Trump Has Officially Declared His Embrace of QAnon
On Tuesday, it appears that former President Donald Trump had, to use the words of his QAnon followers, a “great awakening.”
Trump has spent years hinting at his support for QAnon, a conspiracy theory that positions him as the savior of the American people—but on Tuesday, the former president removed any doubts he’s fully embraced a movement the FBI has labeled a domestic terror threat.
In the space of a few hours, Trump posted and reshared an unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness series of posts that included a link to the text of an original “Q drop,” QAnon memes, and conspiracy theories about the DOJ, former President Barack Obama, and of course, Hillary Clinton.
These messages originated from Trump’s most ardent followers, people with names like “Patriotic American Alpha Sauce,” “David B. MAGA,” ” and “ULTRA-MAGA 4LIFE.”
In total, Trump boosted 12 different QAnon accounts a total of 18 times during a 60-post spree that also included attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. He also took time out to attack the Department of Justice over its search of Mar-a-Lago and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
He ended Tuesday with several posts urging followers to buy his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s new book, which has been widely derided (one reviewer compared reading it to “watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo”).
For years, Trump has struggled to contain his obvious attraction to a group of people so devoted to him that his every utterance is greeted as if it were direct from God himself.
In 2020, ahead of the election, he claimed he “doesn’t know much” about QAnon, but went on to call them people “who love our country” and “who like me very much, which I appreciate.”
In the wake of his election loss, struggling to come up with a narrative to explain his massive defeat, Trump latched on to QAnon influencer-turn-voting machine “expert” Ron Watkins and retweeted his lies about stolen elections.
By the time Twitter shut down his account in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, Trump had boosted at least 315 QAnon-promoting Twitter accounts, according to a tally kept by Media Matters reporter Alex Kaplan.
But in recent months, as Trump has finally resigned himself to the fact that he’s not getting back on Twitter any time soon and will have to make do with his cut-rate Truth Social platform, he’s been increasingly open about his affinity for QAnon.
In total, Trump’s Truth Social account has shared posts from 70 different accounts that openly espouse QAnon conspiracy theories. But it should really come as no surprise given that Truth Social, which is reportedly in dire financial trouble, has been unable to secure a captive audience beyond a core group of QAnon followers, many of whom have been given verified accounts.
“The only difference between Trump and your QAnon believing Uncle is that Trump used to be President,” Mike Rains, a researcher who hosts the QAnon-focused podcast “Adventures in HellwQrld,” wrote on Twitter about Trump’s posting rampage.
But for those hardcore fans, Trump’s embrace of their conspiracy theory is everything they have always hoped for.
“It’s only going to get better from here on out,” a member of the QAnon-focused message board The Great Awakening, wrote about Trump’s posts.
“Trump is one of us. He sees the truth for what it is,” a user on the pro-Trump message board TheDonald wrote on a thread about Trump’s posts on Truth Social. TheDonald is the message board where users responded to Trump’s criticism of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago by posting violent threats against FBI agents and the judge who signed the search warrant.
Over on Telegram, one widely shared post claimed that Trump’s posts now mean that “normies” have to finally wake up to the truth.
“Many in the normie world AND many in the awakened community who still believe that Q is some wild conspiracy or that it’s a nefarious Psyop are going to have to come to terms with the fact that all of what we have preached for YEARS is now starting to all fall into place,” the Telegram user wrote.
“POTUS loves us & they HATE IT. POTUS was Ultra Q’ish this morning and they are just fanning the flames,” MJTruth, a well-known QAnon grifter whose crowdfunding campaign to fund his conspiracy blog has generated over $10,000 in recent months, wrote on his Telegram channel which has almost 70,000 subscribers.
For some, however, Trump’s meltdown did not go far enough, as he didn’t cover all conspiracy bases during Tuesday’s posting spree.
“He’s finally starting to hit his stride,” a TheDonald member wrote. “Now if he’ll disavow the mRNA shots he’ll truly be golden.”
Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.
#DmtDailyNews
via https://www.DMT.NEWS
David Gilbert, Khareem Sudlow
