A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 3 , 2020
was asked to “send a direct mes-
sage” to the “group of very, very
smart activists here,” keen to be
Trump’s “soldiers on the ground.”
She encouraged them to sign up
for a campaign training event and
to “talk to their local GOP party,
their state party, come online and
ask us.”
Neither Perrine nor her hosts
mentioned QAnon directly dur-
ing the interview, but their dis-
cussion was studded with refer-
ences to the conspiracy theory,
including mention of the “insur-
gency from within” and remarks
about Michael Flynn, Trump’s
first national security adviser,
who is central to the QAnon
worldview. Emails and a call to
Perrine went unanswered, as did
an email to the show.
Flynn, who pleaded guilty to
lying to the FBI about his commu-
nications with a Russian diplo-
mat in late 2016, recently record-
ed a video of himself repeating an
oath originating on 8kun, a mes-
sage board where Q, who claims
high-level security clearance,
posts esoteric references and
half-baked ideas that followers
call “bread crumbs.”
“Where we go one, we go all,”
intoned Flynn, his right hand
raised, at the end of the oath,
which otherwise follows a generic
script administered to new mem-
bers of Congress. Flynn did not
respond to a text message seeking
comment. His attorney, Sidney
Powell, another luminary for
QAnon conspiracy theorists who
has also appeared on Patriots’
Soapbox, also did not respond to a
request for comment. The pro-
gram’s other guests have included
Chanel Rion, chief White House
correspondent for One America
News, who said the conspiracy
theory’s central figure is “anony-
mous for a reason, for a very good
reason, and I think that people
need to respect that.” Rion did not
respond to a request for com-
ment.
Praise for the anonymous fig-
ure, whose posts have been linked
to multiple violent episodes, has
also flowed on Fox News. During
a conversation this month with
Eric Trump, one of the channel’s
hosts, Jesse Watters, credited Q
with having “uncovered a lot of
great stuff,” saying later in a state-
ment he does not “support or
believe in” the conspiracy theory.
In a pitch to potential guests,
shared with The Washington Post
by someone who received it, Fox
characterized the segment this
way: “Inside Twitter ’s crackdown
on QAnon — How the social me-
dia giant is engaging in election
interference and shutting down
free speech.” A Fox spokesperson
declined to comment beyond
Watters’ statement.
The congressional candidates
who put stock in the theory say its
proximity to Trump makes it ap-
pealing. Flynn’s apparent en-
dorsement — his move to swear
his allegiance to QAnon — was
decisive for some who had once
only flirted with the theory. The-
resa Raborn, a Republican House
candidate in Illinois, said she had
been on the fence, unable to “de-
finitively debunk or definitively
confirm.”
“But when General Flynn post-
ed that video, he’s a highly re-
spected general and has been for
decades, and he is very close to
President Trump,” she said. “So I
don’t think he would do that for a
conspiracy theory, o r at least logi-
cally that’s where I’m at. I don’t
know if he has information about
whether it’s a c onspiracy theory
or whether it’s real, but it seemed
to give a lot of validity to people
who support me who also happen
to follow Q.”
Raborn, who ran unopposed in
her March primary and so will
appear on the ballot in November,
faces near-certain defeat in the
heavily Democratic district in the
suburbs of Chicago.
Flynn’s role is just as important
to the supporter interviewed by
McEnany in February. He de-
scribed himself as “one of the
digital soldiers General Flynn
talk s about.”
“That’s why I don’t sleep,” he
told the soon-to-be White House
press secretary. “That’s why all I
do is share information.”
[email protected]mies. “These people are not only
sick but evil too!” one combatant
in the Q “army” on Facebook
wrote in March, referring to the
Democratic mayor of Minneapo-
lis, whom Trump has attacked as a
“very weak radical left mayor.”
Individuals who had posted in
support of QAnon or otherwise
expressed their devotion to it,
according to police, have been
arrested in at least 10 incidents,
including two murders, a kidnap-
ping, vandalism of a church and a
heavily armed standoff near the
Hoover Dam.
Twitter recently took action
against the conspiracy theory, in-
cluding by eliminating more than
7,000 accounts. Facebook is also
weighing new action, a spokes-
person confirmed, speaking on
the condition of anonymity to
discuss ongoing deliberations.
The largest Facebook groups
devoted to the theory boast hun-
dreds of thousands of members,
but the size of its following is
difficult to measure, experts say.
Only about a quarter of American
adults say they have heard of
QAnon, according to polling by
the Pew Research Center.
Americans may be oblivious to
QAnon but still shaped by its
doctrine, Zuckerman said, argu-
ing, “It’s actually more dangerous
if people don’t know what Q is but
hold these beliefs.” Because of the
overlap between QAnon commu-
nities and far-right circles, he
said, aspects of the conspiracy
theory are filtering up to conser-
vative websites, as well as to the
pro-Trump One America News
and Fox News.
