[The Immortal Goon]

The right's increasing fixation on increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories has been interesting to me for a long time. A case in point right now:

A new conspiracy theory called “The Storm” has taken the grimiest parts of the internet by, well, storm. Like Pizzagate, the Storm conspiracy features secret cabals, a child sex-trafficking ring led (in part) by the satanic Democratic Party, and of course, countless logical leaps and paranoid assumptions that fail to hold up under the slightest fact-based scrutiny. However, unlike Pizzagate, the Storm isn’t focused on a single block of shops in D.C., or John Podesta’s emails. It’s much, much bigger than that.

As most terrible things do, this story begins with a post on /pol/, a sub-board of the more-or-less-anonymous, anything-goes website 4chan. Over the last few years, /pol/ — which technically stands for “politically incorrect” — has slowly but surely become a top contender for the ever-coveted title of the most upsetting community online. It’s the sort of place where neo-Nazis and people who believe women shouldn’t have basic human rights used to meet before we started verifying them on Twitter and electing them to public office. And as of late, it’s expanded its ranks to include fringe members of all shapes and sizes.

On October 28, someone calling themselves Q began posting a series of cryptic messages in a /pol/ thread titled “Calm Before the Storm” (assumedly in reference to that creepy Trump quote from early October). Q claimed to be a high-level government insider with Q clearance (hence the name) tasked with posting intel drops — which he, for some reason, called “crumbs” — straight to 4chan in order to covertly inform the public about POTUS’s master plan to stage a countercoup against members of the deep state. It was, in short, absolutely insane. However, thanks to some rather forced coincidences — like Q kind of, sort of guessing that Trump would tweet the word “small” on Small Business Saturday, and this one time the internet decided that Q was “totally on Air Force One” because he posted a blurry picture of some islands while Trump was on his trip to Asia — and a whole heck of a lot of wishful thinking, people believed he was the real deal.

So he kept talking.



According to Q, Trump was never really involved with Russia, and isn’t actually under investigation by Mueller & Co. On the contrary, Q insists that it’s actually Clinton and Obama who were corrupted by Putin (and are now actually under investigation by Mueller) because they’re obviously just evil, money-hungry globalists who’ll do anything for the highest bidder. (Oh, yeah, and they’re also apparently into raping and killing children, though the crowd is split over whether this is because they’re satanists or just part of some weird blackmail scheme involving the CIA.) Q also claims that Trump, the genius that he is, figured all of this out way back when he was just a measly presidential candidate, and has been pretending to love Putin and/or be involved with Russia ever since as a way to force a third party to investigate these horrors — without drawing the attention of those evil Dems-who-must-not-be-named, of course — because he’s just that selfless of a leader.



In this fantasy world, all of the far right’s wildest dreams come true: Q promises that Clinton, Obama, Podesta, Abedin, and even McCain are all either arrested and wearing secret police-issued ankle monitors, or just about to be indicted; that the Steele dossier is a total fabrication personally paid for by Clinton and Obama; and that the Las Vegas massacre was most definitely an inside job connected to the Saudi-Clinton cabal.

They believe all of this will be coming to a head any day now. That “The Storm” — of arrests, political turmoil, and Republican vindication — is coming. Though there have been some, uh, miscalculations as for exactly when.

For example, take this “crumb” left by Q on November 1:

Q Clearance Patriot

My fellow Americans, over the course of the next several days you will undoubtedly realize that we are taking back our great country (the land of the free) from the evil tyrants that wish to do us harm and destroy the last remaining refuge of shining light. On POTUS’ order, we have initiated certain fail-safes that shall safeguard the public from the primary fallout which is slated to occur 11.3 upon the arrest announcement of Mr. Podesta (actionable 11.4). Confirmation (to the public) of what is occurring will then be revealed and will not be openly accepted. Public riots are being organized in serious numbers in an effort to prevent the arrest and capture of more senior public officials. On POTUS’ order, a state of temporary military control will be actioned and special ops carried out. False leaks have been made to retain several within the confines of the United States to prevent extradition and special operator necessity. Rest assured, the safety and well-being of every man, woman, and child of this country is being exhausted in full. However, the atmosphere within the country will unfortunately be divided as so many have fallen for the corrupt and evil narrative that has long been broadcast. We will be initiating the Emergency Broadcast System (EMS) during this time in an effort to provide a direct message (avoiding the fake news) to all citizens. Organizations and/or people that wish to do us harm during this time will be met with swift fury – certain laws have been pre-lifted to provide our great military the necessary authority to handle and conduct these operations (at home and abroad).

POTUS will be well insulated/protected on AF1 and abroad (specific locations classified) while these operations are conducted due to the nature of the entrenchment. It is time to take back our country and make America great again. Let us salute and pray for the brave men and women in uniform who will undertake this assignment to bring forth peace, unity, and return power to the people.

