The QAnon Phenomenon in American and World Conspiracies

                                   Middle English Englisch, Inglis, English  

I write, I write books and articles. Some of my books were on an 'Honor list' and a few on the Florida bestseller's list. That is of course a nice side effect, but in reality that is not the reason why writers write.

Writers are observers, something stands out and that something activates a mechanism. Writers just want to be read because they have or believe they have a message. When a large crowd is interested in that message, that pleases their egos, and that is something that writers generally have in common. They like it when they can share their thoughts with others, and it flatters their egos, for every book, every article has been an intellectual puzzle before it appeared in final form.

So what did I notice without looking for it? QAnon! That meant nothing to me and it irritated me that I could not relate it to anything. What does QAnon mean and where does it come from?

'Anon is a combination of Middle English words that were spoken and written from the years 1066 to the end of the 15th century. English underwent several variations and developments after the Old English period. Scientific opinions differ, but the period during which Middle English was spoken was approximately from 1150 to 1500.

In a gray past I was a student of Historical Letters and was confronted with Old and Middle English texts, among other things. So it was a nice discovery to be able to explain Anon etymologically, and so something after 43 years still  proved to be useful.

In Middle English we know the combination of 'on' which was used as 'in' with a suffix 'an' which meant one as in the numeral one. The form Anon originated from the Middle English 'Anoon' which changed into Anon and Anan. The combination Anon therefore means 'in a moment' in the spirit of 'in one'.

Then it remains to be found out why a capital Q was been placed in front of Anon. In US government circles, the highest code for access to top secrets, has a code, the specification code is "Q". Only the president and his top people have access through that Q code to all the information they need or deem to need, from nuclear secrets to planned military actions, all of course in the interest of the state they serve.'

'There is a person or a group of people in America who are unknown, but who release messages on social media. This person or group calls itself QAnon. Mostly it are references to events that are about to happen. QAnon would have access to top 'intelligence' and cryptically ventilates that in society.

In October 2017, an anonymous user who calls himself Q posted a message on an online forum: Calm Before the Storm. The person claimed to be a senior US government employee who is bringing "the truth about a secret power struggle" to light. The conspiracy theory QAnon was born.

It's not one conspiracy theory, but an umbrella name for multiple theories about different people and events surrounding American politics, all of which would eventually be linked together.

In a nutshell, it boils down to the Democratic Party forming a deep state whose goal is to overthrow President Donald Trump. At one point Trump would step in to hold everyone involved in it accountable: the storm. '

You could assume that QAnon is a Trump supporter, but it is also possible that it is a Democrat who is deliberately releasing information to put Trump in a difficult package. So a conspiracy in a conspiracy.

People love secrets, especially when they are released cryptically and when you are convinced that it serves a higher purpose. Conspiracies and secrets or secret societies make grateful reading.

To give an example, QAnon writes 'it is going to be a hot summer', people immediately assume that QAnon is not talking about the weather or the climate in general, but about political events that are about to happen. That could be the covid-19 virus, or a military intervention in some distant country or the breaking of a trade alliance with China. Just give it any interpretation.

The QAnon followers, and there are beginning to be many hundreds of thousands in America, start their day reading QAnon messages. Many are addicted to it and, like people who see hidden messages in series of numbers (numerology), they believe that they are being informed by a high-ranking person or by a critical group of high-ranking people with information that should not be made public.

Like a bible that is multi-interpretable, you can get the message you are looking for.

"Followers are likened to cult members, as they blindly follow unverifiable theories and leaders, or dismiss facts and evidence as disinformation from an enemy." (Emily Schabes, the Pauw University)

There is a multitude of conspiracy theories such as shootings, Jewish bankers pursuing world power or the Illuminati. You can't imagine what wild theories come about, everything  from pedophile networks to atomic secrets and it all fits in QAnon.

The Washington Huffpost writes: "Pick a conspiracy theory you like - fake shootings, underground sex cellars run by the elite, unreleased justice reports that, if published, would lead to Hillary Clinton's arrest - and you'll find them on the QAnon. forums ".

Around those hundreds of thousands of QAnon addicts are again people who they influence and who eventually can all vote, that can if you have those people on your side lead to unexpected victories. If you also know how to put the gun lobby behind you and the Rednecks from Alabama and other Southern states then you are already a good step in the right direction.

