As Donald Trump heads toward a November rematch election against President Joe Biden, his online posts are reinvigorating a key element of his support from years past: the conspiracy theory known as QAnon.
While QAnon largely faded from the spotlight after Trump left office, he has newly amplified the ideas on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Since the site launched two years ago, Trump has reposted or promoted QAnon-affiliated accounts more than 800 times, ensuring their messages will be widely seen, according to a new study from liberal watchdog group Media Matters shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
Experts say the support amounts to a tacit endorsement of a dangerous movement that has been linked to criminal acts ranging from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to isolated cases of violence and even murder.
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment about QAnon. While he was president, Trump spoke favorably of the movement and today he encourages QAnon chants and plays a song associated with QAnon at rallies.
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“I think it’s almost to be expected that – especially with the polling being close – that the Trump campaign is going to be back to its old tricks of trying to … cater to some of the conservative movement’s fringes,” said Jared Holt, senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
But amplifying QAnon is dangerous, Holt said, especially at a moment when the nation is already so polarized. “It’s playing with fire,” he said.
QAnon began as a set of anonymous posts on fringe online message boards. A user or users, identifying themselves as a mysterious whistleblower called Q, claimed to work inside the Trump administration.
The posts alleged world affairs were controlled by a vast conspiracy of Democrats – who also worshiped Satan and abused children – and that Trump was part of a secret plan to vanquish them. Mass arrests, known by followers as “The Storm,” were coming at any moment.
No evidence ever emerged to support any of these beliefs. But the idea of Q, and key catchphrases from Q’s posts, became elements of popular culture in a world captivated by the daily dramas of the Trump campaign and administration.
QAnon banners and T-shirts made frequent appearances at Trump’s rallies. And after the country voted Trump out of office, rioters carried QAnon banners into the Capitol as they tried to prevent the certification of the election.
Mainstream audiences heard less about Q after Trump left the White House and was banned from the platform then known as Twitter. QAnon-affiliated accounts were also banned wholesale from several major social media platforms. But the beliefs, which had always been so sprawling they could fold in nearly any conspiracy theory, never went away.
Now Trump's string of reposts may be driving renewed interest as an election that could put him back into the White House moves closer, experts told USA TODAY.
One key QAnon slogan has been “Where we go one, we go all” (or “WWG1WGA” for short). Another is “Nothing can stop what is coming” (or “NCSWIC” for short), referring to the idea that Trump will eventually expose the conspirators. Media Matters found Trump’s more recent posts shared both of these phrases with his 7 million followers on Truth.
The recent barrage of posts should be alarming to everyone, said Logan Strain, who started tracking QAnon as an amateur online researcher in 2018, and has become a widely quoted writer and expert on the subject. Under the pseudonym Travis View, he co-hosts the podcast “QAnon Anonymous,” which has spent years examining the long-term effects of the conspiracy theory and interviewing people who study it.
“We should find it outrageous that there is a presidential candidate, who is leading the polls, who is actively, consciously encouraging an extremist movement that is responsible for real-world violence and the destruction of the personal lives of the people who believe in it,” Strain said.
QAnon beliefs have torn families apart
AJ Rose, 44, knows firsthand just how powerful and pervasive the QAnon conspiracy theory still is in communities across the country.
In East Tennessee, she says she’s surrounded by QAnon followers who are deeply distrustful of the government and blindly put their faith in the former president. QAnon duped two of her family members.
“A lot of people trust Trump based on the fact that he was the president at one time, so his words carry a lot of weight and, unfortunately, those are some pretty dangerous words,” Rose said. “The government has turned its back on people who are impoverished, people who have health problems, people who have mental health problems, physical problems. So if you hear somebody say, ‘I hate the government, too. Look at what it’s doing to me. It’s coming after me. But I’m going to fix it.’ That QAnon magnet is very strong.”
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So strong, in fact, that it ensnared her 67-year-old mother, Anita Rose, a widow, Republican and retired journalist. After a sudden death in the family made her emotionally vulnerable, Rose became a follower of Trump, then QAnon.
Anita Rose was grieving and looking for answers, her daughter says. She thought Trump was the nation’s salvation. It didn’t help that Trump and QAnon had already gained a forceful grip over Anita Rose’s elderly father, a military veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
Anita Rose says she became convinced that Trump was defending the country against a ring of pedophiles. Her daughter helped her see the truth. “I don’t believe he is doing that anymore,” she said.
AJ Rose knew she got through to her mom when the picture of Trump praying in front of the American flag disappeared from the refrigerator.
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