It is our hope that this message reaches enough people to make a meaningful impact. We cannot yet telegraph this message through normal methods for reasons I’m sure everyone here can understand. Follow the questions from the previous thread(s) and remain calm, the primary targets are within DC and remain at the top (on both sides). The spill over in the streets will be quickly shut down. Look for more false flags — stay alert, be vigilant, and above all, please pray.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Love is patient, love is kind.”

God bless my fellow Americans.
4,10,20

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but November has come and gone without the slightest hint of a Q-style military-backed Armageddon. Yet, this pretty glaring mistake doesn’t seem to have weakened anyone’s faith in Q. If anything, it’s brought more followers into the fold.

Over the last month and a half, the Storm has spread from the depths of 4chan and 8chan to Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter, where it’s found hundreds of thousands of devout followers. Some of the most popular explainer videos boast nearly 200,000 views, and the QAnon hashtag has gotten so popular, it’s honestly difficult to track. (I signed up for one of those freebie “Track Your Hashtag Now!” services and #QAnon hit the 2,000-post limit within four hours.) Some poor soul even took the time to write a 117-page book charting Q’s rise to power, which I’m guessing has been seen at least as many times as this very aggressive Imgur guide, which was at 137,000 views as of Sunday night.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Deplorable80 ... ained.html

It’s been a little over a year since Edgar Welch, military-style assault rifle in hand, walked into a D.C. pizza parlor, convinced it was part of a child sex-trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton, and the internet hasn’t gotten better. If anything, it’s worse.

Sure, in the wake of Pizzagate’s brief encounter with reality, a lot of changes were made: Reddit shut down the conspiracy’s designated sub, Twitter suspended some of the movement’s most vocal supporters, and the whole thing was debunked time and time again by the press. But it’s more evident now than ever that this was merely a Band-Aid, not a cure. And now, here we are a year later with the same thing. Sure, it’s a bit bigger and a whole lot less focused, but at its core, it’s the same. What is there even left to try? We know that stopping the conversation doesn’t work. Neither do the facts. How can we even begin to argue with hundreds of thousands of people who choose to believe that a top government agent is speaking to them through 4chan, that Trump has been playing a game of 4-D mind chess this whole time, and that the Las Vegas massacre was an inside job? Is the next Edgar Welch already out there, scrolling through the Calm Before the Storm thread, and if so, is it even possible to stop him?

I've long sensed the cynical utility in just saying that every place one generally gets facts is involved in a conspiracy. That the press is secretely run by leftists (the NYT, in particular, despite being in bed with the Bush administration); that academics are deliberately lying when contradicting the right (despite the right being overwhelmingly represented by Ivy Leaguers); and books, media, movies, and television, all having a shadowy "agenda" (despite mostly being owned by big corporations that donate to rightwing causes).

I'm in no way attempting to place these things as inherently rightwing, the point only being that there is nuance to all information and there always has been. Part of the whole quest for information is understanding this and expanding upon it.

I've also gone through on this forum, a few times, how a postmodernist narrative currently adopted by the right tends to favour feelings as much as facts. These conspiracy theories, I think, tend to work to confirm the feeling without any of the pesky facts.

I'm also old enough to remember the Satanic Daycare Scare. It seems as though, at least in Western Society, it may be that a completely irrational witch hunt is just part of the rightwing process. Whether this be witches, communists, anarchists, Jews, Muslims, Satinists, whatever.

I suppose I'm curious just to have a discussion about this in general.

Why is the right so prone to run to conspiracy theories at this moment?

What are the long term dangers in this?

[Rich]

The right's increasing fixation on increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories has been interesting to me for a long time.

Its not just the right. I've been rudely awakened just to have a woman bending my ear about Pizza Gate. She's certainly not right wing, nor with one exception, who I see once in a blue moon can any of my friends and acquaintances be described as far right. And believe you me, Pizza Gate is the sane end of the conspiracy spectrum.

The electoral politics of western democracies reproduce the left right spectrum with amazing regularity. Individual voters and fringe groups however do not fit particularly well into the neat one dimensional spectrum. What is interesting is how the internet has totally stirred things up and people cross fertilise. Leftists have bought into Neo Nazi and neo confederate memes while the far right has picked up leftist narratives. Remember in the primary Donald Trump was essentially attacking Bush's iraq invasion with the left's attack points.

When did the majority of people have the internet? I think its less than 20 years ago. The internet is just mind blowing in the effect that its going to have on our societies. I suspect the craziness (from the point of view those who can remember the pre internet age) has only just begun.

[mikema63]

Why is the right so prone to run to conspiracy theories at this moment?

