Q up for the Storm, the Breadcrumbs, the Awakening...

[Stavros]

If it were not for the fact that QAnon appears to be in alliance with the Republican Party and that-

"Media Matters, a not-for-profit progressive research center which monitors misinformation, has counted 67 current or former rightwing congressional candidates who have embraced QAnon, a conspiracy theory based in antisemitic tropes which has incited supporters to violence and is popular among Trump supporters."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...sing-extremist

The list is here-
https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-c...-congress-2020

"Believers also say Angela Merkel is Hitler’s granddaughter and Kim Jong-Un was installed by the CIA to keep the world in a permanent state of near-apocalyptic nuclear doom..."
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...-group-2921226

We might just dismiss it as another wacko conspiracy theory junket -which on one level it is, but what happens when the believers leave the church and join the party?

And it is breathtaking gall for the President to day he does't know much about them when he has held their sign aloft, and re-tweeted their stuff 185 times. So many breadcrumbs, so much to lose sleep over before the 'Great Awakening'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon

https://www.advocate.com/politics/20...t-lgbtq-people

[broncofan]

It is a horrifying menace and the synthesis of every crazy idea I've seen online for the last several years. I don't know what to say except that the Republican party is totally complicit in allowing the most delusional conspiracy theorists into the mainstream of their party. The ideas circulate on networks of white supremacists and neo-nazis who all day dream about committing attacks on minorities when they're not concocting some sinister fiction about Hillary Clinton or the deep state.

To actually know all of the details of these ideas is to delve into a complete fantasy land...one almost feels irresponsible to summarize it as hateful garbage because combatting the malicious ideas might mean learning about their origins. It's exhausting, ignorant, amoral horseshit.

[Stavros]

Two responses to your rational post -

1) Sidney Blumenthal takes apart the Republican Party with surgical malice, to show how it has ceased to be the Party of Lincoln, Hoover and Eisenhower. My only criticism is that he doesn't define what it means to be a Conservative in the context of American poitics, which I think has become a confused concept with more contradictions than it can sustain.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...enthal-lincoln

2) As I have pointed out before, because you do not have a conventional party system with membership rolls, fees, a party organization and rules, anyone can stand for either the Democrats or the Republicans, so members of Congress can say whateever they like about QAnon and the canndidates chosen to stand for their party, they cannot expel them or force them to stand down -their criticism -is there anger?- is therefore impotent. After all, what is to stop Alex Jones or David Duke from seeking the Republican Party nomination for the President in 2024?

They probably won't get elected, but the process of erosion began some time ago, and the key thing as with so much in contemporary politics, is that enough people simply don't care to enable those who do to enter the system, even when what they cae about is based on hysterical garbage, like the pretender to the throne here who calls himself King John III. The irony is that I once met a man who said his name is Napoleon, only it is, as he is related to the offspring of the famous Emperor. And unlike the wannabe Napoleons who litter the middle pages of trashy newsapapers, he was a gentle, intelligent and a nice man. Not the sort to enter politics. And that is part of the broader problem -the best stay away, the worst push themselves forward

[broncofan]

Two responses to your rational post -

2) As I have pointed out before, because you do not have a conventional party system with membership rolls, fees, a party organization and rules, anyone can stand for either the Democrats or the Republicans, so members of Congress can say whateever they like about QAnon and the canndidates chosen to stand for their party, they cannot expel them or force them to stand down

I agree with you that some ability to discipline members and standards for admission to the party might prevent the total erosion of principles we see in the GOP. I also think that this control can sometimes only create the illusion of accountability because parties still have mixed incentives. What I mean is that parties may want to remove cranks from their ranks but they still want their votes and expulsions can create division. You can end up with a race to the bottom with no party having huge incentive to discipline or expel members. I still think you're right but nothing is perfect.

We've all talked before about the effects of social media and the internet on the dissemination of falsehoods. There's been some conversation about various sites that radicalize people into dangerous ideologies. I do think the changes in media beyond Fox News have had a significant effect on the slide of the Republican party into fantasy land. Fox News used to lead the right-wing agenda and make executive decisions about what was an acceptable departure from reality. Now they're on their heels having to decide whether it's fair comment to call Hillary Clinton a cannibal or whether they have some role as a gatekeeper for the discourse. A serious conversation about our ability as a society to have some set of shared truths needs to take place.

[Stavros]

"The Trump campaign is hosting events across the country this weekend to capitalize on whatever momentum the Republican National Convention created and mobilize the party’s base of voters to turn out in November. HuffPost found that official campaign events in Georgia and Nevada will be hosted by people who promote QAnon, the hateful conspiracy theory that the FBI recently flagged as a domestic terror threat. "

"A Black Voices for Trump event in Mableton, Georgia, on Friday evening features Angela Stanton-King, who is the Republican nominee in the November election to fill the House seat of recently deceased civil rights icon John Lewis. “THE STORM IS HERE ����,” Stanton-King tweeted earlier this month, using a QAnon reference to the moment Trump will supposedly arrest and execute his enemies.
Like most QAnon adherents, Stanton-King appears to be convinced that most world events are in some way linked to sex trafficking, a problem that QAnon believers vastly overstate using bogus statistics. “TRUTH BOMB ��,” she tweeted in July. “This isn’t about COVID 19 or BLACK LIVES MATTER. This is a major cover up for PEDOPHILIA and HUMAN TRAFFICKING.”
Stanton-King, who received a pardon from Trump earlier this year for her role in a car theft ring years ago, has also used Twitter to sow doubt about the risks of COVID-19, which has killed more than 180,000 Americans. In May, she praised Trump for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure for the virus, despite a lack of medical evidence and the risk of severe side effects. In July, she predicted COVID-19 will disappear altogether after the election, implying that the virus is a hoax to defeat Trump. Stanton-King is speaking at Friday’s event alongside Dr. Robin Armstrong, a physician who said he has provided hydroxychloroquine to nursing home patients. "

More here-
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...f2a?ri18n=true

[broncofan]

It's interesting to read about conspiracy theorists who "overstate" the prevalence of pedophilia and sex trafficking given how awful both problems are and the fact that they need to be combated by human rights organizations. Yet these people are absolutely obsessed with imaginary trafficking rings in pizza parlors and among "liberal elites" and will ignore abuse that is well documented.

