they are very much against pedophilia.”

What he didn’t do was disavow what has been referred to as a “collective delusion.” Part of that could be down to QAnon followers holding up Trump as some sort of savior – someone playing four-dimensional chess against shadowy political insiders and power players known as the “Deep State.”

But that is only part of what Anons – followers of QAnon – believe. What Trump didn’t mention is the atrocious claims that underlie this supposed chess match, and the demonic imagery and language that are used in the course of the conspiracy.

As a professor of religion who teaches courses on the cultural significance of monsters, I see many similarities between Anon claims and prior rumor panics that employed satanic rhetoric. Moreover, given the growing popularity of the QAnon conspiracy – and its encroachment into mainstream politics – I believe that ignoring this rhetoric risks harm to those targeted by the conspiracy.

Accusations of evil

The QAnon conspiracy theory started with an anonymous 4chan post in October 2017. The author, who later signed his or her posts as “Q”, remains unknown. Since then Q has posted anonymous messages, known as Qdrops, on 8chan and now 8kun – on both online message and image boards.

The conspiracy claims that deep-state politicians and the “Hollywood elite” are involved in a large child abduction network that harvests the chemical compound adrenochrome — which is obtained from the oxidation of adrenaline — from sexually abused children subjected to satanic rituals.

Anons say that adrenochrome is consumed by some Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites for its psychedelic and anti-aging effects and is more potent when harvested from a frightened victim. Trump, they believe, is planning a day of reckoning that will see the arrest, conviction and even execution of dozens of current and former government officials for their involvement in child sex trafficking.

In analyzing the Qdrops, I have noted a discourse of evil woven throughout Q’s nearly 5,000 messages. Peppering the Qdrops are claims like “many in our government worship Satan.” According to Anons, Trump is engaged in a battle of cosmic significance between the “children of light” and the “children of darkness” and is working to dismantle pedophile networks that are abducting children for satanic rites.

In using such language and imagery, Q does not portray perceived political adversaries as merely having a difference of opinion, but as being downright evil.

MORE:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/How-QAnon-uses-satanic-rhetoric-to-set-up-a-15660592.php

>>11168962

China says it has "taken note" of Australia joining annual Malabar naval drills

Last Updated: Oct 20, 2020, 05:11 PM IST

BEIJING: China on Tuesday said it has "taken note" of India's announcement that Australia will join the annual Malabar naval exercises along with the US and Japan, underlining that military cooperation should be "conducive" to regional peace and stability.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/china-says-it-has-taken-note-of-australia-joining-annual-malabar-naval-drills/articleshow/78768560.cms

>>11169012

Correct. I believe it is called the deep state.

>>11169050

I am going with disrespect yet piss poor journalism is not off the table.

Donald Trump Will Run Again in 2024 if He Loses to Joe Biden, Says Steve Bannon

BY EMILY CZACHOR ON 10/18/20 AT 1:01 PM EDT

Steve Bannon, the White House's former chief strategist under President Donald Trump, offered a "prediction" regarding the aftereffects of next month's election should Democratic nominee Joe Biden win. Speaking to The Australian in a report published Sunday, Bannon suggested Trump will pursue another term in office if he does not win this November.

"I'll make this prediction right now: If for any reason the election is stolen from, or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he's going to run for re-election in 2024," he told the newspaper. "You're not going to see the end of Donald Trump."

With the general election just over two weeks away, most national polls show Biden maintaining a substantial lead over his Republican rival. Bannon, who helped lead Trump's 2016 campaign prior to serving a seven-month stint as White House strategist, said he believes the current race is "closer than is being reported" in his comments to The Australian.

MORE:

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-will-run-again-2024-if-he-loses-joe-biden-says-steve-bannon-1540118

I'm a Republican voting for Joe Biden over Trump. Because I'm an American first.

America has watched as the Republican Party stopped pursuing its animating principles of freedom and opportunity and instead gave up its voice on things that mattered.

Oct. 20, 2020, 4:30 AM EDT

By Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a senior advisor to the Lincoln Project

I am an American, a conservative and a Republican, in that order. And I am voting for Joe Biden on November 3.

Why?

It certainly is not because of political expediency. For me, it never has been. As a teenager growing up in a monolithically Democratic community, I recognized that the values articulated by President Ronald Reagan echoed those of my mother — a sharecropper’s daughter who worked in a laundry. I was, and am, convinced that conservative principles, individual initiative, and free enterprise are the most effective means of empowering people to achieve the American Dream.

As an adult, I worked to advance those principles, first as GOP chair in one of the nation’s most Democratic counties, and, later, as party chair in one of the most Democratic states. I later chaired the Republican National Committee after two of the most devastating election cycles in GOP history.

An opportunist, I am not.

Yet, I cannot support the nominee of my part

The Republican party, like our nation, has an animating purpose — promoting freedom.

The first Republican Party platform, in 1856, denounced slavery as a “relic of barbarism.” President Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union speech detailed the constitutional and legal framework for action; his Gettysburg Address proclaimed a “new birth of freedom;” and, his second inaugural address illuminated a path forward for a riven nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

MORE:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i-m-republican-voting-joe-biden-over-trump-because-i-ncna1243952

>>11169137

tyb

>>11169150

Don't call me a commie! Them's fightin' words!

>>11169178

Anon, this anon did not write that article. kek

>>11169197

Did the Uranium have to come from America?

Can the source be traced?

Sum of all fears

>>11169234

No worries, just making sure.

I love the cringe myself yet I remember what it was like when all of this first started. A drip here, a drop there, then it started raining and now it is a flood.

Trust the Plan

5:5 o7

>>11169263

Correct. So now you know at least one FF that they were planning.

If you search the drops for Sum of all Fears it becomes fairly obvious that starting WWIII was on the table and perhaps still is.

What else happens in the movie?

Now, Think Covid, Think sports, Think stadiums full of people, Think patriots in control and most of all Think watching a movie.

Could POTUS fill a 100,000 seat stadium if the rallies were pre planned weeks in advance?

Why does POTUS opt instead to do rallies at airports besides the convenience?

>>11169337

>>11169361

Listen up, Karen Anons.

The news media calls Anons and Q everything imaginable and I for one think that every news story has some value.

When all of this first started, any and all articles about "qanon" was notable.

Q quoted long lists of news articles to show anons that the popularity of the movement was growing and still does this from time to time.

Also, anons make memes and do other things to counter the narrative yet how would anons know what to counter if they ignored the news stories regardless of the content?

Hillary eats babies, drinks their blood.

The world is run by a Satanic cabal.

70% of the government corrupt and the truth would put 99% into a hospital.

All of that is ok yet do not say anything about JFK jr?

Free rent?

It is almost as if someone is as sensitive about JFK jr as someone else is about Hunter Biden.

Anons think for themselves and do not give free rent to anyone.

Reconcile

>>11169524

It means what it means, anon. There are no secret comms. Just stop it! kek

Plus the knights of Malta do not get much play here as so many are not well versed in History and/or Religion.

40% public means that 60% of what some of us think we know, will not get much play here. Bummer huh? kek