Malankazooie, on 05 March 2021 - 12:46 AM, said:
Malankazooie, on 27 February 2021 - 08:46 PM, said:
Oh boy, here we go again. So, March 4th now I guess. Talk about moving the goal post. If it doesn't happen on that day, then when is the next window? July 4th and some fantasy about declaring independence or something?
Well, I think we are going to welcome March 5 without a repeat of complete QAnon chaos like Jan. 6 (too much security now?). But what date is next? Will this keep happening until Trump is ushered in as permanent leader?
'QAnon was born in October of 2017 with a post on the message board 4chan that predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton. The anonymous writer, known as Q, who claimed to be a government insider with top security clearance, said her arrest would spark mass riots.
"HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run. Passport approved to be flagged effective 10/30 @ 12:01am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur," Q wrote.
[...] But that original prediction never came true, and dozens more like it over the last three and a half years have also failed to materialize. And yet, since that first false message, QAnon has grown into a global conspiracy phenomenon with millions of adherents in dozens of countries across the globe. [...]
"The entire QAnon belief system is built on getting burnt," [...] "It has never been a problem for the movement, it's been a feature of the movement." [However, they did seem to lose members after Biden's inauguration. Though that could have more to do with Trump no longer being in power than in the prophecy having failed....]
As [March 4th] approached, most of the movement's major influencers decided that they wanted to avoid a repeat of January 20, when so many believers said they felt let down when Biden became president. Those influencers dismissed the March 4 prediction as something created by the "fake news" media "to make the movement look dumb."
[...]
Unlike the aftermath of the Biden inauguration, there was no anger or frustration Friday morning within QAnon channels and groups on platforms like Gab and Telegram.
Instead, followers said that they always knew that March 4 was a false prophecy, saying that "true believers" knew not to expect a Trump inauguration. They claim that the people who had predicted something would happen on March 4 hadn't done their research.
"Q never mentioned March 4 Anons are no different than me and you. Don't blame Q for what crazy ideas people come up with,"[... Last I read Q had stopped posting, which makes me wonder if they'll eventually drop the "Q" part. Pizzagate was before Q after all...]
Instead, the movement serves as a way for believers to identify as peace-loving patriots while also hoping for the execution of their enemies.
"That is all a byproduct of a broader cultural yearning in America for fascism, for hardcore order in law," [...] "For the boot of the state and the military to come down onto the neck of those that you don't like, those you blame for your material conditions."
And no matter what happens, [...] the goal will always be the same.
"Just because QAnon's wrong doesn't mean that they're suddenly not going to want to see their enemies hanged." [And tortured for eternity in hell.]
https://www.vice.com...is-ok-with-that
'The future of QAnon, explained by 8 experts
[...]
It's a religion — and religions have staying power
[...]
Research suggests that some people are unusually predisposed to accept implausible conspiratorial beliefs, and that those people may accept multiple such beliefs at once, even when the beliefs are brazenly contradictory. In any case, the glaring failure of a prophecy is almost never enough to make the prophecy go away.
[...]
Many observers of the movement have compared QAnon's failings — the myriad predictions that did not come to pass, including the very predictions of ultimate Trumpian victory that served as the foundation of the conspiracy theory — to the 1844 "Great Disappointment."
[...] the world did not end on October 22, 1844. [Or any of the new dates proposed afterwards.] But neither, surprisingly, did the Millerites. Instead, they broke into factions — the most famous of which, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, came to believe that October 22 did not mark the second coming but rather an event that took place in heaven.
Failed predictions will not doom QAnon, as it did not doom the Millerites, because QAnon could perhaps be best understood as a religious movement of sorts that places faith above accuracy, and believes in, above everything else, a final judgment for sinners where, to loosely quote Philippians 2:10-11, every knee shall bend and every tongue shall confess. It's just that to QAnon, "sinners" are "all Democrats, and most celebrities" and the tongues of all would be confessing that Donald Trump has defeated ultimate evil.
[...] QAnon movement doesn't behave merely like a pro-Trump conspiracy theory but instead like a baby religion, born on the social web and spread by Q's acolytes to extremists who feel the movement's anti-establishment message in their bones.
[...] Within the QAnon movement exists a well-practiced ecosystem that reflexively shifted the goalposts to keep followers engaged. Some claimed that their predictions had come true despite appearing not to, and others pushed the deadline for their prediction back a handful of weeks.
[...]
QAnon followers have been mostly purged from mainstream social media platforms following the January 6 insurrection. While this has hurt their proselytization and propaganda efforts, it has also enhanced their self-image as persecuted renegades.
A minority of less tech-savvy or less committed QAnon followers have given up on the movement, but the true believers are doubling down on alternate platforms such as Gab or Telegram. They continue to "trust the plan" and will likely do so for the rest of their lives. They're now committed to the cause because of the community, the sense of mission, and the time and sacrifice they have already invested.
[...]
The point of QAnon is not just that Hillary Clinton is already in prison at Guantanamo Bay or that Nancy Pelosi eats children. The point of QAnon is that there will be a point of reckoning in which evil will be punished and good will be rewarded. QAnon offers purpose, direction, mooring in a world that seems threatening, and offers insider knowledge of a "Plan," one that remains clear no matter what actually takes place in real life. Donald Trump will somehow be president again, or already is president, forever and always, amen. [...]
QAnon believers are a captive audience, and a vulnerable one.
[...] it's safe to assume that bad actors (including those openly encouraging acts of violence) will continue to take advantage of the faith QAnon believers have and are clinging to.
I wish I could say that we will see the movement's members begin to realize they are being toyed with, but I think that's unlikely on a widespread scale anytime soon. As the major social media platforms crack down on QAnon content, violent extremists are actively working to radicalize QAnon believers for their own purposes.
[...]
Just as elements of ancient anti-Semitic doomsaying belief systems were recycled into Pizzagate and eventually into QAnon, the QAnon narrative is already evolving and adapting to the current moment.
The Q worldview isn't just highly tolerant of contradictions; it's reality-proof. Which is another way of saying QAnon is not going anywhere. It will morph, and may even eventually go by a different name, but for as long as the major political fault lines in this nation are drawn between elites and populists, QAnon — or whatever it warps into — will be with us.
[...] Some QAnon followers may be recruited by or blend with more militant extremist movements. We can already see this in how they borrowed arguments from the sovereign citizen movement in order to absurdly claim that Trump's true inauguration date will be March 4. Some extremism researchers have also observed neo-Nazis organizing social media "raids" that are part of an effort to recruit disaffected QAnon followers.
[...] In its current form, QAnon exists as a decentralized catchall for conspiracy theories alleging nefarious actions are being conducted in the upper echelons of world power. Even if Q posts and Trump gradually take a backseat role in the movement, many of the tagalong theories — on topics including 5G, vaccines, and alternative medicine — will produce significant risks to the public.
[...] I think that QAnon, as it was originally constituted, may be almost over. Without Trump in office or on Twitter, and with no new posts from Q in months, the community is basically running on fumes. It's always conceivable that Q could come back, or that some new development could jolt believers back to their keyboards. But I don't think random tweets from Lin Wood and the MyPillow guy are going to be enough to keep them hopeful and engaged. They're pretty dispirited.
But even if QAnon dies, I fully expect that many of its core beliefs will get watered down a bit, stripped of the Q-related language, and dissolved into Republican Party orthodoxy. [...] I wouldn't be shocked if that cohort pushed the entire Republican Party in a more conspiracy-minded, reality-denying direction. By 2024, Marjorie Taylor Greene may look like a moderate.
'
https://www.vox.com/...piracy-theories
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 March 2021 - 05:32 PM
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