Is it bad when such cult-like uncontrolled movements take shape? If it were limited to digital complaining then it would be about voting and nothing else, but if it is starting to affect American society then it is a different story. Especially when it leads to dangerous situations.

And who is to say whether the original QAnon is still QAnon or not someone else is launching fake theories and masquerading as QAnon. The followers are already there, it has become an open forum on the social media.

Dangers and incidents related to QAnon and its claims

'Q's post campaign has a history of false, unfounded, and unsubstantiated claims. Starting with the first reports incorrectly predicting Hillary Clinton's impending arrest and followed by more false allegations, such as the claim that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un is a puppet ruler installed by the CIA and that are fairly innocent claims.

Q's other allegations include the false claim made on February 16, 2018 that U.S. Representative and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had hired the Salvadoran gang MS-13 to murder DNC employee Seth Rich and an aroused suggestion of 1 March 2018. that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the granddaughter of Adolf Hitler. Such claims take on insane shapes.

Other beliefs of QAnon supporters include that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and others are plotting a coup and while at the same time being involved as members of an international child sex trafficking ring.

Another recurring theme is that certain Hollywood stars are pedophiles and that the Rothschild family is the leader of a satanic sect.

People in the QAnon community often talk about estrangement from family and friends, and they often talk about how Q torpedoed their relationships on private Facebook groups. But they think these problems are temporary and mainly the fault of others.

They often console themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of justification sometime in the near future that will prove their beliefs right. They imagine that after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn to them as leaders who understand what's going on better than the rest of the world.

An analysis of 380,000 tweets sent between the beginning of April and the end of May 2020, and another of the most popular words used by 1,000 accounts, showed that the QAnon Network "plays a key role in the generation and distribution of Trump's propaganda. .

Incident in Tucson

In May 2018, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer livestreamed a Facebook video from the site of a cement factory in Tucson, claiming, "This is a child sex trafficking camp that nobody wants to talk about, nobody wants to do anything about." The video was viewed 650,000 times in the following week. The Tucson Police Department inspected the factory without finding any evidence of criminal activity.
 

 

Not a day goes past or there is a conspiracy to be revealed or an accusation, but always cryptic in nature. If it is a political figure who plays with the masses to influence the elections with demogagy, then that works well. A political marketing team coming up with such a thing a few years before the elections is diabolic in nature but uncontrollably clever. President Trump himself does not answer questions about QAnon.

Going back to the above Middle English text, it is clear that the name QAnon was not just chosen. The one who originally, and perhaps still goes out under that name, has had knowledge of older texts. It is someone who has a classical education and is someone who knows how the access codes work in the hierarchy of state secrets. Anon to announce an upcoming event and the Q as authority to the most classified information. That person also knows that creating doubt makes people insecure about their "truths," and that person also knows that you can project that uncertainty onto a savior. To a candidate who says what you want to hear.

I don't have many doubts myself, there is nothing in this world that happens for no reason, I suspect that when the elections are over this year, QAnon will be defunct.

San Daniel 2020

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2. Simon Horobin, Introduction to Middle English, Edinburgh 2016, s. 1.1.
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4. HuffPost.
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6. "Broward SWAT sergeant has unauthorized 'QAnon' conspiracy patch at airport with VP, report says". Sun-Sentinel. November 30, 2018.
7. Moore, McKenna (August 1, 2018). "What You Need to Know About Far-Right Conspiracy QAnon". Fortune
8. Roose, Kevin (July 10, 2019). "Trump Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Right-Wing Social Media Trolls". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
9. Emery Jr., C. Eugene (November 4, 2016). "Evidence ridiculously thin for sensational claim of huge underground Clinton sex network". PolitiFact. Archived from the original on December 1, 2016. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
10. "What Are Anons? How the Term Has Gone Mainstream". The Daily Dot. September 15, 2019. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
11. "Who is behind the Qanon conspiracy? We've traced it to three people". NBC News. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
12. Hayden, Michael Edison (February 1, 2018). "How 'the Storm' Became the Biggest Fake News Story of 2018". Newsweek. ISSN 0028-9604. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
13. "QAnon is the conspiracy theory that won't die". Salon. August 18, 2019.

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