Conspiracy theory now prophesies March 20

• Followers of QAnon believed that March 4 would see former President Donald Trump reinstated as president.
• It was just the last date in a long line of bizarre bizarre that change continuously.
• Followers of conspiracy theory are looking forward to future dates that will herald epic changes.
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“Don’t be disappointed,” wrote a subscriber on a popular QAnon Telegram channel on Thursday night. “The race has not yet been run and I have reason to believe that March 20 is also possible.”

Another believer posted an equally optimistic message. “We still have 16 days,” they wrote. “A lot can happen between now and then!”

With the passage of March 4, a highly anticipated date for the conspiracy group, followers remain characteristically delusional.

With the uneventful passage of yet another supposedly important meeting, QAnon fans spent Friday morning asking followers to look ahead and “keep the faith.”

QAnon failed on March 4

When “the storm” – the promise of mass arrests and executions on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration – came to nothing, followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory fought for a new date to envision Trump’s fictional oath ceremony.

4 of March, like several unsuccessful dates that preceded it, was born from a complicated political fantasy.

QAnon supporters borrowed from the obscure US-based sovereign citizen movement to suggest that Trump would return to power on March 4, 2021. Sovereign citizens “believe they can decide which laws to obey and which to ignore,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization that monitors extremism.

The conspiracy theory movement will continue to invent new dates for waiting, or else its years of obsessive beliefs will have been in vain, say far-right experts.

“Reality doesn’t really matter,” said Nick Backovic, a contributing editor at the fact-checking site Logically, where he researches disinformation and disinformation, to Insider. “If QAnon can survive another major disappointment, there is no doubt – it can.”

The March 4 theory is rooted in a bizarre belief that argues that all laws after the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, are illegitimate.

The 20th Amendment, which changed Induction Day from March 4 to January 20, is considered invalid by sovereign citizens.

Therefore, proponents of this conspiracy theory insisted that Trump would restore a republic that had been out of action for more than 150 years on the day the former presidents took office.

Travis View, a conspiracy theory expert and host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, previously told Insider that it is based on a “blind faith” that Trump can “fix everything”.

A series of faults

Before March 4, the calendar of QAnon’s followers was marked with a series of dates that were previously hailed as moments of reckoning that did not happen.

In 2017, the first “Q drop” – the cryptic messages of the anonymous figure “Q” whose guidance directs the movement – claimed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be arrested because of an unfounded claim that she was involved in trafficking sexual activity of children. This, of course, never happened, but the QAnon conspiracy theory was born.

Conspiracy theory devotees then eagerly awaited the release of the Mueller report in 2019, hoping that their findings would lead to the arrest and possible execution of leading Democrats. Again, this resulted in nothing more than disappointment for QAnon believers.

So, in an attempt to reconcile their belief that Trump would remain president, they believed that January 6, which turned out to be a deadly insurrection on the United States Capitol, was the precursor to “The Storm” – a violent event that would result in the execution of child-abusing elites.

The beam was then moved to January 20, based on the claim that Trump would seize power before Biden took his oath.

Noam Galai / Contributor / Getty Images

But Trump was not sworn in again on January 20 and instead left Washington to move to his Florida home. In the hours after Biden’s inauguration, some QAnon believers were confused and discouraged.

Mental gymnastics followed, with some QAnon influencers arguing that Biden’s inauguration had taken place in a Hollywood studio and was therefore invalid; others claimed that Trump sent signals during his final pre-inauguration speech, indicating that he would remain in office. These influencers again promoted to their followers the idea that, somehow, their theory was not yet over.

“QAnon is dealing with a very difficult cognitive dissonance situation,” said Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science at Syracuse University.

Of course, some believers are fed up with failures

Several leading QAnon voices debunked the March 4 conspiracy theory in the days leading up to Thursday. These influencers have probably tried to keep their followers on board with the conspiracy theory, despite their countless disappointments, Backovic told Insider.

A Wednesday post on a QAnon Telegram channel with nearly 200,000 subscribers called the plan “BS”, although the same page told its followers that the “new Republic” would begin on March 4.

Another leading conspiracy theorist told his 71,000 subscribers on Wednesday morning that a “Q fall” contained a suggestion that the March 4 conspiracy theory was a false flag. “March 4 is a trap,” said the post.

Screen capture / telegram

Whenever QAnon’s prophecies are proven wrong, the movement loses some support, said Backovic.

In the days after President Biden took office, many QAnon believers expressed a desire to leave the movement, fed up with the lies they were told. Even Ron Watkins, who was once the main source of false information about QAnon’s electoral fraud, told his 134,000 Telegram subscribers on the afternoon of January 20, “Now we need to keep our complaints up and get back to our lives in the best way. possible.”

QAnon’s influencers calling the March 4 conspiracy a “false flag” also help to blame others if things go wrong as they did on January 6. Finding a scapegoat is a common tactic for extremists, according to Backovic.

After the Capitol insurrection, QAnon supporters and other pro-Trump protesters – and several Republicans in Congress – spread the false claim that the antifa, the anti-fascist movement, staged the attempted mortal coup on Capitol Hill.

FBI director Christopher Wray said when he testified before Congress on Tuesday that no antifa evidence was involved in the riot.

In addition to focusing on specific dates, QAnon has evolved and adapted to include other conspiracy theories and enter more conventional spaces.

Last spring, the movement focused on ending human trafficking, making “Save the Children” its new rallying cry. QAnon leveraged on mainstream social media, including Instagram, where lifestyle influencers spread it.

Then, last fall, QAnon extremists joined other right-wing groups to protest Biden’s victory in the elections as part of the Stop the Steal movement, which caused the Capitol uprising.

AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin

With nothing happening on March 4, believers look forward (again)

The latest disappointment has already resulted in new dates being introduced with increasingly desperate explanations.

Some QAnon influencers have suggested that March 20 is when Trump will take control, misinterpreting the 2019 Presidential Transition Improvement Act, which streamlines the presidential transition by providing certain services to the previous administration 60 days after his inauguration.

The statement, made for the first time on a popular QAnon Telegram channel, appeared to be gaining ground with offline supporters as well. A QAnon supporter interviewed by Dave Weigel of The Washington Post said he believes Trump remains in command of the armed forces and will be sworn in on the 20th.

—Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 28, 2021

But the main followers of conspiracy theory are reluctant to cast all their weight on a specific date.

On another Telegram message board for QAnon believers, a post encouraged people to keep an open mind about the Q plan. “Dates for the end of March, April, May and other dates in the fall have been released,” he said. the post. “While we can speculate and hope, no specific date has been set … don’t worry about the dates, look at what’s going on.”

For those tempered by repeated disappointments, some are simply determined on a resounding victory for Trump in 2024.

“Whether it is sometime in March or whether it will ultimately be a second Trump term after an election in 2024,” Barkun told Insider. “There will be one more set of explanations and another set of dates.”

And the cycle continues.