US Presidential Election 2020

[Dunge]

4 hours ago, Buce said:

 

A bit of a long read, but a fascinating article on QAnon:

 

QAnon explained: the antisemitic conspiracy theory gaining traction around the world

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

To Donald Trump, it’s “

people who love our country”. To the FBI, it’s a potential domestic terror threat. And to you or anyone else who has logged on to Facebook in recent months, it may just be a friend or family member who has started to show an alarming interest in child trafficking, the “cabal”, or conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and the coronavirus.

This is QAnon, a wide-ranging and baseless internet conspiracy theory that reached the American mainstream in August. The movement has been festering on the fringes of rightwing internet communities for years, but its visibility has exploded in recent months amid the social unrest and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, a QAnon supporter is probably heading to the US Congress, the president (who plays a crucial role in QAnon’s false narrative) has refused to debunk and disavow it, and the successful hijacking of the #SaveTheChildren hashtag has provided the movement a more palatable banner under which to stage real-life recruiting events and manipulate local news coverage.

Here’s our guide to what you need to know about QAnon.

So what is QAnon?

“QAnon” is a baseless internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children. QAnon followers believe that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against this cabal and its “deep state” collaborators to expose the malefactors and send them all to Guantánamo Bay.

There are many, many threads of the QAnon narrative, all as far-fetched and evidence-free as the rest, including subplots that focus on John F Kennedy Jr being alive (he isn’t), the Rothschild family controlling all the banks (they don’t) and children being sold through the website of the furniture retailer Wayfair (they aren’t). Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Chrissy Teigen and Pope Francis are just some of the people whom QAnon followers have cast as villains in their alternative reality.

This all sounds familiar. Haven’t we seen this before?

Yes. QAnon has its roots in previously established conspiracy theories, some relatively new and some a millennium old.

The contemporary antecedent is Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 presidential campaign when rightwing news outlets and influencers promoted the baseless idea that references to food and a popular Washington DC pizza restaurant in the stolen emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta were actually a secret code for a child trafficking ring. The theory touched off serious harassment of the restaurant and its employees, culminating in a December 2016 shooting by a man who had travelled to the restaurant believing there were children there in need of rescue.

QAnon evolved out of Pizzagate and includes many of the same basic characters and plotlines without the easily disprovable specifics. But QAnon also has its roots in much older antisemitic conspiracy theories. The idea of the all-powerful, world-ruling cabal comes straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fake document purporting to expose a Jewish plot to control the world that was used throughout the 20th century to justify antisemitism. Another QAnon canard – the idea that members of the cabal extract the chemical adrenochrome from the blood of their child victims and ingest it to extend their lives – is a modern remix of the age-old antisemitic blood libel.

How did QAnon start?

On 28 October 2017, “Q” emerged from the primordial swamp of the internet on the message board 4chan with a post in which he confidently asserted that Hillary Clinton’s “extradition” was “already in motion” and her arrest imminent. In subsequent posts – there have been more than 4,000 so far – Q established his legend as a government insider with top security clearance who knew the truth about the secret struggle for power between Trump and the “deep state”.

Though posting anonymously, Q uses a “trip code” that allows followers to distinguish his posts from those of other anonymous users (known as “anons”). Q switched from posting on 4chan to posting on 8chan in November 2017, went silent for several months after 8chan shut down in August 2019, and eventually re-emerged on a new website established by 8chan’s owner, 8kun.

Q’s posts are cryptic and elliptical. They often consist of a long string of leading questions designed to guide readers toward discovering the “truth” for themselves through “research”. As with Clinton’s supposed “extradition”, Q has consistently made predictions that failed to come to pass, but true believers tend to simply adapt their narratives to account for inconsistencies.

For close followers of QAnon, the posts (or “drops”) contain “crumbs” of intelligence that they “bake” into “proofs”. For “bakers”, QAnon is both a fun hobby and a deadly serious calling. It’s a kind of participatory internet scavenger hunt with incredibly high stakes and a ready-made community of fellow adherents.

How do you go from anonymous posts on 4chan to a full-fledged conspiracy movement?

Not by accident, that’s for sure. Anonymous internet posters who claim to have access to secret information are fairly common, and they usually disappear once people lose interest or realize they are being fooled. (Liberal versions of this phenomenon were rampant during the early months of the Trump administration when dozens of Twitter accounts claiming to be controlled by “rogue” employees of federal agencies went viral.)

