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Last week, as Democrats celebrated the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States on the streets, QAnon supporters were left without a leader. The frequently posted account, Q, disappeared after Donald Trump’s defeat, NYT reports.
Trump’s defeat in last week’s election quickly caused quite a stir among supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
“Biden will NEVER be president,” wrote one of QAnon’s supporters. “Trump knows what he is doing. Let the Democrats and the technocrats and the media show their true faces,” insisted another.
Some of the conspirators, however, began to lose confidence: “We are losing. I don’t know if I should continue to trust the plan. I’m not even sure there is a plan. “
These are difficult times for the QAnon conspirators, those who believe a ridiculous theory that there is a satanic world cult of pedophiles led by American Democrats and that Donald Trump would fight. For years they were assured that Trump would once again win the election outright and that he would “defeat the parallel state and bring the leaders of the sect to justice.” An account in the online forum where these discussions take place, called Q, was the one that, in the last three years, has constantly fed this delusion, publishing cryptic messages.
However, since the defeat of Donald Trump, Q has disappeared. No messages have been posted from this account and no other messages have appeared on the site from which you communicate frequently. Overall, QAnon’s activity has decreased significantly in recent days.
Discord between the leaders of the conspiratorial group.
There were also signs of conflict between the more prominent conspirators: Ron Watkins, one of the administrators of the 8kun site, who many thought was Q himself, announced on Election Day that he would stop working on the site, citing “heavy fights with censorship”. Q’s disappearance has hit the conspiratorial community hard who feel “defeated by the parallel state,” even if they don’t acknowledge it in public, says Fredrick Brennan, founder of another conspiracy site, predating the current one.
Brennan is one of those who left the community and became a vocal critic of Watkins. He says defenders of the theory were convinced that Trump was in control and would win the election, although polls showed his chances were slim: “They didn’t expect to lose and they didn’t expect Fox News to declare Biden’s victory.” It was a moment that affected them psychologically. “
In recent months, QAnon conspirators have been blocked from most traditional social networks, diminishing the movement’s ability to organize: Facebook groups and YouTube channels with thousands of followers have been removed. Hardest hit were the leaders of the circle, who are now losing the ability to sell non-themed QA products, write conspiratorial books or organize events.
QAnon’s conspiratorial delusion could even survive Trump’s defeat. The US president refused to condemn the group or reject those theories, preferring to say that QAnon’s followers are “patriots.” They began to fabricate another conspiracy theory, according to which there was a supercomputer used to change votes and that Donald Trump was secretly referring to ballots to trap Democrats in a trap.
Publisher: Adrian Dumitru
