Opinion Apocalypse in America: The Smell of Fascism in the pro-Trump QAnon Conspiracy
"This analysis of Barr's 'memo' corroborates the theory that Barr will not stand in the way of charges of obstruction of justice against Trump, nor be inclined to soft-pedal Mueller's conclusions and recommendations."
QAnon - vengeful, sprawling, non-sequential, self-referential, uncommitted to democratic process and full of hot air - is the perfect conspiracy theory for the Trump era. And, like the president, its fans are doubling down
Alexander Reid Ross Jan 08, 2019 2:46 PM
QAnon meme showing Trump at the heart of the 'storm' against the 'Deep State cabal' that has enslaved AmericansYouTube screenshot
Standing against the "cabal" is Donald Trump, who is using the National Security Agency and the U.S. military to wage a clandestine war against the "globalists" and restore Reaganite family values to America. According to one Q video on YouTube, this campaign manifests a "covert war of biblical proportions, literally a fight for earth, of good versus evil."
[...]
Despite being a "big tent" conspiracy theory, its generation from online message boards frequented by white supremacists and misogynists continues to mobilize a large white nationalist following, making it a site for efforts to hoodwink and pull in dupes from social media into fascist sects like Christian Identity. And really, that might be the whole point in the end.
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As with most conspiracist fervors, like Pizzagate, most participants remain behaviorally innocuous despite their raging rhetoric, but some do act out their theories.
That’s what happened with Q devotee Matthew Philip Wright, who engaged in an armed standoff in June 2018 with law enforcement officers on a bridge near the Hoover Dam, demanding the release of a report the Q community believes would incriminate Hillary Clinton. He was charged with terrorism and weapons offenses, and calling out: "You said you were going to lock certain people up when you were elected. You have yet to do that."
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Anointing Trump as a messianic leader, Q creates an alternative reality wherein the "cabal" that signifies both corruption and division, is pursued to the ends of the earth by a kind of authoritarian military junta operating almost entirely behind the scenes.
It’s a form of homecoming for the U.S. far right’s longstanding celebration of the legacy of military dictatorships in Latin America, and which now backs the pro-dictatorship government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, but now that faith in military control is an aspiration for the U.S. itself. That exists in tandem with a reframing of the Trump presidency as an apocalyptic era.
That a military takeover of the U.S. is the fiction some Americans seek out, to feel safe and secure in a complicated and unsettling world, provides a glimpse into the reasons for an ongoing sacralization of Trumpism that may endure beyond his term as president – and for the serial attraction of fascism.
Alexander Reid Ross is a Lecturer in Geography at Portland State University. He is the author of Against the Fascist Creep (AK Press, 2017). Twitter: @areidross
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