QAnon might have faded away as well, were it not for the dedicated work of three conspiracy theorists who latched on to it at the very beginning and translated it into a digestible narrative for mainstream social media networks. A 2018 investigation by NBC News uncovered how this trio worked together to promote and profit off QAnon, turning it into the broad, multi-platform internet phenomenon that it is today. There now exists an entire QAnon media ecosystem, with enormous amounts of video content, memes, e-books, chatrooms, and more, all designed to snare the interest of potential recruits, then draw them “down the rabbit hole” and into QAnon’s alternate reality.

How many people believe in QAnon? And who are they?

Nobody knows, but we think it’s fair to say at least 100,000 people.

Experts in conspiracy theories point out that belief in QAnon is far from common. While at one point, 80% of Americans believed a conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination, a poll by Pew Research in March found that 76% of Americans had never heard of QAnon and just 3% knew “a lot” about it.

The largest Facebook groups dedicated to QAnon had approximately 200,000 members in them before Facebook banned them in mid-August. When Twitter took similar action against QAnon accounts in July, it limited features for approximately 150,000 accounts. In June, a Q drop that contained a link to a year-old Guardian article resulted in approximately 150,000 page views over the next 24 hours.

These are rough figures to draw a conclusion from, but in the absence of better data, they hint at the scale of the online movement.

In general, QAnon appears to be most popular among older Republicans and evangelical Christians. There are subcultures within QAnon for people who approach studying Q drops in a manner similar to Bible study. Other followers appear to have come to QAnon from New Age spiritual movements, from more traditional conspiracy theory communities, or from the far right. Since adulation for Trump is a prerequisite, it is almost exclusively a conservative movement, though the #SaveTheChildren campaign is helping it make inroads among non-Trump supporters (see below).

QAnon has spread to Latin America and Europe, where it appears to be catching on among certain far-right movements.

Why does QAnon matter?

First, there’s the threat of violence. For those who truly believe that powerful figures are holding children hostage in order to exploit them sexually or for their blood, taking action to stop the abuse can seem like a moral imperative. While most QAnon followers will not engage in violence, many already have, or have attempted to, which is why the FBI has identified the movement as a potential domestic terror threat. Participation in QAnon also often involves vicious online harassment campaigns against perceived enemies, which can have serious consequences for the targets.

QAnon is also gaining traction as a political force in the Republican party, which could have real and damaging effects on American democracy. Media Matters has compiled a list of 77 candidates for congressional seats who have indicated support for QAnon and at least one of them, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, will in all likelihood be elected in November.

s the hero of the overall narrative, Trump has the unique ability to influence QAnon believers. On 19 August, at a White House press briefing, he was given the opportunity to debunk the theory once and for all. Instead, he praised QAnon followers as patriots and appeared to affirm the central premise of the belief, saying: “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it; I’m willing to put myself out there, and we are, actually. We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country and, when this country is gone, the rest of the world will follow.”

QAnon believers were jubilant.

Didn’t you mention #SaveTheChildren? What’s that all about?

Participating in QAnon is largely made up of “research” – ie learning more about the byzantine theories or decoding Q drops – and evangelism. Most of the proselytization relies on media manipulation tactics designed to catch users’ attention and send them into a controlled online media environment where they will become “redpilled” through consuming pro-QAnon content.

QAnon followers have for years used a wide range of online tactics to achieve virality and garner mainstream media coverage, including making “documentaries” full of misinformation, hijacking trending hashtags with QAnon messaging, showing up at Trump rallies with Q signs, or running for elected office.

A very potent iteration of this tactic emerged this summer with the #SaveTheChildren or #SaveOurChildren campaign. The innocuous sounding hashtag, which had previously been used by anti-child-trafficking NGOs, has been flooded with emotive content by QAnon adherents hinting at the broader QAnon narrative. (It doesn’t help that the debate around human trafficking is already full of bogus statistics.)

On Facebook, anxiety over children due to the coronavirus pandemic, a resurgent anti-vaxx movement, and QAnon-fueled scaremongering about child trafficking have all combined to inspire a modern-day moral panic, somewhat akin to the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s.

Hundreds of real-life “Save Our Children” protests have been organized on Facebook in communities across the US (and around the world). These small rallies are in turn driving local news coverage by outlets who don’t realize that by publishing news designed to “raise awareness” about child trafficking, they are encouraging their readers or viewers to head to the internet, where a search for “save our children” could send them straight down the QAnon rabbit hole.

