But when Biden raised his hand and took an oath to defend the Constitution, becoming the country’s 46th president – nothing happened.
“QAnon’s staunchest followers are confused,” said Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy, a non-partisan non-profit organization that tracks extremist groups and online misinformation. “After years of waiting for the ‘Great Awakening’, QAnon supporters seemed genuinely shocked to see President Biden successfully installed. A significant percentage online is writing that it has now ended QAnon, while others are doubling up and promoting new conspiracies. . ”
After the riots, QAnon supporters anxiously anticipated the timing of Biden’s inauguration.
“As the knot closes around the deep state, some people are becoming increasingly desperate to discredit Q,” posted a 4chan user on Wednesday morning. “I think what they say is true. The flack is heavier on the target.”
But after Biden’s oath came and went, panic set in.
“We were promised arrests, accusations, military regime, confidential documents. Where is it ????????” wrote a member of the QAnon-linked Telegram channel, which has almost 128,000 subscribers.
“I’m scared, feeling sick to my stomach, but I’m holding the line,” said another.
“Well, babies are still being raped and eaten, any minute now, GOD,” said another.
Some began to recognize the truth.
“Biden is our president,” said a fourth user of the Telegram channel. “It’s time to turn off our devices and get back to reality. If something happens, then something happens, but for now I’m disconnecting from all social networks. It’s been fun, guys, but unfortunately it’s over.”
Other believers insisted that the lack of a climax was in itself a part of the plan, theorizing that Trump just “allowed” Biden to become president “by appearances”, while the former reality show host would be the one pulling the strings. “Whatever happens in the next 4 years is, in fact, President Trumps is doing,” wrote a 4chan user.
“It’s a hot mess, frankly,” said Carla Hill, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League Extremism Center, about the various reactions from QAnon believers. “Frustration started to seep. There is some embarrassment, some anger … A series of [new] conspiracies are turning out of it and they are arguing with each other. ”
The apparent ease with which some QAnon believers were able to adjust the theory to suit new events underscores how slippery the conspiracy theory can be. But the proliferation of new theories and beliefs can also lead to a fragmentation of the movement – and, some experts in extremism warn, a potentially new mental health crisis.
As QAnon fans deepened their conspiracy theory, they built a comforting belief system around themselves, said Marc Ambinder, a senior researcher who studies disinformation and disinformation at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at Southern University California.
“The ‘plan’ was much more powerful in the abstract than anything you could offer in the real world to fight it,” he said.
But now, as many QAnon supporters are increasingly faced with reality, the resulting cognitive dissonance could break them, Ambinder said – with potentially devastating consequences.
“This type of event is the kind of thing that can make someone who is already incredibly anxious, in times of a horrible global pandemic, feel completely pushed to the limit,” said Ambinder, saying that he fears more violence than country testified at the US Capitol two weeks ago.
Last week, Twitter said it banned more than 70,000 accounts for promoting QAnon.
But that may not be enough. People who are involved in conspiracy theories do not hear authorized voices, Ambinder said, but voices they consider authoritarian in defending their worldview.
Even though Trump is no longer president, he and his political allies – some of whom still serve in the government – may be some of the only ones who can bring QAnon believers back to the real world, according to Ambinder.
“For the sake of hundreds of thousands of people who are still trapped in the alternative world QAnon and have no idea what to do,” said Ambinder, “it is when Republicans who cynically and deliberately spread the false ‘election has been stolen’, rumor needs to step up. ”