Trump retreats QAnon conspiracy rumors. So does Faux News.
Congrats, Republicans. Couldn't happen to a nicer crew of folks.
Their underlying vision—of being a heroic warrior for truth battling against the vilest of evils—is what attracts so many followers to QAnon, and simultaneously creates permission in their minds for committing the most atrocious acts of violence one can imagine.
We’ve already seen this playing out in domestic-terrorism incidents that, fortunately, did not reach fruition:
A QAnon fanatic armed with an AR-15 and an armored truck blocked traffic on the Hoover Dam and demanded the inspector general’s report on the government investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices in June 2018.
A California man arrested in December 2018 with bomb-making materials in his car told investigators he intended to use them to "blow up a satanic temple monument" in the Springfield, Illinois Capitol rotunda. His larger intentions, he said, were "make Americans aware of Pizzagate and the New World Order, who were dismantling society."
An Illinois woman who became a fanatical QAnon devotee livestreamed herself on a cross-country trip, armed with a collection of illegal knives, to New York City, where she hoped to “take out” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. NYPD officers arrested her there.
The young man who murdered Gambino mob boss Frank Cali, who gorged himself on QAnon theories online, told investigators he committed the crime because he believed that Cali was part of the “Deep State” operation to sabotage Trump’s presidency.
The Los Angeles locomotive engineer, also a QAnon fan, who drove his engine at high speed off the tracks near the docks where the US Naval Ship Mercy was stationed as part of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic—it halted about 800 yards away from the ship—told arresting officers he was hoping to ram the ship because he believed the claims (primarily from QAnon theorists) that the patients were going to be secretly carted off to Guantanamo: “You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. … I had to. People don’t know what’s going on here. Now they will.”
QAnon Candidates
Media Matters’ Alex Kaplan compiled a complete list of QAnon candidates:
Thirteen candidates have secured a spot on the ballot in November by competing in primary elections.
Of those 13 candidates, five are from California, two are from Illinois, and there is one each from Colorado, New Jersey, Oregon, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.
One candidate in Florida is running as an independent, who is also on the ballot in November.
One candidate, in Georgia, is heading to an upcoming primary runoff.
One candidate in New York is running as a Republican write-in.
In total, 59 of the candidates are Republicans, two are Democrats, one is a Libertarian, and two are independents.
Here are the QAnon Supporters running for Congress in 2020
QAnon cult threatens to consume what's left of the Republican Party