 

 

It is fascinating. It’s essentially a living fiction, a story that isn’t set in stone but changes according to what it faces.

 

It’s like writing a story and coming across something that you find is impossible or implausible for some reason, so you find a way around it or even happily suspend disbelief for it rather than give up on it. Which is fine if you know and accept it’s a fiction.

 

It’s also as though attempts to disprove it, or pointing out of flaws and inaccuracies in it, is taken as a challenge rather than an insult. I doubt there are many if any of this theory’s proponents who could be straight-up talked out of it. And given many will have found themselves cast aside from mainstream society, a community that gives them a sense of togetherness and paints them as the great protagonists, a band of brothers fighting for the very soul of the world against an evil corporation secretly ruling the world, will give them a great rush and a sense of purpose. It’s like an RPG game come to life, living a fairy story. No wonder they’re committed to it.

 

It’s difficult to know how to defeat it really, other than to give its followers something better to believe in. I doubt it can be defeated by arguments alone because it thrives in finding ways around them.

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Indeed the two aren't exactly comparable, but that wasn't what I said.

Merely discussing the number of protests without discussing their nature and targets is a mite disingenuous.

 

7 minutes ago, bovril said:

The idea that the centre of American politics (Biden) is to the right of the centre of UK politics is popular, but I've never seen any evidence that it's true. 

Abortion is the biggest issue where that comes to mind IMO - Biden, as a Catholic, is on record as being deeply uncomfortable with it but willing to accept it as a womens rights issue. I don't think you could say the same of many centrist UK politicians.

 

Welfare state issues, too.

[Countryfox]

20 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

 

 ..  we've seen MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, Tuskugee and a bunch of other ..  

 

Was discussing these over breakfast with Mrs CF this morning ...   if it wasn’t for Tuskugee I doubt Hilary would have reached the peak tbh ..  

[Facecloth]

 

[The Bear]

Just came to post that. 

 

The next moron off the rank is ready to run! 

[bovril]

25 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Merely discussing the number of protests without discussing their nature and targets is a mite disingenuous.

 

Abortion is the biggest issue where that comes to mind IMO - Biden, as a Catholic, is on record as being deeply uncomfortable with it but willing to accept it as a womens rights issue. I don't think you could say the same of many centrist UK politicians.

 

Welfare state issues, too.

Aren't half of the current cabinet anti-abortion? I'm sure I read that somewhere but I might have been imagining it. And they Britannia unchained group are definitely not that pro welfare state either.

 

I think it's something we like to tell ourselves - we're not as crazy as the states. After the last few years I'm less sure of that. 

[ealingfox]

25 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

 

 

The worrying and really quite sad thing is this is a deliberate and obvious attempt to exploit the ignorance of an electorally significant proportion of right-wing voters. Any right-wing voter should be offended by such a clear and patronising insult of their intelligence.

 

What's even more worrying and sad is that the Tories have started doing this too - see Johnson's recent El Dorado comment as an example.

Edited 21 January 2021 by ealingfox

[Innovindil]

31 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

 

What a ****ing spanner that bloke is really. 

[Jon the Hat]

47 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Merely discussing the number of protests without discussing their nature and targets is a mite disingenuous.

To be fair when I originally posted no one expected ether side to infiltrate the Capitol.  

[Jon the Hat]

11 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

 

The worrying and really quite sad thing is this is a deliberate and obvious attempt to exploit the ignorance of an electorally significant proportion of right-wing voters. Any right-wing voter should be offended by such a clear and patronising insult of their intelligence.

 

What's even more worrying and sad is that the Tories have started doing this too - see Johnson's recent El Dorado comment as an example.

It's a pretty sad indictment.  Hopefully this guy has some sort of prosecution coming up.

 

Meanwhile you are confusing Boris making an literary reference to Cruz being an actual ****ing moron.

Edited 21 January 2021 by Jon the Hat

[Detroit Blues]

23 minutes ago, bovril said:

The idea that the centre of American politics (Biden) is to the right of the centre of UK politics is popular, but I've never seen any evidence that it's true. 

 

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is far more nationalist and interventionist in foreign policy than the UK. The Democratic Party's economic position is free trade (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) whereas the UK voted in a referendum to Brexit. The Democratic Party is currently opposed to a single payer (Medicare for all) system and instead is trying to implement a public insurance option, whereas the UK has a single payer NHS system. 

