Tag: qanon

The Importance of Getting Things Right

Mike Rothschild

On Sunday, the New York Times posted an article going in depth into the motivations of Anthony Comello, the Staten Island day laborer who allegedly shot and killed Gambino family boss Frank Cali, supposedly after being brainwashed by QAnon propaganda. To show his allegiance to the mysterious conspiracy avatar, Comello got a blue ballpoint pen and scrawled a number of Trump and Q slogans on his hand, including a large, unmistakable “Q” in the center of his palm.

Why someone aligned with Q would kill a Mafia boss, when Q has never mentioned the Mafia, remains a mystery, a baffling element of a baffling murder. Times reporter Ali Watkins spoke to Comello’s lawyer, and both seemed a little baffled by the whole thing.  Which is entirely appropriate, because QAnon can get pretty baffling if you’re not ensconced in the arcane mythology and jargon of the conspiracy theory.

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Was QAnon Right About Jeffrey Epstein?

Mike Rothschild4 Comments

The sex trafficking arrest of billionaire hedge fund manager and convicted/registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was not especially surprising for anyone who knows even the slightest thing about the island-owning, Trump-gladhanding perv. The accusations that Epstein has been involved in a trove of sexual misconduct, assault, rape, and trafficking have been run down by outstanding journalists and now backed up by the legal work of the Southern District of New York. It’s not a shock.

Also not surprising: the outpouring of gloating from QAnon acolytes and believers crowing that their “military intelligence” avatar was proven correct in his/her/their promises that Epstein would be revealed as a Satanic sex pervert in bed with the Clintons and some of the worst criminals in the world. After all, Q is wrong so often that it seems like something to celebrate when Q is right. And celebrate, they did:

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How Can We Miss Q if Q Won’t Go Away

Mike Rothschild

Last week, I wrote a story for Daily Dot about the month-long absence of new QAnon posts, and what it means for the QAnon movement. I asked believers (who hate to be called that, except that it’s the only term that conveys their status with any accuracy) whether they were losing faith in Q, and if they’d walk away from the movement if Q didn’t post again.

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Let’s Put the Q in QVC: The Weirdest QAnon Merchandise

Mike Rothschild2 Comments

QAnon may be posting with the frequency of Halley’s Comet (not at all, then a bunch, then not at all), but the industry of merchandise makers, book writers, swag producers, and shirt printers is alive and well. The wagon train of Q-branded merch goes on even as the movement splinters – seemingly finding new ways to slap a flaming Q or a Matrix-font WWG1WGA on just about anything.

A search on Amazon for QAnon brings up over 1,000 items; while a search for WWG1WGA brings up over 500. Most are simple t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, or an avalanche of self-published and anonymous books. But a few are so weird, so useless, so obnoxious, and/or so expensive that they deserve further scrutiny.

All of these are publicly available, and just waiting for YOU to hit “buy” on:

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What is the Liberal Version of QAnon?

Mike Rothschild2 Comments

While not all Trump supporters are QAnon believers, virtually all QAnon believers are Trump supporters. How could one subscribe to a prophecy cult that puts Donald Trump at the center of a massive effort to destroy the Democratic Party if you didn’t believe Trump was smart enough to pull it off?

Since the far left and far right have far more in common than they’d like to believe (distrust of mainstream media communicators, ideological puritanism, reliance on dubious sources and wishful thinking, etc), it’s worth looking at whether or not there’s a far left version of QAnon – and what it has in common with the actual QAnon.

As it turns out, there’s nothing that’s an exact match, not the least of which is because QAnon is full of lurid details like baby-eating and ritual sacrifice, stuff that gets pushed hard in conservative circles. Beyond that, the Trump years have imbued liberalism with a sudden distrust of government in general and police in particular, a role that had previously been filled by right wingers gathering guns and ammo for the inevitable great government gun confiscation that was just around the corner.

But there are definite similarities between QAnon and several of the biggest pet conspiracy theories held near and dear by liberals. And it’s useful to examine them, and see why outlandish conspiracies have taken such a firm hold of our politics. Because they totally have.

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