QAnon are devastated

Right? Left? Centre?
Political news and debate.
Put your views and articles up for debate and destruction!
Post Reply
ex-khobar Andy
Posts: 5418
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:16 am
Location: Louisville KY as of July 2018

QAnon are devastated

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

From HuffPost. A longish read but worth it.
‘It’s Over’: Devastated QAnon Believers Grapple With President Joe Biden’s Inauguration
A look inside QAnon’s virtual inauguration watch party, which went horribly wrong.

Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday marks not only the historic beginning of a new presidency, but also, for countless Americans, the devastating end of a yearslong grift.

For believers of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that holds Donald Trump as a deity-like figure secretly battling a “deep state” cabal of pedophiles who control the government, things weren’t supposed to go down this way. Month after month, year after year, they had been told by “Q,” the group’s shadowy online leader, and Q’s army of social media influencers, that a symbolic “storm” was coming. The mythology held that on Wednesday, at long last, the Bidens, Obamas and Clintons would be rounded up and executed for child sex trafficking, treason and other crimes. Trump, having finally conquered evil, would remain in power.

This was the moment they had desperately been waiting for.

Inside digital safe havens for far-right extremists, such as Gab and Telegram, massive QAnon groups turned into virtual watch parties reacting to Wednesday’s ceremony in real time. As the event began, members could hardly contain their joy — or their desire for bloodshed.

“WELCOME TO THE GRAND FINALE!!!” someone cheered in a 185,000-member Gab group. “Anyone else wanna puke with excitement?!?!?!” another person asked amid a rapid stream of messages coursing through a 34,000-member Telegram channel. Others salivated over the idea of decapitations and sexual violence against prominent Democrats. Several messages were too grotesque to publish.

By 11:45 a.m., though, as Kamala Harris took her vice presidential oath of office, the crowds grew anxious.

“Well this popcorn just got cold,” one QAnon supporter wrote. “When do the arrests start??” another questioned. Still, they continued clinging to hope while counting down the minutes until their long-awaited “great awakening.”

But as noon arrived, and a grinning Biden placed his hand on a Bible to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, reality came crashing down.

“I can’t stop crying. Fuck. Why?” one person pleaded. “It’s over,” another conceded. Some wondered how they could possibly mend their broken relationships with the loved ones they’d pushed away over their obsessions with Q.

Like a flipped switch, the attitude inside online QAnon communities shifted from glee to shock and misery: “NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED!!!”; “So now we have proof Q was total bullshit”; “I feel sick, disgusted and disappointed”; “Have we been duped???”; “You played us all”; “HOW COULD WE BELIEVE THIS FOR SO LONG? ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?”

Meanwhile, several QAnon loyalists performed medal-worthy mental gymnastics to keep their delusion alive. A few suggested that the video of Biden becoming president was a deepfake and that he was actually locked away behind bars as it played across the nation. Others posited that Biden himself had in fact been working with Trump to dismantle the deep state all along, and would be the one to sic the military on the supposed traitors. Many simply pleaded with each other to stay patient: “Q wouldn’t do this to us. He wouldn’t let us down. Don’t lose hope.”

But even some of QAnon’s most prominent influencers reluctantly acknowledged that it was time to move on. MelQ, a major QAnon leader, turned off commenting in her Telegram channel as Biden’s swearing-in drew nearer and members appeared to lose faith, in order to “have everyone take a breather.” But once the ceremony was complete, she changed her tune: “Ok let it all out,” she wrote, later adding, “We’ll get through anything together.”

Ron Watkins, the former administrator of 8kun — a platform that has long been vital to Q’s communication with believers — also pulled the plug: “We gave it our all,” he told his nearly 120,000 Telegram subscribers. “Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.”

Even Joe M, one of the earliest and most widely known Q backers, had hinted days ago that QAnon could be a ruse: “Next week, either Q turns out to be an elaborate well-intentioned hoax … or we are all about to watch the Red Sea part and the unfolding of a new biblical-level chapter in human civilization,” he wrote on Jan. 16. But on Wednesday afternoon, he wasn’t ready to accept defeat: “My faith is not in Q, or ‘The Plan’. My faith is in red-blooded, proud and tenacious Americans and everything they have always stood for,” he assured the tens of thousands of users in his Telegram channel. “No matter how dark today may feel, that faith is unbreakable.”

To be sure, this isn’t the end of QAnon or the immense damage it has inflicted on this country. The movement, which the FBI considers to be a domestic terrorist threat, has already evolved and regrouped to string its members along time and time again, and it has planted deep roots in an array of other communities: yoga lovers, church groups, school classrooms, anti-vax networks — the list goes on.