These ideas are really old wine in new bottles. Their theories are a hodgepodge of great replacement theory, of medieval antisemitic conspiracy theories repackaged to omit explicit reference to Jews but using some surrogate, and just good old-fashioned scientific ignorance with heavy doses of anti-Black and xenophobic rhetoric mixed in.

This thread speaks to the ideological radicalization of Republicans in this country. I'm not sure if it's a detour to talk about the ways in which actual vigilante violence is being encouraged by Trump. I am very much against looting and vandalism but still think random gun-owners shouldn't hold themselves up as guardians of cities they don't live in or have communal investment in and accelerate street violence. It is clear that Trump has shifted from using Covid as a cultural fault line to using the issue of police brutality and the response to it as a way of galvanizing support in white America. That this comes off of a backdrop of medieval conspiracism, racism, and xenophobic ideas makes the situation even more volatile.

I have been afraid about the political consequences of Trump winning. I'm finding myself and those around me increasingly afraid of street level violence between factions of Trump supporters and their opponents, both being used as pawns to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is not fit to govern.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=broncofan;1940515
This thread speaks to the ideological radicalization of Republicans in this country. I'm not sure if it's a detour to talk about the ways in which actual vigilante violence is being encouraged by Trump. I am very much against looting and vandalism but still think random gun-owners shouldn't hold themselves up as guardians of cities they don't live in or have communal investment in and accelerate street violence. It is clear that Trump has shifted from using Covid as a cultural fault line to using the issue of police brutality and the response to it as a way of galvanizing support in white America. That this comes off of a backdrop of medieval conspiracism, racism, and xenophobic ideas makes the situation even more volatile.
[/QUOTE]

It seems to me that the problem lies in the possibility that encouraging armed militias, even if only 'notionally' or by implication, or through re-tweets (the President has re-tweteed QAnon tweets over 130 times), emboldens them, to the extent that nobody controls them, so that they become a 'third force' between the Federal Government and State Goverment law enforcement.

Having tweeted 'Liberate Michigan' and other states, the President may have given licence to actual violence, as has happened either with the individual in Kenosha, or the more organized sects such as the Kenosha Guard Militia who issued a 'call to arms', with other groups such as the 'Boogaloo Bois' in Oregon, Patriot Prayer, Patriot Wave and so on also provoking and taking part in violence.

If it gets out of control, then at some point they have to be dealt with, but with a President who seems to prefer 'direct action' and to treat Democrat Mayors and Governors with contempt, could this President side with armed militias against specific law and order jurisdictions, as in Portland and Kenosha? More to the point, is there nobody in his administration who can warn him of the dangers of supporting armed groups that declare they are 'anti-Government'?

Some are here-
Kenosha Guard Militia-
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...nosha-protests

Patriot Prayer-
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...-portland.html

Boogaloo Bois
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020...hat-you-think/

[Stavros]

Should law enforcement in Kenosha be re-identified as the Republican Guard?

"That followed a bout of unrest straight after the police shooting, where some businesses and public property were badly damaged and many stores are now boarded up, then a spiral into chaos last Tuesday night when armed, white agitators turned up on the streets, were given water and encouragement by police in an armed vehicle despite being out after curfew, and then ended up confronting protesters." (my emphasis in bold).
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-visit-kenosha

[Stavros]

Here is a curious situation: Lara Trump has been on the campaign trail in Florida with QAnon candidate Laura Loomer, while QAnon candidate Marjorie Greene's campaign has received financial support from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other prominent Repubican party donors, while it is claimed-

"More than a third of Republicans believe the QAnon conspiracy that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a shadowy cabal of paedophile cannibals is "mostly true", according to a new poll released on Wednesday."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a9702261.html

Lara and Loomer-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lara-trump...155424480.html

Marjorie and Meadows-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a9688626.html

Here is the curiosity: why has QAnon's Crusader-in-Chief not announced his intention to abolish child marriage in the USA? I assume his old buddy Epstein might have made a case for middle aged men marrying little girls, but do most Americans support it?

Maybe the President should make this a campaign commitment? And if not, why not?

Some stats here-
https://www.unchainedatlast.org/chil...ng-statistics/

https://www.moms.com/child-marriages-in-the-us/

[Stavros]

So “crazy uncle” don’t know who or what QAnon is, yet has retweeted their garbage over 150 times, and at least two of them are candidates for his own party. Marjorie Taylor Green in Georgia, and in the same state, Angela Stanton King

“In an interview with the Guardian, Republican Congressional candidate Angela Stanton King said that she believed the QAnon conspiracy theory that the online retailer Wayfair is secretly trafficking children online as part of a deep-state“
https://jezebel.com/trump-supporting...bel-1845388362

So cute!