COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) – For years, legions of conspiracy theory QAnon supporters encouraged each other to “trust the plan” as they waited for the day when President Donald Trump would orchestrate mass arrests, military courts and executions of his enemies who worshiped Satan and sacrificed children.
Keeping the faith was not easy when Induction Day did not start “The Tempest”, the apocalyptic calculation that they believed was coming for prominent Democrats and enemies of Trump’s “deep state”. QAnon’s followers battled anger, confusion and disappointment on Wednesday when President Joe Biden was sworn in.
Some believers have found a way to distort the complicated conspiracy theory narrative to fit their belief that Biden’s victory was an illusion and that Trump would guarantee a second term. Others clung to the notion that Trump will remain a “shadow president” during Biden’s term. Some even suggested that the opening ceremony was computer generated or that Biden himself could be the mysterious “Q”, who is allegedly a government official who posted cryptic clues about the conspiracy.
For many others, however, Trump’s departure has sown doubt.
“I am so scared now, I really feel like nothing is going to happen now,” wrote a poster on a Telegram channel popular with QAnon believers. “I am simply devastated.”
Mike Rothschild, author of an upcoming book on QAnon called “The Storm is Upon Us”, said it is too early to assess whether the wave of disillusionment that swept the ranks of QAnon on Wednesday is a turning point or a passing setback. for movement.
“I think these people have given up a lot and sacrificed a lot in their families and in their personal lives,” he said. “They believed in it so much that simply getting away from it just isn’t in the realm of reality for most of these people.”
On Wednesday, when it became obvious that Biden’s tenure would continue, many QAnon message boards and online groups were bombarded by intruders and trolls scoffing at the conspiracy. Some old QAnon posters said they plan to move away from social media, even if only temporarily.
“Trump said: ‘THE BEST IS TO COME.’ I will not give up, ”wrote Telegram user Qtah in an announcement to 30,000 subscribers that he was taking a break on social media.
Some groups took advantage of the moment to try to recruit disillusioned QAnon supporters for white supremacy and other far-right neo-fascist movements like the Proud Boys. On Wednesday, for example, an anonymous poster on 4chan posted on a topic that “this would be the perfect time to start posting Nat Soc advertising to Q anon groups. Clearly, this is a very low point for those who believe in Q, and once people have been broken, they will look for ways to hold on to hope again. Nat Soc means National Socialism, commonly referred to as Nazism.
QAnon appeared in 2017 through anonymous and marginal online message boards before migrating to Twitter, Facebook and other mainstream platforms that were slow to eliminate the conspiracy theory from their websites.
Although Facebook and Twitter platforms last year promised to free their sites from QAnon, accounts with thousands of loyal followers remained until this month, when technology companies finally deactivated thousands of users who used violent rhetoric to encourage protests against the results of the US Capitol election on January 6.
Twitter announced that it suspended more than 70,000 QAnon accounts in the days following the riots. Meanwhile, Facebook ended up with more than 57,000 pages, groups, Facebook profiles and Instagram accounts this month. Trump was also barred from using his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.
The crackdown has caused some of the most ardent promoters of conspiracy theory to flee to less populous social media sites like MeWe and the Telegram messaging app, where they quickly won over thousands of followers.
But suspensions by social media companies paralyzed QAnon’s conversation on the websites, with mentions of popular QAnon hashtags like #FightforTrump and #HoldTheLine declining by about 90%, according to an analysis by media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.
Other believers at QAnon have even found ways to promote their message on Facebook and Twitter, urging followers to keep hope that Trump would find a way to stay in office or expose the “deep-state” network of government leaders they believe to operate a child sex trafficking ring.
Videos and publications on Facebook, Telegram and YouTube predicted that Trump would take over the emergency broadcast system to declare martial law and arrest prominent Democrats.
“This presidential inauguration that we will see coming … I am saying it will be the greatest thing we have ever seen in the history of the United States,” a pro-Trump singer who promotes QAnon conspiracy theories, warned in a Facebook video seen over 350,000 times since Monday.
But Trump’s peaceful transfer of power to Biden came and went on Wednesday.
Among the most notable defectors appeared to be Ron Watkins, a prominent promoter of electoral fraud conspiracy theories who helps run an online messaging forum where QAnon conspiracy theories run wild.
“We gave it our all,” wrote Watkins in a post on Telegram, minutes after Biden took office. “Now we need to keep our chin up and get back to our lives as best we can.”
Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher who co-hosts the QAnon Anonymous Podcast under his pseudonym, said Watkins encouraged Trump supporters to travel to Washington for the January 6 demonstration that led to the Capitol riots.
“It caused a lot of damage to a lot of people,” he said. “He is responsible for a lot of pain.”
Other followers of QAnon spent their time online on Wednesday calling Biden an illegitimate president and accusing Democrats of electoral fraud. Republican MP Marjorie Taylor Greene, who expressed support for conspiracy theories, called for Biden to be impeached on his Twitter, Facebook and Telegram accounts when the new president was installed.
Other followers continued to hunt for clues that QAnon’s prophecies would be fulfilled, with several social media posts noting that Trump’s speech on Wednesday was delivered in front of 17 American flags – a significant number for QAnon’s conspiracy theorists because “Q” is the 17th letter of the alphabet.
“I believe the game is still being played, this is not over!” a QAnon user wrote to his 26,000 Telegram followers moments after Biden took office.
__ Seitz reported from Chicago and Klepper reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press reporter Garance Burke in San Francisco and researchers from the University of California, the Berkeley Human Rights Center Research Laboratory and the Investigative Reporting Program contributed to this report.