MISINFORMATION IN ITS PUREST FORM: BEHOLD QANON!

April 2020:   So, have you heard of QAnon, the conspiracy theory to trump all conspiracy theories, pun intended? Their basic premise is that leftists/libs/the Deep State are all out to get Trump who is fighting a huge, complex battle of Good vs. Evil, aided by “Q,” a James-Bond-like government operative who, for some reason, leaves coded messages, or “bread-crumbs” for his followers, mostly on 4chan and, later, on 8chan, those sewers of the Internet, and now on their Russian-hosted 8kun site. 

This toxic waste dump of a “theory” has been around since October 2017; it has features of a puzzle game as the online community, QAnon, feverishly attempt to decode Q’s mysterious “drops,” salivating over the imminent capture and execution of liberals like Hillary Clinton and Tom Hanks. This never actually happens. And then they develop a new “theory.”  They are nuts.

 

WWG1WGA stands for “Where we go one, we go all,” a lame version of “All for one and one for all”

Gentle reader, a trigger warning before we give you an example of Q-theory. QAnon may sound like harmless recreation for over-imaginative shut-ins:  a combined decoder-game and spy-thriller-fan-fic. But their beliefs, and their influence, is pretty dark. From an email circulated last year: 

 “An ‘extreme snuff film’ featuring Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin raping and mutilating a prepubescent girl is circulating on the dark web, according to sources familiar with the material. In the video, they take a little girl and they fillet her face, according to reports, and then they take turns wearing the little girl’s face like a mask. It is believed they were terrorizing the young girl, deliberately causing the child’s body to release Adrenochrome into her bloodstream before bleeding her out and drinking the blood during a Satanic ritual sacrifice.”

It’s the ritual-child-abuse satanic-panic of the eighties combined with a crazed loathing of mildly liberal politicians. Also hatred of Hollywood do-gooders and, of course, government professionals because they are the “Deep State.”

Why concern oneself with these marginal wack-a-loons?  Because they have more influence with the president than you do; they attend his rallies and are among his most fervent supporters—

What Happens When QAnon Seeps From the Web to the Offline World

New York Times, Feb 9 2020

It’s not that we haven’t had Q-levels of crazy before in American political history — it was pretty bad in Andrew Jackson’s time. But historical precedence doesn’t make it okay to have a president, a major political party, and the country’s leading news organization (Fox) referencing, or at least not rejecting, an organization that believes the opposition party is made up of pedophile-cannibals and their dupes. QAnon has wormed its way into the councils of the great because QAnon Is Just the Standard Trump Train Now

In the Age of Trump — the apotheosis of the grifter, the shyster, the conman — any and all lies, half-truths, hints and innuendos are welcome and permissible as long as it harms his enemies and “owns the libs.”  Any slander is grist for Trump’s Twitter rumor-mill, no matter how grotesquely surreal, and his base knows it. In the Fox echo chamber, Jesse Waters aimed to be neutral:

Fox News host Jesse Watters interviews political-science professor about QAnon

Watters thinks QAnon is funny, or that there are “very fine people on both sides,” including his good friend who first brought Q to his attention. In general right-wing media are fine with the fact that the barrier between the White House and QAnon is entirely porous and that Trump himself retweets QAnon posts. It seems the QAnon lunatics aren’t quite running the asylum yet but they’ve certainly got a seat on the Board.

***************************
Postscript: So that you, gentle reader, will be fully au courant, let me just mention that the QAnon community is currently all in a lather about the Mole Children. They believe that COVID-19 is a plot to keep everyone inside while the U.S. military rescues thousands of children from underground tunnels where they were bred as sex slaves and to have their adrenal glands harvested so “elites” can get high on their adrenochrome. Yep.

Post-postscript: Now they have a movie! According to Right-Wing Watch millions of people have viewed “an homage to the founding tenets of ​the ‘Pizzagate​’ and QAnon ​conspiracy theories” called “Out of Shadows” on YouTube.

Post-post-postscript, July 12 2020: And now they’ve decided that Wayfair, the online home furnishings outlet, is selling child sex slaves sealed up in metal cabinets. Because idiot marketers name products after people (perhaps using this automatic biz-name generator) and also because Wayfair’s crappy algorithm prices everything at $9,999.99 when first posted. Snopes fact-check here, if you needed one, which you really shouldn’t, good lord.

Post-post-post-postscript, August 22 2020: QAnon nutters = the gift that keeps on giving. Today they are planning nationwide rallies to #savethechildren. The Boston rally is happening at Faneuil Hall and is mentioned in my fave local street-news site Universal Hub.

WITH CRISIS COMES OPPORTUNITY:

WITH CRISIS COMES OPPORTUNITY:

In Hungary, Viktor Orban is using the pandemic to boost himself from Prime Minister to straight-up fascist dictator, pushing through a bill that gives him power to rule by decree indefinitely, and doing away with future elections. Around the world, from Duterte in the Philippines to Netanyahu in Israel, authoritarian leaders are making good on the advice to “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Strongmen everywhere are ratcheting up on surveillance and oppression, silencing journalists, and jailing activists, tightening their grip on power.

