My 12-year-old Told Me about QAnon
Where we go one we go all.
A little over two years ago, while in the kitchen with my daughter after she spent a weekend at her dad’s house, she dropped this on me,
“I don’t want daddy to drop me off at school anymore.”
Taking my daughter to school isn’t a small task. It is 30 minutes one way (we live in LA) and sometimes an hour back (traffic). That means some days I’m in the car for 3 hours total to and from her school — a huge time suck. I do most of the driving. He sometimes takes her once a week.
I tried to maintain neutrality in my voice when I replied,
“How come?”
“Because they (he’s remarried with kids) have a big Q on the side of their car.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have a large Q written on the side of their car.”
“The letter?”
“Yes, a Q.”
“What for? What do you mean? Isn’t their car brand new? Why would they have a large Q on the side of their car? What do you mean… like the letter Q?
(again trying to understand what I was hearing)
“A large black letter, Mom… it’s for some group they follow, called QAnon, I think.”
This went on for a bit, like a less intelligent version of Abbot and Costello’s Who’s On First.
My daughter left the kitchen, annoyed that I didn’t know what she was talking about, as well as relieved that I thought it was as strange as she did.
I immediately texted my friend.
He is on social media 24/7, streams most shows, and records most cable news programs while maintaining a full-time job. I marvel at this. I’m often lost when he starts talking about trending events. I get, “how do you not know this?” a lot from him. He told me QAnon is a group of people who follow an anonymous leader, called “Q,” who promulgates made up stuff on the internet (common). No one knows who “Q” is, but what he pushes is unbelievable.
What is QAnon?
Basically, it is nonsense. QAnon is a disproven and discredited far-right conspiracy theory. It is the most bonkers of conspiracy theories.
The upshot — QAnon alleges that the political “left” is a satan-worshiping-elite group of pedophiles who traffic children and drink their blood, it kind of started with Pizzagate. Donald Trump will bring them to justice, save the children, and imprison the child traffickers. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are among these blood-drinking pedophiles. Q supporters are still waiting for Hillary Clinton to be “locked up,” even though she hasn’t been charged with anything — they are happy to wait but are sure her incarceration is imminent.
QAnon has millions of members, both domestically and abroad.
Trump has mainstreamed QAnon.
Fast forward two years and a lot of Americans are now familiar with the term QAnon. A year ago, this was not the case.
Two Republican women who started as QAnon supporters will be sworn into Congress next week. Marjorie Taylor Greene won a House seat in Georgia, and Lauren Boebert claimed a House seat in Colorado.
Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pled guilty — twice — to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is going all-in on the QAnon conspiracy theory. He is “promoting an online store to sell QAnon hats and T-shirts, the proceeds of which will benefit his partnership with a prominent QAnon booster.” Who knew Mike Flynn’s reputation could sink lower than it already has.
Trump (who partied and hung out with pedophile Jeffery Epstein) has now given QAnon believers his support — while at the same time saying he “knows nothing about it.”
When asked during an October town hall about QAnon, his response was, “they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard, but I know nothing about it.” He refuses to denounce the group.
Let’s make one thing clear. Accusing people of child trafficking and pedophilia with no evidence is not “fighting against pedophilia very hard.” Claiming innocent people are part of a child trafficking ring with no evidence but with baseless lies creates confusion about an issue that should be taken seriously.
Spreading disinformation is harming any cause to end child trafficking.
The QAnon group was ecstatic about Trump’s remarks taking their name into the mainstream. I blame the media for asking about QAnon at a town hall in the first place, actually for airing anything Trump says because every word out of his mouth is BS.
After being elevated on national TV, more people know of QAnon. Members of QAnon are part of a dangerous community; they engage in terrible acts of violence. Recently, the FBI has labeled them a domestic terror threat.
The pandemic and QAnon.
More and more people took to QAnon during the pandemic, membership to online QAnon-centric Facebook groups rose dramatically since the crisis started. The struggle and stress of a pandemic and an unknown future resulted in more people turning to these conspiracy theories to make sense of the world. It has not helped that people are stuck at home with the internet providing hours of “entertainment.” It doesn’t take long to go down a rabbit hole when reading sites like Reddit and imageboards 8chan/8kun looking for answers to something we haven’t gone through as a country this impactful since the great depression.
These supporters are devoted to Trump through anything. Trump making large and small bids to these people publicly has increased as his political supporters have fallen away. The more Trump loses support from loyalists in government, who are now turning away from him, the more he seems to reache out to QAnon supporters, like a desperate man reaching for a life raft.
Attorney General Bill Barr defied Trump by stating there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election of Joe Biden. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Trump’s defeat and congratulated President-elect Joe Biden. All of Trump’s Supreme Court justices agreed not to hear a case brought by Texas seeking to overturn the election results.
QAnon is not going away when Trump leaves office.
QAnon isn’t going anywhere as long as Trump reaches out to QAnon promoters for advice, amplifies their messages, and praises the QAnon community.
Research says the swearing in of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, will not quell these radical groups or dissuade conspiratorial movements. But the Biden Presidency will actually make people in these movements more convinced they are right; in fact, it will bolster them, especially since two of their former members will be in Congress next year.
They see Trump as a Grandmaster and everything he does as part of a larger plan to take down the deep state. Even if the plan is carried out way in the future, they think it’s coming. They believe violence will descend swiftly in a prophesied event called “the Storm,” in which Trump’s political enemies will be swept away en masse to incarceration or execution.
According to Travis View of NY Mag, who hosts a podcast that drills down on QAnon, “Adherents long for the mass imprisonment and/or execution of thousands of people in politics, entertainment, and media whom they believe are guilty of unspeakable atrocities.”
My daughter, a teen now, who is appropriately practicing independence and defiance, voiced her opinion to her father and his wife that she didn’t want to be driven to school with a large Q on the side of their car. Her step mother’s response was, “You can wipe it off, but only if you draw it back on.”
Yes, I know. It is on with a marker. (where to begin…)
My daughter said, “No, I’m not doing that.”
I’m proud. She’s standing up for herself and what she believes in by refusing to “draw it back on.” Not easy at her age.
And yes, I’m still doing all the driving to and from school.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering perfectionist. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