The coronavirus pandemic, by
bringing into sharp focus anti-sci-
entific beliefs among a broad seg-
ment of the president’s support-
ers, offers a preview of the clash-
ing worldviews that QAnon could
portend, Zuckerman added. The
November election, if Trump
were to refuse to accept the legiti-
macy of the results because of
widespread mail-in voting, would
represent the clash’s climax, test-
ing the “parallel universe that he
and some of his supporters live
in,” he said.
Such an outcome would mark
the culmination of Trump’s “use
of conspiracy theories for the past
five years,” said Joseph Uscinski, a
political scientist at the Universi-
ty of Miami and co-author of
“American Conspiracy Theories.”
Q Anon, however, is a new fron-
tier for Republicans, and for the
party’s most prominent purveyor
of conspiracy theories.
Recent ads from Trump’s re-
election campaign have included
shots of supporters with QAnon
paraphernalia, including a spot
in Nevada that briefly showed a
woman in a crowd with a “Q”
shirt. A spot in Arizona showed a
still of a man in a similar shirt
carrying a World War II veteran
into an arena. The man posed for
a photo with Donald Trump Jr. at
a recent event, according to mate-
rial later uploaded to Facebook. A
spokesperson for Trump Jr. did
not respond to a request for com-
ment.
The inclusion of QAnon sym-
bols in official campaign media,
previously unreported, sent
shock waves through the QAnon
community, whose primary aim
is to be noticed by Trump. The ads
racked up thousands of com-
me nts on YouTube, where users
with QAnon references in their
accounts seized on the fleeting
visuals to declare victory. “Well
done,” one wrote.
Sometimes, the signaling from
the campaign is less subtle. Last
fall, Erin Perrine, director of press
communications for Trump’s re-
election campaign, went on Patri-
ots’ Soapbox, a show on YouTube
and other platforms devoted to
QAnon coverage. Before she
called in, one of the hosts —
whose Twitter account features
QAnon references and a photo
with Brad Parscale, Trump’s re-
cently deposed campaign manag-
er — gushed about speaking to
her for an hour before a recent
Trump rally. He said the segment
with Perrine, which was un-
earthed by Media Matters, could
be the “tip of the iceberg” for
connections with the Trump cam-
paign.
During the interview, Perrineelection 2020
McEnany smiled and said, “Okay,
well, I will pass all of this along.”
The little-noticed exchange —
captured in a video posted to
YouTube — illustrates how Trump
and his campaign have courted
and legitimized QAnon adher-
ents.
T he viral online movement,
which took root on Internet mes-
sage boards in the fall of 2017 with
posts from a self-proclaimed gov-
ernment insider identified as “Q,”
has triggered violent acts and
occasional criminal cases. Its ef-
fects were catalogued last year in
an FBI intelligence bulletin list-
ing QAnon among the “anti-gov-
ernment, identity-based, and
fringe political conspiracy theo-
ries” that “very likely motivate
some domestic extremists to com-
mit criminal, sometimes violent
activity.”
As the worldview took shape
online, its followers flocked to
Trump rallies with QAnon appar-
el and placards. Recently, as the
election has drawn closer, actions
by the president and his associ-
ates have brought them more
directly into the fold.
The Trump campaign’s direc-
tor of press communications, for
example, went on a QAnon pro-
gram and urged listeners to “sign
up and attend a Trump Victory
Leadership Initiative training.”
QAnon iconography has ap-
peared in official campaign ad-
vertisements targeting battle-
ground states. And the White
House’s director of social media
and deputy chief of staff for com-
munications, Dan Scavino, has
gone from endorsing praise from
QAnon accounts to posting their
memes himself.
The president has repeatedly
elevated its digital foot soldiers,
sharing their tweets more than a
dozen times on the Fourth of July
alone. His middle son, Eric, who
is 36 and a campaign surrogate,
recently posted, and then deleted,
an image drumming up support
for his father’s Tulsa rally that
included a giant “Q” and the text,
“Where we go one, we go all.”
The apparent convergence of
Trump’s inner circle with an ever-
widening cohort of QAnon believ-
ers is alarming to scholars of
extremism and digital communi-
cations, some of whom character-
ize the theory’s adherents as a
cult. What most troubles analysts,
however, is not that McEnany and
others responsible for carrying
out Trump’s agenda are amplify-
ing QAnon, which has permeated
right-wing politics and inspired a
cadre of congressional candi-
date s who could soon bring the
philosophy to Capitol Hill. Even
more worrisome, these observers
say, is that the president’s messag-
ing is increasingly indistinguish-
able from some key elements of
the conspiracy theory.
The erroneous ideas defining
QAnon — that Trump is a messi-
anic figure fighting the so-called
deep state, that he alone can be
trusted, that his opponents in-
clude both Democrats and Re-
publicans complicit in years of
wrongdoing and that his rivals
are not just misguided but crimi-
nal and illegitimate — represent
core tenets of the president’s re-
election campaign, especially as
his poll numbers slump.
