The QAnon conspiracy theory is a road that leads nowhere, with the only off-ramps leading to other roads that lead nowhere. It’s a constant stream of lofty promises and predictions that fizzle out, constantly kicking the can of a “great awakening” or “storm” of mass arrests down to another day – a day always coming “soon” or “next week” or some unspecified time that’s “about to happen.”

How much longer can this go on before a disgruntled Q believer decides to start the “great awakening” themselves? I have a feeling we’re about to find out, thanks to the one last reasonable hope that the QAnon movement has of the “deep state” being swept aside: the investigation by US Attorney John Durham into potential abuses by the FBI and DOJ during the Mueller investigation.

The list of high-value targets for whom Q has promised “PAIN” and failed to deliver stretches all the way back to the first QAnon posts, where the “military intelligence insider” claimed Hillary Clinton had been caught trying to cross the US border and arrested, with the announcement supposedly coming a few days later. It never happened.

Since them, more disappointments have come and gone. The Nunes Memo, the DOJ Inspector General report (remember that one, which was such a bust that Q claimed the real report was being held by Trump?), the Huber investigation, FISA declassification, on and on it goes. Q sets up something huge, then watches it fizzle out, claiming it wasn’t the “real” investigation or that it actually worked because it forced the deep state to “use up ammo.” It’s nonsense – another off-ramp that flows right back into the great big road going nowhere.

Last week brought yet another disappointment, as former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe escaped indictment, with no evidence that the frequent Trump foil had actually committed any crimes other than running afoul of the president. The reaction in the QAnon community was, surprisingly, a loss of faith. They figured that even if Obama and Soros and the Clintons could escape the gallows so far, McCabe was easy money for an indictment. Right?

That didn’t last long, though. The disappointment never does. The major QAnon gurus went back to the well for the last hope they have: that Durham’s report will eviscerate the FBI and DOJ as the first step of Attorney General William Barr “dropping the hammer” on the deep state.

All part of the plan, everything’s under control, they reasoned. How can you know? Because Q is always right, silly apostate. McCabe’s escape is simply to ensure he can be charged with “real crimes” like treason and pedophilia, not “process crimes” like lying to the FBI or perjury.

And so the can gets kicked down the road again. The plan is still in full effect. Hell, QAnon themselves dropped “GAME OVER” a few days later. Barr and Durham are coming, and hell’s coming with them.

Right?

Well, maybe. We don’t know what Durham is doing, only that he’s been running his investigation for quite a while, and that it won’t be done for months. So he could be on the verge of running a sword through the cancer at the heart of the DOJ. And maybe Barr is going to declassify all of the documents that prove the Trump campaign was illegally spied on and that it was actually Ukraine who meddled in the 2016 election.

But given the abysmal track record of Q’s endless great hopes, the chances of those things happening are small. It’s far more likely that at some point in the next few months, Durham’s investigation will quietly end, with the results being that a few protocols were broken and a few rules bent, but nobody committed any crimes, and nobody is going to GITMO for a swift hanging. Meanwhile, all of Q’s enemies will still be walking free, all the child-murdering and baby-face-wearing and Soros-fueled corruption will still be going on, and oh yeah, Donald Trump will be facing an election where he’s underwater in every swing state he needs to win.

At that point, even the most creative QAnon guru will struggle to justify why the last great hope of the Great Awakening was a bust. They’ll be running out of time, and it’s likely that Q’s rank-and-file followers will be running out of patience to see the evil doers punished. What then? When the legal framework Q’s followers have counted on doesn’t get the job done, how long before the command goes out for believers to do it personally.

Seriously, if Durham’s investigation reveals nothing, QAnon gurus are going to have to work really hard to stop their followers from grabbing their guns and taking matters into their own hands. How can evil be allowed to persist, you know?

QAnon and its biggest proponents have spent more than two years portraying the Clintons, Obama, Soros, Schiff, Comey, McCabe, Page, Strzok, etc, as not just anti-Trump or as buried in the pockets of Jewish money, but as *child-killers and pedophiles*. If after all of the drops and decodes and memes and research, they all walk free, what Q follower isn’t going to feel like not only like they wasted their time, but that evil won the war?

The QAnon gurus will laugh all the way to the bank, but the followers will be left believing that Satan bested God, that dark beat light. That’s unthinkable. That’s when phrases like “take matters into our own hands” get tossed around. What else can they do to protect the children and put the demons back in their hell hole? Who, if not them? And when, if not now? It won’t happen if Trump loses. It has to be now.

That’s why QAnon doesn’t end with Jonestown, as many skeptics claim. It ends the way it nearly ended for Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise – with lone wolves arming up and looking for targets. You don’t punish evil by ending your own life – you punish it by ending the life of the evildoer. When justice fails you, what’s left but to get justice yourself?

You think they won’t? They can’t? They have. Multiple murders, arson, blockading Hoover Dam, an attempted kidnapping of a child – all crimes that have been committed by QAnon followers. What follows could be so much worse if the Trump era ultimately fizzles out with no arrests of the people Q has been screaming about for years.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.