DiscussMormonism.com

WTF is this anyway?

I confess, I know nothing about this but I've seen people allude to it many times here. Then I come across this on Twitter.

https://Twitter.com/AliceEvansGruff/sta ... 58496?s=20

It started about a year after the Pizzagate conspiracy theory developed from the wikileaks Podesta emails. It's genesis is some posts on 4chan by "Q" that have all the plausibility of a Nigerian scam email and are highly derivative of pizzagate, but with the added twist that Trump is a mastermind force for good who is infiltrated the corrupt federal government to take down a vast pedophile / sex trafficking ring that has ensnared the elite world.

It became a black hole of conspiracy mongering incorporating into it right-wing conspiracies of every type into a mystical ur-conspiracy theory. While there is an original "Q", Qanon as a movement is like a giant game of conspiracy telephone between a mix of trolls, grifters, and huge swath deluded people. I can't get over the fact that this started as obvious - and I mean obvious - trolling based on an already lunatic conspiracy theory.

It keeps evolving and has now feels like a mix between would-be brownshirts and an esoteric cult. That their version of rapturous victory is when something like a fascist dictatorship emerges and their political enemies are jailed or killed is quite unnerving. It heavily intersects with the alt-right and there is a through-line of bloodlust that is worth keeping an eye on.

There's something like 10 nominated candidates for federal office on the Republican side right now that are Qanon fans. Mike Flynn, who is a common feature of Qanon conspiracy theories, made news the other day for taking the "Qanon oath" which is quite similar to oath keepers in its superficial promise to defend good values and subtext of fascist cosplay. It's wild.

It's gone from sad to yikes relatively fast.

I found an explainer that seems good:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ng/610567/

Now reframe everything you have heard regarding a conspiracy that Jeffrey Epstein was killed rather than committed suicide, knowing it feeds the QAnon mythology.