I think conspiracy theories are somewhat endemic to fringe political groups generally but less than what it's been fanned into today on the right. You always had crazy right wing gold bugs with conspiracy theories about race and the certain crop of far left people who give rise to things like GMO conspiracies and that communist alien cult group I read about a few years ago.

I think what's going on now is a combination of people with such views simply congregating thanks to the internet and a fanning of the flames of conspiracy by the likes of FOX and its increasingly out there descendants. Basically the establishment political right decided the best way to gain and maintain power was to divorce their own supporters from any shared reality with the center left. Starting a couple presidents back but culminating in the Obama presidency they basically did everything they could to make their own supporters believe the most ridiculous nonsense about a likable centrist president being a communist muslim.

And it worked for them for a while, they took power. But then they had let the crazies into the fold and turned lots of their supporters crazy and now the wheels are coming off the party and the left will predictably have to clean up after their no holds barred approach to stealing welfare from the mouths of children and the working poor to decrease rich peoples taxes.

What are the long term dangers in this?

When everyone is against you as part of the vast conspiracy and that if only you had complete power you could have the good old days back it's a recipe for authoritarianism. They will believe anything Trump tells them, and create elaborate conspiracies to justify their absolute faith.

[blackjack21]

A lot of these so-called conspiracies are hatched by the deep state as a red herring. For example, the Obama birther issue was put out essentially by Obama himself, because there was no truth to it and it would pre-occupy his opponents with something that would lead to nowhere. Obama's mother was an American, so Obama was a citizen no matter where he was born. A bunch of these "Unite the Right" people were Obama acolytes too. The Trump-Russia collusion story is clearly a fake scandal as well. Mueller has already billed the government over $7M for two pleas to lying to the FBI and two indictments against Manafort and Page that have nothing to do with any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. That's one hell of a lot of money for four cases that have nothing to do with Russia.

Basically, people within government often create these narratives to further their own political objectives. Red Herring operations are often done to "discredit" people who subscribe to them.

[Decky]

Most conspiracy theories are a load of absolutote nonsense cooked up by Mossad to cover their tracks. If people are blaiming the freemasons then they are blaming the real culprits, the shapeshifting lizard aliens.

[Sivad]

The mindless conformity of the mainstream is just as ludicrous as fringe conspiracism. Deluded imbecility may come in a variety of flavors but a deluded imbecile is a deluded imbecile, the particulars are largely irrelevant.

[4cal]

The right's increasing fixation on increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories has been interesting to me for a long time. A case in point right now:



I've long sensed the cynical utility in just saying that every place one generally gets facts is involved in a conspiracy. That the press is secretely run by leftists (the NYT, in particular, despite being in bed with the Bush administration); that academics are deliberately lying when contradicting the right (despite the right being overwhelmingly represented by Ivy Leaguers); and books, media, movies, and television, all having a shadowy "agenda" (despite mostly being owned by big corporations that donate to rightwing causes).

I'm in no way attempting to place these things as inherently rightwing, the point only being that there is nuance to all information and there always has been. Part of the whole quest for information is understanding this and expanding upon it.

I've also gone through on this forum, a few times, how a postmodernist narrative currently adopted by the right tends to favour feelings as much as facts. These conspiracy theories, I think, tend to work to confirm the feeling without any of the pesky facts.

I'm also old enough to remember the Satanic Daycare Scare. It seems as though, at least in Western Society, it may be that a completely irrational witch hunt is just part of the rightwing process. Whether this be witches, communists, anarchists, Jews, Muslims, Satinists, whatever.

I suppose I'm curious just to have a discussion about this in general.

Why is the right so prone to run to conspiracy theories at this moment?

What are the long term dangers in this?

When the premise is a falsehood, you begin the game by having to perform damage control to support the falsehood.
When the falsehood is questioned, you either come clean or you double down on the original lie. This is the structure of every GOP argument

[4cal]

A lot of these so-called conspiracies are hatched by the deep state as a red herring. For example, the Obama birther issue was put out essentially by Obama himself, because there was no truth to it and it would pre-occupy his opponents with something that would lead to nowhere. Obama's mother was an American, so Obama was a citizen no matter where he was born. A bunch of these "Unite the Right" people were Obama acolytes too. The Trump-Russia collusion story is clearly a fake scandal as well. Mueller has already billed the government over $7M for two pleas to lying to the FBI and two indictments against Manafort and Page that have nothing to do with any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. That's one hell of a lot of money for four cases that have nothing to do with Russia.

Basically, people within government often create these narratives to further their own political objectives. Red Herring operations are often done to "discredit" people who subscribe to them.

Meh, much more was spent on Benghazi's nothing burger...we still got 5 more years to milk the multiple Trump scandals. Get used to it.