QAnon and Its Precursors

Jesse Walker talks conspiracies on the War College podcast.

AT&T

The War College podcast interviewed me last week about QAnon, the rather elaborate conspiracy theory in which Donald Trump and Robert Mueller are secretly working together to target a vast network of deep-state pedophiles. (There's more to the story than that—much, much more—but that's the gist of it.) We talked about similar conspiracy yarns of the past, the possibility that this one started as a prank, and the question of how many QAnon speculators actually believe what they're saying and how many are just playing a sort of spontaneous Alternate Reality Game, among other angles on the subject. Even Pappy O'Daniel has a cameo.

Listen here:

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Comments

[loveconstitution1789]

No thanks.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

conspiracy theory in which Donald Trump and Robert Mueller are secretly working together to target a vast network of deep-state pedophiles. ?!!

So what now? Ok, gonna have to listen to this one.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Even Pappy O’Daniel has a cameo.

Definitely tuning in.

[John]

So Jessee, assuming Qanon is not real, then who is it? Is it a group of people and kind of a franchise conspiracy theory that anyone can add to by claiming they are Q? Is it one person with an incredibly active imagination? Where is this coming from and why is the person or people responsible for it doing it?

That is the part of it that I can’t figure out. Yeah, it is not true. But if it isn’t, then what is the explanation for it? It is a very strange phenomenon.

[Fancylad]

I’ve seen a lot of articles railing against Qanon lately. Even the locked Wikipedia page reads like a Two Minutes Hate.
I thought it was just more 4chan /pol/ nonsense, but the sheer volume and intensity of the articles against it make me wonder if golly, maybe there’s something to it.