A QAnon conspiracy theorist won the GOP Senate primary in Oregon on Tuesday, giving a massive electoral stage to the bizarre pro-Trump movement that the FBI considers a potential domestic terror threat. Jo Rae Perkins, an insurance agent and avowed QAnon believer, handily won the contest to take on Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) in the general election. Perkins, who has launched unsuccessful Senate and House bids in the past, beat her nearest Republican primary opponent by nearly 20 percentage points on Tuesday.
To celebrate, Perkins tweeted a video acknowledging the support she had received from QAnon believers. The victory speech included references to QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all,” QAnon followers who call themselves “Anons,” and “Q,” the anonymous person or group whose “clues” make up the basis of QAnon.
“I stand with President Trump, I stand with Q and the team,” Perkins said, holding up a sign with a QAnon slogan on it. “Thank you Anons, thank you patriots.”...
QAnon supporters believe in an elaborate conspiracy theory that posits that Donald Trump is engaged in a secret war against a “cabal” made up pedophile-cannibals in the global elite and Democratic Party. They are also convinced that Trump will soon imprison or execute top Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Despite its bizarre claims, QAnon has won prominent converts, including comedian Roseanne Barr, former baseball player Curt Schilling, and several Instagram influencers. Donald Trump has invited QAnon promoters to the White House, and frequently retweets them.More details at The Daily Beast.
Related: My father, the QAnon conspiracy theorist.
I used to live in DC and I'll never forgive the damage that group did to Comet Ping Pong. They were just a quirky little restaurant for college kids. It really opened my eyes to the internet's capacity to weaponize fear :(
ReplyDeleteI'm from Canada and while there is no shortage of nutjobs on either side of the border that fact that she won a primary beggars belief. Is there something in the water in Oregon? We used to have a Rhinoceros Party here and in the UK there was the Monster Raving Looney Party but both were jokes. There must be something in the DSM that tries to explain this.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the explanation is simple enough from my point of view. We don't teach critical thinking or formal logic in American schools, and more and more as time goes on, the religious right is forcing even public schools to acknowledge their 'beliefs' as having equal or greater value than the scientific method. When you fail to teach a concept as simple as Occam's Razor, you get what you see here; people who don't know how to accept a simple explanation, and insist that whatever they believe must be more true than the evidence, simply because they don't agree with the evidence.
DeleteI am not one to promote conspiracy theories, but my own experiences on both sides of the American educational system have convinced me that this is intentional, and meant to produce an ignorant, illiterate population... and thus, an easier to control population. Please, someone, prove me wrong. I don't want to be right.
There are several articles out there that make the very credible argument that Q Anon has, essentially, become a cult -- with all the danger that implies.
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