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QANON AND ANTIFA
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- The QAnon story: It is the umbrella term for a set of internet conspiracy theories that allege (without proof) that the world is run by a gang of Satan-worshiping paedophiles who were plotting against ex-President Donald Trump. A global child sex-trafficking ring is being operated in parallel.
- Who they claim is part of it: QAnon followers believe it includes top politicians of USA like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and investor George Soros, and some entertainers and Hollywood celebrities (like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks) and even some religious figures (like Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama)!
- Cannibals: The lunatics of QAnon also say that, in addition to molesting children, members of this group kill and eat their victims in order to extract a life-extending chemical from their blood. So Trump was recruited by top military generals to run for president in 2016 in order to break up this criminal gang, and bring it to justice.
- Final climax: QAnon speculates that this fight will lead to a day of reckoning where prominent people such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed. That's the basic story, but there are many offshoots that are often contradictory.
- The start of QAnon: In October 2017, a post appeared on 4chan, a toxic message board, from an anonymous account calling itself “Q Clearance Patriot.” This poster became known simply as “Q,” said he was a high-ranking intelligence officer with access to classified information about Trump’s war against the global cabal. He predicted that this war would soon end in “The Storm”, when Trump will finally unmask the cabal, punish its members for their crimes and restore America to greatness!
- Q drops: These messages were called "Q drops" or "breadcrumbs", often written in cryptic language peppered with slogans, pledges and pro-Trump themes.
- Who believes this flight of fancy: Thousands do. The amount of traffic to mainstream social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube has exploded since 2017, and numbers may have gone up further during the coronavirus pandemic. So, the big social media companies subsequently tightened their rules about QAnon content and took down hundreds of Q-supporting accounts and videos.
- Inquiry: QAnon supporters claimed Mr Mueller's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 US election was really an elaborate cover story for an investigation into paedophiles. When it concluded with no such bombshell revelation, the attention of the conspiracy theorists drifted elsewhere.
- Arrests: Several QAnon believers have been arrested after making threats or taking offline action. In one case in 2018, a heavily armed man blocked a bridge over the Hoover Dam. Matthew Wright later pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge.
- Right from the top: For many believers, QAnon forms the foundation of their support for President Trump. Mr Trump has retweeted QAnon supporters, and prior to the election his son Eric Trump posted a QAnon meme on Instagram.
- How influential: One outspoken QAnon supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, was elected to the US Congress in November, 2020!
- Why attracted to QAnon: A common misconception is that QAnon is purely a political movement. But it functions as both a social community and a source of entertainment. It is like a massive multiplayer online game, because of the way it invites participants to cocreate a kind of shared reality filled with recurring characters, shifting story lines and intricate puzzle-solving quests.
- Ex-President Trump in all this: Mr. Trump is (was) the central and heroic figure in QAnon’s core narrative — the brave patriot who was chosen to save America from the global cabal. As a result, QAnon believers parse Mr. Trump’s words and actions closely, looking for hidden meanings. When Mr. Trump says the number 17, they take it as a sign that he is sending secret messages to them. (Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet.)
- Antifa: It is short for “anti-fascist”. It is the name for loosely affiliated, left-leaning anti-racist groups that monitor and track the activities of local neo-Nazis.
- Structure: The movement has no unified structure or national leadership but has emerged in the form of local bodies nationwide, particularly on the West Coast.
- Trump hated them: Ex-President Trump had singled out Antifa as part of the alt-left in his initial claim that “many sides” were to blame for a violent incident in Charlottesville, not just the neo-Nazis, KKK and white nationalists.
- The start: Anti-fascist groups, particularly in Europe, have been around for many decades, notably in Italy, against Mussolini, and in Germany, against Hitler. In the postwar period, Antifa groups resurged to fight neo-Nazi groups, particularly in Germany. In the U.S., the anti-fascist movements grew out of leftist politics of the late ’80s, primarily under the umbrella of Anti-Racist Action.
- What do they want: The goal is to stop neo-Nazis and white supremacists from gaining a platform rather than to promote a specific antifa agenda. The antifa groups are decidedly anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobia, but also by and large socially leftist and anti-capitalist.
- How do the groups operate: They “organize educational campaigns, build community coalitions, monitor fascists, pressure venues to cancel their events, organize self-defense trainings and physically confront the far right when necessary.” A goal is to try to deny fascists a public forum, which is why they turn out in numbers to physically confront neo-Nazis, the KKK and white supremacists at public demonstrations. They also step in to protect counter-protesters at such events.
- Doxxing: Antifa is particularly active in “doxxing,” or identifying neo-Nazis and like-minded individuals and disseminating that private information to the public and employers to discourage people from joining their ranks.
- Is Antifa violent: Members pointedly do not eschew violence but rather see themselves as engaging in “self-defense,” protecting other protesters and primarily confronting neo-Nazis and white supremacists to deny them a platform.
- Historical example: Activists say the rise of fascism in the 1930s demonstrates that it was a mistake to allow such groups to air their views in hopes that public opinion would blunt their growth. “We should be wary of those who are more distressed about alleged violations of the speech of fascists than the actual violence they perpetrate.”
- Who are the members: It is impossible to know how many people are members. Its followers acknowledge that the movement is secretive, has no official leaders and is organised into autonomous local cells. It is also only one in a constellation of activist movements that have come together in the past few years to oppose the Far Right.
- They oppose what: Antifa members campaign against actions they view as authoritarian, homophobic, racist or xenophobic.
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