Yet here in the good old US of A, while there is a certain amount of neo-fascist activity, the main opportunity Trump-land senses is less about a power grab, and more about the golden grift.

Let’s face it, governing is hard, even governing by decree. Being a dictator requires drive and focus and a certain primitive shrewdness, if not actual intelligence. The Trumpistas -- Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes, and Trump himself -- are all second-and-third generation sons of privileged corruption. They’re Fredo, not the Godfather; they’re Uday and Qusay, not Saddam; Napoleon III, not Napoleon. Bullying and punching down, sure, they’ll do that, sporadically or under direction. But conducting a long-term campaign to consolidate power and institute iron-fisted rule…?  I’m just not seeing it with these guys.

Instead we have Trump trying to shaft the tiny Wampanoag Indian tribe to avenge his own failures in the casino business. Sure, he’ll elbow aside his own spokespeople at pressers to grab the limelight -- but could he beat back a real power grab from a well-organized and fearless opponent? Doubtful. He’ll call a female reporter “nasty” but is he going to have her secretly killed and dismembered and the body dissolved? Unlikely. It's disgraceful that Trump calls Mohammed “Bonesaw” bin Salman a friend, but he's not going to emulate his handling of the press.

Trump wants the press to “be nice” to him. He wants to bathe in their jocular admiration, like Al Capone in The Untouchables – a laugh, a wink, a nod, and all boys together. Instead, he gets lectured by a disapproving Jim Acosta, who comes off as a scold instead of a hero because Capone was a savage and terrifying sociopath, where Donald Trump is just a blustering clown. We don’t get heroes now, because it’s all just pig-wrestling: “You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”

With Trump in power, this is not the age of heroes. But it is the golden age of GRIFT!  Donny “Bone Spurs” understands that; that he knows! And he supports it! The cheesier and sleazier, the better. In the middle of the current crisis/opportunity, Trump summons captains of industry to share his podium in the Rose Garden -- the CEOs of Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, etc. -- to represent the industrial might of the nation. Just this Monday he summoned corporate executives from Honeywell, Procter and Gamble, Jockey and United Technologies.  And then, this guy:

 Mike Lindell the My Pillow Guy: normally seen on late-night TV and internet pop-up ads

In the realm of corporate grift and greed, Trump’s real affinity is not for the Big Dogs, it’s for bit players, wannabes, starlets, the comic relief. Real dictators surround themselves with imposing military gear and generals, glittering thugs with real guns. Trump flirted with having tough-guy generals at first, but a pampered rich kid couldn’t bluff his way to dominance over ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis and John Kelly; they are both long-gone. “You’re fired” is the biggest play he is capable of (although not face-to-face.)

Will this characteristic in our leadership help protect America from a full-on fascist takeover? I’m not sure; I think it might. And honestly, I don’t know whether to be relieved or embarrassed.

NICE LITTLE DEMOCRACY YA GOT THERE….

NICE LITTLE DEMOCRACY YA GOT THERE….

We’ve arrived at the pseudo-mob-tough-guy phase of the federal response to Covid-19. In the past few days Donny “Bone Spurs” Trump has declared that state governors…

·       … “have to treat us well” and “be appreciative;”

·       … while Pence “calls all the governors. And I tell him, I’m a different type of person, and I say, ’Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. you’re wasting your time with him”

·       … or “Don’t call the woman in Michigan. It doesn’t make any difference what happens”

·       … and, basically, “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,”

The Fox response is that governors and states need to grovel more. On the Laura Ingraham show Rudi Giuliani coached us all on proper subservience:

A little advice for the governors and the mayors, [….] Take the blame when you have to. You know, when you play with your boss, sometimes it's better if you don't win the golf game. He's the boss. He's got all the resources. I don't say that he is going to be affected at giving out resources one way or another, but….

MEDIAite: Giuliani Says Governors Should Engage Trump Like 'He's the Boss'

So it’s macho and tough when the most powerful man in the world snivels about how the mean governors hurt his widdle fee-fees by not appreciating him? And liberals are the “snowflakes?” Got it.

But he can hold a grudge with the best of the mob bosses! Even in times of national emergency, Donny Bone Spurs has time for petty revenge for past grievances. Right here in Massachusetts, the Wampanoag tribe suddenly had their reservation status rescinded. Why? Apparently, Trump, with his sad history of failed casinos, can’t stand competition and without the land, the tribe can’t build their casino as planned.

WBUR: Appeals Court Denies Mashpee Wampanoag Request for Casino Land 

When the call came from the Bureau of Indian Affairs last Friday, Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell thought the administration was checking to see if the tribe needed help with the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, “It was like a punch in the nose from a bully.” 

Well, that sounds accurate.