Former President Donald Trump spent Tuesday morning posting inflammatory messages on social media, together with many explicitly selling the QAnon conspiracy concept.
Whereas Trump has previously promoted QAnon-inspired accounts and theories, the posts on his Fact Social account had been his most express, unobscured, QAnon-promoting and QAnon-baiting posts to this point.
In a single, he reposted the QAnon slogan — “The place We Go One We Go All.” In one other, he re-posted a 2017 message from “Q” that’s important of the intelligence group. The QAnon conspiracy theory was constructed round Q, an nameless account that posts periodically on 8kun, typically with obscure or symbolic language that’s then interpreted by followers. The account claims to doc a secret battle being waged by Trump in opposition to the Democratic Get together, which followers of the idea contend is run by satanic, child-eating cannibals who run a pedophile ring full of celebrities and political elites who’ve been covertly working america authorities for many years. Not one of the posts’ concrete predictions have come to fruition.
Customers of QAnon boards rejoiced at Trump’s obvious endorsement of the conspiracy concept and its mythology. The highest response on essentially the most visited QAnon discussion board to certainly one of Trump’s posts in regards to the conspiracy concept learn merely, “Wipe them out sir.” Others pleaded with Trump to “nuke them from orbit” and to “sir, please end them off,” referring to QAnon enemies corresponding to Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden.
Along with the QAnon-adjacent posts, Trump shared a number of conspiracy theories Tuesday on his Fact Social website and he re-posted an image of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the phrases “Your enemy is just not in Russia” written in black bars over their eyes.
The posting spree comes sooner or later after Trump posted a message that he must be reinstated as president — “Declare the rightful winner, or maintain a brand new Election, NOW!” — and as he’s come underneath elevated scrutiny from federal investigators who executed a search warrant at his Florida resort earlier this month and recovered troves of labeled paperwork.
Within the weeks since, Trump has made plenty of incendiary feedback bashing the FBI, baselessly suggesting the company planted proof and claiming the search was politically motivated.
On Tuesday, he re-posted gadgets in regards to the Jan. 6 riot being orchestrated by the FBI and antifa, and made a false claim in regards to the spouse of a person named Ray Epps, who has been accused in right-wing conspiracy theories of being a federal agent who egged on Capitol rioters. The Home committee investigating the riot has disputed these claims.
Trump additionally re-posted a message from a consumer falsely claiming to be his daughter Ivanka who was complaining about “the ineffective vaccines.” (Ivanka Trump has been a strong supporter of the Covid-19 vaccine).
Trump, for years, has done little to distance himself from QAnon and its supporters. Requested his opinion of QAnon followers in August 2020, the then-president stated, “I’ve heard these are individuals who love our nation.”
Extra not too long ago, adherents have pushed numerous conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen — a few of which had been later adopted by Trump and his legal professionals. They’ve additionally known as for a civil struggle to revive Trump to energy — though some followers imagine he’s nonetheless answerable for the nation.
The group’s followers have been linked to a number of violent incidents, together with a train hijacking, kidnappings, a police chase and a slaying.
In his remarks on the group in 2020, Trump stated he didn’t know a lot about QAnon and its followers, “apart from I perceive they like me very a lot, which I admire.”
