Dr. E wrote:Ever thought that the Q phenomenon might be a hoax designed to make republicans look foolish? It certainly has if it wasn't intentional. However, the nonsense of prophesying that something was continually about to happen seems like someone was riffing on what so many crazy supposed "prophets" and "prophetesses" have done over the years.
Not a chance. First of all, Republicans don't need Q to look foolish. Just look at "stop the steal". While Sidney ultimately resorted to QAnon material to back her lawsuits, that movement had nothing to do with Q. Republicans have been increasingly influenced by 4chan in general, Q being its most notable production, but there's plenty of other material, in particular anti-Semitic memes, especially memes that involve George Soros.
The biggest problem with conspiracy theories is the predictive powers it grants the conspirators. Nobody could have invented Q with results so targeted. The original Q is obviously just some random and unoriginal troll on 4chan who was a little more clever than his peers, but who got incredibly lucky. To make any kind of a case at all for Q serving a higher purpose, you'd have to not look at Q so much, who is rando, but the influencers who brought Q into the mainstream. Based on the little I've read here, they should all be easily tied to fringe Republicans. To my understanding, some of the heaviest promoters were the Ramtha crowd.
Q's material is entirely unoriginal and so the crazy kind of prophecies certainly are just rehashing tropes and themes from extant conspiracy lore.
We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have. They get rid of some of the people who have been there for 25 years and they work great and then you throw them out and they're replaced by criminals.