The Rise and Fall of QAnon—the Wildest Conspiracy Theory of the Trump Era

Update 7/22/2020: Since the time of writing, the surge of mask and vaccine conspiracy theories has made it clear that the the threat of a deadly viral pandemic is not motivation enough for people to start listening to credible authorities. The cult around the QAnon conspiracy may continue to grow in popularity, with a number of prominent political figures endorsing the movement.

However, followers may have more difficulty finding and disseminating their QAnon "information" after twitter mass-banned more than 7000 QAnon-focused accounts on Tuesday, along with restricting around 150,000 other QAnon accounts from their recommendation algorithm. The move comes, either as part of Twitter's effort to crack down on dangerous misinformation being spread on their platform, or as part of the deep state's insidious plan to keep you from discovering the truth...

If you believe the followers of the mysterious figure known as QAnon, all the elites of Hollywood and DC are implicated in an elaborate conspiracy to traffic children.

And none other than Donald Trump himself is working to take them down.

These elites—minions of the "deep state"—not only abuse children for their twisted sexual gratification, they harvest their adrenal glands to extract the psychosis-inducing drug adrenochrome (a real neurochemical that Hunter S. Thompson first fictionalized as a drug in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)—to which many/most/all of them are addicted.

And Donald Trump is using his immense intelligence and strategic grace to undermine their power through a series of secret arrests and covert operations. There is no knowing exactly when this process will be exposed to the public, but Q continually drops hints to assure his followers that something big is coming. When? Soon. Very soon. Always soon.

For two-and-a-half years now—ever since an anonymous user claiming to have Q-level security clearance first started posting cryptic messages on 4chan—a big revelation has perpetually been just around the corner. Acolytes of the QAnon movement revel in the fact that they know what's going on before the rest of the world has a clue.

In decoding Q's messages they have adopted a collective approach to investigative work (and occasionally murderous vigilantism) which they tout with the motto "where we go one, we go all" and the accompanying hashtag #WWG1WGA.

Through their investigative tactics, they have arrived at a number of strange conclusions that Q has neither confirmed nor denied. For a start, many of them believe Q's true identity to be John F. Kennedy Jr.—who apparently faked his death in a 1999 plane crash and has been living under an assumed identity (possibly Vincent Fusca, a man whom they have somehow identified as resembling JFK Jr.). They refer to their own augured revelations and the inevitable unveiling of the conspiracy to the world as "The Great Awakening."

The genius of QAnon—who may have started as one deluded or possibly malicious individual, but is likely now a group of people—is that the cryptic nature of Q's messages make it impossible to ever be wrong. When a big, undefined event is promised for a specific date, and nothing seems to happen, followers can easily piece together bits and pieces of news to determine that, secretly, something big actually has happened. Hillary Clinton was secretly arrested, and now she's living under house arrest!

At one point in their journey, many Q followers had come to the conclusion that Donald Trump was working closely with Robert Mueller and that the supposed Mueller investigation into wrongdoing within the Trump administration was actually a cover for the real work of dismantling the deep state. But since the Mueller report was revealed to be focused on the crimes of Donald Trump and his cronies, they have instead determined that Mueller was part of a failed coup attempt orchestrated by Barack Obama and others.

QBecause Q never explicitly said anything about Mueller and Trump working together, there's no need for Q's followers to question their leader—whose authority is seen as complete and coming from within the Trump administration. Instead, they look for anything that could be used to reaffirm their faith in Q.

So when it was recently revealed that the FBI used the code name "Crossfire Hurricane" to refer to the probe into possible Trump Administration ties to Russia, they were determined to see that as proof that Donald Trump knew what he was talking about when he nonsensically referred to "the calm before the storm"—a moment which has entered QAnon lore with the phrase "The Storm" being used almost interchangeably with "The Great Awakening."

It doesn't hurt that Donald Trump has more than once retweeted a Q follower and even pointed out a baby in a QAnon onesie at one of his rallies. It's easy for adherents to interpret these moments as a sort of sly confirmation of their insane beliefs—rather than the behavior of a narcissistic conman who doesn't care what his supporters believe.

Coupled with the grim reality of actual elite pedophile rings—as exposed by the case of Jeffrey Epstein—and the genuine corruption of the Democratic Party whom they view as godless, amoral villains, it's not hard to see how QAnon has amassed such a large and dedicated following. Millions of Americans are convinced...for now.

Unfortunately for fans of crazy conspiracy theories, there may be a limit to how long this formula can keep adherents engaged. Eventually the big revelation that's just around the corner has to actually arrive. Now, after years of teasing, some of Q's ardent followers seem to finally beginning to resent the lack of results.

Following some recent "drops"—the term for Q's cryptic posts—that referred to the need to weed out an embedded enemy as part of their "silent war," some users have lamented that war's continued silence.

No doubt many of these people are aware that their friends and loved ones think they've gone off the deep end with this deep state stuff. They want a win that they can finally rub in their loved-ones stupid, sheeple faces. One high profile arrest, or one spate of celebrity deaths as a result of tainted adrenochrome, and they might be able to hold on. After so long, some of the supporters are bound to start drifting away.

Having invested so much time and energy in an absurd prophecy of the world order upended, perhaps the ongoing pandemic has shown them a more realistic version of what that looks like. Perhaps they'll be drawn to some fresh young conspiracy that isn't beginning to sag with age… Or perhaps Q will pivot and find a new way to subsume world events into QAnon lore.