Photo: Clayton Neville/Twitter
QAnon is an evolving collection of conspiracies centering on an outlandish claim that government, media and financial elites are cannibalistic Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Many believers thinkDonald Trump(who has denied many allegations himself of sexual misconduct) secretly does battle with these forces.
“If they’re willing to show up to the ‘grassy knoll’ thinking JFK Jr. is coming back, it scares me to think of what happens when they get real power,“Holt toldTheDallas Morning News.
There are already examples of violence linked to QAnon, including at thedeadly Jan. 6 insurrectionin Washington: Members of the mob who stormed the Capitol complex had donned shirts with popular slogans from the ideology and waved flags bearing the letter Q.
In testimony before Congress this spring, the FBI director said authorities were not investigating QAnon itself, as a system of beliefs, but were monitoring how it could fuel illegal activity.
“We focus on the violence and the federal criminal activity regardless of the inspiration. We understand QAnon to be more of a reference to a complex conspiracy theory or set of complex conspiracy theories, largely promoted online, which has sort of morphed into more of a movement,” Director Christopher Wray said then.
“Like a lot of other conspiracy theories, the effects of COVID, anxiety social, social isolation, financial hardship … all exacerbate people’s vulnerability to those theories, and we are concerned about the potential that those things can lead to violence,” he said.
A federal law enforcement source recently confirmed to PEOPLE that FBI agents are focusing onColeman’s web browsing history, text and email messages, and postings on message boards and groups that discuss QAnon tenets.
Nothing so nefarious happened in Dallas on Tuesday: QAnon supporters reportedly stood in the rain as cars passed and they waited for the arrival of the younger, long-dead Kennedy.
They recited the pledge of allegiance, they chanted"Let’s Go Brandon”(a code-like reference to “F— Joe Biden”) and “Fake News” at reporters, according to journalist Steven Monacelli, whoposted his observations from the scene.
Some wore campaign-style T-shirts promoting their dream ticket: “Trump / JFK, JR 2020.”
According to QAnon conspiracies, Kennedy Jr. is not dead but rather in hiding after decades and preparing to emerge as part of a second administration for Trump.
Some even believe Kennedy is the movement’s mysterious leader Q, named for the level of security clearance the online poster purportedly has at his day job as a high-level government official. And it gets weirder: There have been supposed “sightings” of Kennedy in disguise,according to the team behind the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, which tracks the movement.
But of course the man never arrived in Dallas on Tuesday. Some of the assembled blamed the rain. Others said it would still happen but at a Rolling Stones concert in Dallas later that night.
“We’ll figure that something happened in the plan that made it not safe to do it,” one woman told theDallas Morning News. “If it doesn’t go down how I believe it will, that’s okay. We’ll figure it just wasn’t the right time.”
source: people.com