 

The Democratic Party is the farthest left party in a two-party system, and thus includes vocal minorities within the party that want - socialism, deconstruction of social/gender norms, etc. This gives the illusion that the mainstream Democratic Party is for these things, when in reality the largest base of support within the party is the African American community. This community is far more religious and socially conservative than your average person in the UK. 

 

Bernie Sanders may be farther left than the center of UK politics, however he did not win the Primary in 2016 and 2020, largely because he did not win the support of the African American and Corporate/Centrist base of the party. He did manage to popularize some key positions that the other candidates had to adopt, pulling the Democratic Party farther left. However, the Democrats were so terrified of losing to Trump in 2020 that they settled in on a more centrist candidate like Biden, that would not scare off moderate/independent voters. 

 

[ealingfox]

6 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

It's a pretty sad indictment.  Hopefully this guy has some sort of prosecution coming up.

 

Meanwhile you are confusing Boris making an literary reference to Cruz being an actual ****ing moron.

 

Well it's difficult to say who the moron is really - Cruz's apparent stupidity is clearly performative, so aren't the real morons the people that are taken in by it? You could even argue the people who have lost to these electoral tactics and probably will again in future are the morons.

 

I used that example because it was recent, but there are plenty more.

[HighPeakFox]

I have a wise friend, who says 'be angry with the conman, pity those that are conned'.

[leicsmac]

40 minutes ago, bovril said:

Aren't half of the current cabinet anti-abortion? I'm sure I read that somewhere but I might have been imagining it. And they Britannia unchained group are definitely not that pro welfare state either.

 

I think it's something we like to tell ourselves - we're not as crazy as the states. After the last few years I'm less sure of that. 

It's a fair argument, but Detroit Blues above has said pretty much what I would have said, more eloquently.

 

27 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

To be fair when I originally posted no one expected ether side to infiltrate the Capitol.  

Absolutely. However I was referring to:

 

6 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

I meant if trump had won we would have seen more protests.

which seemed to refer to the number of protests without considering other factors about them.

 

In any case, my overall point that I'm sticking to is that left-wing protests would not have caused nearly so much threat to the actual political stability of the US if Trump had won, and I think the events at the Capitol that had zero left-wing equivalent in 2016 or at any time since pretty much prove this.

[Facecloth]

16 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

 

Well it's difficult to say who the moron is really - Cruz's apparent stupidity is clearly performative, so aren't the real morons the people that are taken in by it? You could even argue the people who have lost to these electoral tactics and probably will again in future are the morons.

 

I used that example because it was recent, but there are plenty more.

You say those who lost to it, but how do combat blatant lying anf giving of misinformation. You try and discredit it and people don't listen. You try and put out misinformation yourself to fight fire with fire and suddenly these people who are taken in by the likes of Cruz are researching to try and discredit anything about the statement.

 

These days people are more interested in disproving what the people they won't vote for are saying than they are understanding and looking into what the people they are prepared to hand power to are saying.

[urban.spaceman]

21 hours ago, StanSP said:

This was so good. 

 

Thought she was really impressive. And she has a stammer too.

[Bellend Sebastian]

I cannot hear Ted Cruz mentioned without thinking of this, which is definitely one of my favourite things of the last few years:

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

3 hours ago, Facecloth said:

 

 

[Wymsey]

 

[urban.spaceman]

They’re trying to impeach Biden now. 
 

 

[HighPeakFox]

34 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

They’re trying to impeach Biden now. 
 

 

Pathetic beyond adequate description.

[leicsmac]

42 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

They’re trying to impeach Biden now. 
 

 

 

8 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Pathetic beyond adequate description.

TBF she called the Parkland school shooting a "false flag" and basically called one of the victims a paid actor, so she's got previous here.

[leicsmac]

And a thought, now that the electoral process is done and dusted, perhaps a new thread should be made for general US events going forward?

[Jattdogg]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

And a thought, now that the electoral process is done and dusted, perhaps a new thread should be made for general US events going forward?

I can sum it up. Nothing changes.  Nobody works together for the betterment of american society

 

MIGA 2024. Trump reloaded. Make Insurrection Great Again. Wins thanks to mail in ballots.

 

 

[LCFCCHRIS]

Getting deja vu now 

 

😬😬