Meanwhile, the salvation envi-
sioned by QAnon believers, in-
cluding a military takeover and
mass arrests of Democrats,
rhymes with the president’s vow
to use the armed forces to “domi-
nate.” They back his endorsement
of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-
malarial drug that has not been
proved to prevent coronavirus
infection, and cast skeptics, in-
TRUMP FROM A
Trump
campaign
courts
QAnon
BY FELICIA SONMEZThe Republican National Com-
mittee said no final decision has
been made about whether Presi-
dent Trump’s renomination will
be held in private at the GOP
convention in Charlotte, contra-
dicting previous reports that re-
strictions on crowd size during
the novel coronavirus pandemic
would prevent the news media
from attending.
Two RNC officials insisted Sun-
day that they are still looking at
logistics and options, a break with
a statement reportedly made by a
GOP convention spokesperson
the previous day.
“We are still working through
logistics and press coverage op-
tions,” one of the officials said in a
statement Sunday. Neither of the
officials was authorized to speakpublicly on the matter.
On Saturday, the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette reported that,
according to a convention spokes-
person, all activities related to the
quadrennial event — including
Trump’s Aug. 24 renomination —
would be closed to reporters “giv-
en the health restrictions and lim-
itations in place” in North Caroli-
na.
Other news outlets, including
the Associated Press and CNN,
followed up with similar reports.
If journalists are not allowed to
cover the event in person, it willbe the first time in modern history
that such a restriction is in place
at a n ational party convention.
This is the latest turn in a
Republican National Convention
planning process marked by tu-
mult and uncertainty.
The convention originally had
been scheduled to take place in
Charlotte. But state of ficials said
they could not guarantee a large-
scale event in the city amid the
pandemic, which has claimed the
lives of more than 150,000 Ameri-
cans. Advisers searched for an
alternative venue, settling onJacksonville, Fla., where the may-
or and the governor are allies of
the president.
Then, amid a surge in coronavi-
rus cases in Florida, Trump late
last month abruptly announced
that he was canceling the celebra-
tions scheduled to take place in
Jacksonville.
At the time, Trump told report-
ers that he would still give an
acceptance speech in some form
but that it would not be before a
crowd of thousands.
The formal nominating pro-
cess, set to take place in Charlottewith about 300 Republican offi-
cials, is scheduled to proceed as
planned.
Democrats are planning a four-
day convention that will be an-
chored in Milwaukee, with simul-
casts from satellite locations
across the country and prerecord-
ed video. Delegates and party offi-
cials have been told to stay home,
and the in-person crowd for ma-
jor speeches, including former
vice president Joe Biden’s accep-
tance of the nomination, is ex-
pected to be small.
[email protected]No definite call has been made on media access to renomination, RNC says
Prior reports said crowd
limits would prevent
journalists’ attendancedent, “This would explain why
they tried so hard to make us hate
him.” She has since posted repeat-
edly about the scourge of pedo-
philia, a fixation of the QAnon
movement.
In an interview, she said, “Peo-
ple have a right to look into
information and do their own
research.” Her research has led
her to misguided beliefs about the
coronavirus, including that the
pandemic represents a “political
game, to make it seem like the
economy has crashed.”
Similar language is employed
by QAnon believers, who scrawl
their accusations across social
media. They rally around the
hashtag #WWG1WGA — short-
hand for “Where we go one, we go
all” — and swarm perceived ene-the Washington Post peddles in
conspiracy theories.”
The Trump campaign also did
not respond to emailed questions.
The oft-mutating QAnon phi-
losophy has captured the imagi-
nation of a new corps of pro-
Trump congressional candidates,
about a dozen of whom have
already secured spots on the bal-
lot in November, according to a
tally by Media Matters for Ameri-
ca, a liberal research organiza-
tion. Among them is Angela Stan-
ton-King, a Republican House
candidate in Georgia who served
two years in prison for her role in
a car-theft ring but whose sen-
tence was commuted by Trump in
February. A m onth later, she post-
ed a popular QAnon video on
Instagram, writing of the presi-cluding Anthony S. Fauci, the
nation’s leading expert on infec-
tious diseases, as a deep-state
plant.
“We’re seeing the Trump cam-
paign tack closely to an almost
explicitly QAnon narrative,” said
Ethan Zuckerman, director of the
Center for Civic Media at the
Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology. “I don’t expect to hear the
president talking about pedophil-
ia or Satanism, but I expect to
hear almost everything else.”
McEnany did not respond to a
request for comment, but White
House spokeswoman Sarah Mat-
thews sent a written statement
saying: “The premise of your arti-
cle is ridiculous. While the Trump
administration is working tire-
lessly for the American people,JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
A supporter with a QAnon hat listens as President Trump speaks at a rally in Cincinnati in 2 019. The
movement took root online with posts from a self-proclaimed government insider known as “Q.”EVELYN HOCKSTEIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
QAnon followers wait for a military flyover at the World War II Memorial during Fourth of July
celebrations in D.C. The erroneous ideas defining QAnon represent core tenets of Trump’s campaign.