The Making of QAnon: A Crowdsourced Conspiracy

On January 6, chaos descended on Washington D.C. as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol Building. Amid the melee, a longtime QAnon promoter known as “the Q Shaman” made his way onto the Senate floor and occupied the speaker’s rostrum. He was far from the only QAnon supporter on the scene that day: another led the charge into the Capitol.

Once again, this dangerous and eclectic conspiracy is in the spotlight. It has come a long way since its birth on a forum barely three years ago.

On October 28, 2017, an anonymous user browsing the /pol/ section of 4chan, a notorious alt-right imageboard, saw a post that read, “Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7:45 AM — 8:30 AM EST on Monday — the morning on Oct 30, 2017,” and decided to respond. This user would later adopt the name “Q Clearance Patriot” (soon shortened to “Q”). Q hinted that they were a military officer in President Trump’s inner circle; their writings — almost 5,000 posts to date — gave birth to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Most accounts of QAnon present this first “Q drop”, as Q’s posts are known by their acolytes, as the starting point of the Q movement. This is mistaken for two reasons. One is trivial: Q first gained an audience with a different set of drops, because their earliest efforts sank without a trace and weren’t rediscovered by anyone on 4chan until November 11 that same year. The other is deeply significant: Q’s origins can’t be divorced from the culture of /pol/, which was a rich slurry of racism, anti-Semitism, and (especially relevant here) right-wing conspiracy theories.

Therefore, QAnon was both an outgrowth and an evolution of /pol/ culture: not only were many of Q’s claims already popular on /pol/, but Q borrowed key themes and ideas from predecessors. The key to understanding the roots of Q is to understand the culture of /pol/.

But first, we need to understand the myth.

Meet the Mythos

Here is the core of the QAnon myth: with the aid of a small group of military intelligence officers called the Q team (one or more of whom is supposedly responsible for writing the drops), President Donald Trump is waging a shadow war against a cabal of Satan-worshipping, child-eating pedophiles who are conspiring to obstruct and overthrow him. The military will arrest them en masse in an event called “the Storm.” The cabal’s membership has grown in the telling (at first, it was “many in our government;” within a month, any “celebs” who had “supported HRC” might very well be in on it; a few months later, there were too many to fit into Guantanamo Bay; later still, three other “detention centers [were] being prepped”), but it would be fair to say that virtually anyone who’s angered or defied President Trump is considered part of the cabal, along with the usual suspects like financier and philanthropist George Soros.

After the Storm, military tribunals will ensure that these baby-eating traitors are executed or sentenced to life in prison. Faced with overwhelming proof of the cabal’s existence, a stunned public will mourn; rage; and ultimately unite behind President Trump, ushering in a golden age of patriotism and prosperity.

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https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/07/the-making-of-qanon-a-crowdsourced-conspiracy/

Bellingcat aka M_6

GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler reverses course, drops objection to Biden electors after Capitol stormed

She was not alone

Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler abandoned her plans to contest the certification of some Electoral College votes for President-Elect Joe Biden on Wednesday night, citing the "siege" on the Capitol building by supporters of President Donald Trump ahead of Congress' count.

But Loeffler was not alone. The unrest, which included the Senate chamber being breached and left one person fatally shot, caused more than one Republican member to change their minds on challenging the results of the election.

What are the details?

Loeffler vowed Monday during a rally that Trump attended to contest the election results. She said in a separate statement that she would issue her own challenge outside of a coalition of 11 other Republicans organized by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. On Tuesday, Loeffler lost her re-election bid to Democratic challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock.

On Wednesday, Trump supporters assembled for a "Save America March" in Washington, D.C., in protest of the election that the president claims was "rigged" against him. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani called for "trial by combat" to the crowd, and the president himself said he would march to the Capitol with his supporters but did not do so.

Upon reaching the Capitol, protesters were able to bypass the police and work their way into the building, breaching the Senate chamber. One Trump supporter died after being shot trying to climb through a window into the House chamber.

Protesters were eventually dispersed from the building and Congress resumed its work, but some Republicans had a different perspective upon their return.

"When I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes," Loeffler said when she addressed the Senate. "However, the events that transpired today have forced me to reconsider.

"I cannot now in good conscience object to the certification of these electors," she continued, "the violence, the lawlessness, and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect: the sanctity of the American democratic process."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/gop-sen-kelly-loeffler-reverses-course-drops-objection-to-biden-electors-after-capitol-stormed