QAnon Is Just the Standard Trump Train Now

By Brian Feldman

The release of the Mueller report this week marks the supposed end of one of the great conspiracy theories of our time: #QAnon. The idea behind QAnon, if you need a refresher, was that a high-level government employee with knowledge of Mueller’s investigation was posting on anonymous message boards like 8chan, alleging that the Mueller investigation into Trump’s campaign was actually a smoke screen. In fact, the story goes (I think — it gets muddy), Mueller and Trump were working together to expose corrupt elite Democrats who are part of a global pedophile ring, or something. It was Pizzagate on steroids, and it captured the imagination of a vocal minority of the MAGA crowd, all waiting and believing that Q was telling the truth.

Obviously, Q’s predictions were never going to be proven true. Q’s posts are often vague and noncommittal, allowing his or her followers to fill in the blanks with their own projections. A potent subgenre of Q-decoding videos cropped up on YouTube as “citizen journalists” sucked up the attention of presidential supporters desperately grasping at straws (crafty merchandisers also sucked up a fair amount of money too).

But as Mueller’s investigation dragged on and Trump cohorts began getting indicted, the Q conspiracy devolved into less of an elaborate scheme and more of a frame of mind. It turned from a double-crossing spy-movie plot into wishful thinking. The Mueller report used to be the endgame, now it is only the beginning. With some heavy massaging and redacting, Attorney General William Barr did his job and delivered a verdict of “no collusion,” validating the central Q belief that the charges were bogus, even if the actual theory of QAnon went belly-up. As it stands now, Q followers — the ones who used to believe in mantras like “Trust [Jeff] Sessions” — are now positioning the Mueller report as just the first step in a much longer process.

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