QAnon’s mass radicalization of Americans is part of Trump’s legacy. Addressing it will likely be one of the Biden administration’s greatest challenges.

It’s unclear where the conspiracy theory goes from here; many ardent supporters are vowing to keep marching forward, undeterred. For today, though, the group is at a loss.

“WE’VE BEEN SCAMMED INTO BELIEVING Q!!!” a Telegram user declared.

“WHAT NOW?!?!?!”

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

How do you deprogram a cult of tens of millions?
Sep 2, 2020,
06:03pm EDT
|
137,289 views
Majority Of Republicans Believe The QAnon Conspiracy Theory Is Partly Or Mostly True, Survey Finds
Tommy BeerForbes Staff
Business
Updated Sep 2, 2020, 09:33pm EDT

TOPLINE Some 56% of Republicans believe that QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, is mostly or partly true, according to a new Daily Kos/Civiqs poll released Wednesday, a remarkably high number considering many of the outlandish assertions espoused by QAnon supporters.
more scary stats here
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
Joe Guy
Posts: 13923
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 2:40 pm
Location: Redweird City, California

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by Joe Guy »

I have Hannity on TV right now and he's having a melt down. He just said, "I don't know if you feel like me but I wanna puke!" He's talking about how the democrats have lied and divided the country during Trump's presidency and he's promising to "continue to vet" Biden for the next 4 years.

Poor guy. His lying sack of shit hero is gone.

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

What the 2020 electorate looks like by party, race and ethnicity, age, education and religion

Here, by the way, is a summary of who the American voters are who are shaping our collective future. A good page to bookmark if you like to follow such stuff.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by Scooter »

Jim Wright
Guess the Q militia wasn't quite as ready to water the tree of liberty with their own blood when they were facing *actual* soldiers instead of cops who held the doors open for them

Funny, that

Probably helps that the president wasn't Tweeting insurrection instructions too...
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

Joe Guy wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:19 am
I have Hannity on TV right now and he's having a melt down. He just said, "I don't know if you feel like me but I wanna puke!" He's talking about how the democrats have lied and divided the country during Trump's presidency and he's promising to "continue to vet" Biden for the next 4 years.

Poor guy. His lying sack of shit hero is gone.
So FOX didn’t cover the inaugural celebration concert & spectacular fireworks show?


Assholes.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

liberty
Posts: 4406
Joined: Thu Jun 24, 2010 5:31 pm
Location: Colonial Possession

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by liberty »

Joe Guy wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:19 am
I have Hannity on TV right now and he's having a melt down. He just said, "I don't know if you feel like me but I wanna puke!" He's talking about how the democrats have lied and divided the country during Trump's presidency and he's promising to "continue to vet" Biden for the next 4 years.
What is wrong with that? And the left does lie. The liberal news media lies by omission. When Jamill Jones, who chased down and killed the drunk white man in New York, got no jail at all for the killing. If it had been a white that had killed a black man, it would have been non-stop news.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

liberty wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:38 am
When Jamill Jones, who chased down and killed the drunk white man in New York, got no jail at all for the killing. If it had been a white that had killed a black man, it would have been non-stop news.
That story was covered, included in very in depth pieces in major national press like this
One Striking Moment
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
Joe Guy
Posts: 13923
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 2:40 pm
Location: Redweird City, California

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by Joe Guy »

liberty wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:38 am
What is wrong with that? And the left does lie. The liberal news media lies by omission.....
It was sickening when Hannity said that the democratic party has "lied and divided this country" when that is exactly what Trump did throughout his entire term while Hannity helped spread the hatred. It's one of many reasons Trump is no longer president.

Too bad your leader is gone, liberty. I hope you are able to handle the pressure without blowing a major blood vessel.

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

Do you like palm trees and beaches and mosquitoes liberty? Maybe you should consider relocating to MAGAstan.

Image
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
Bicycle Bill
Posts: 9014
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Surrounded by Trumptards in Rockland, WI – a small rural village in La Crosse County

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by Bicycle Bill »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:24 am
Joe Guy wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:19 am
I have Hannity on TV right now and he's having a melt down. He just said, "I don't know if you feel like me but I wanna puke!" He's talking about how the democrats have lied and divided the country during Trump's presidency and he's promising to "continue to vet" Biden for the next 4 years.

Poor guy. His lying sack of shit hero is gone.
So FOX didn’t cover the inaugural celebration concert & spectacular fireworks show?
Assholes.
This might shed some light on what's going on at 'Fucks With the News':
Fox News on Tuesday fired the political editor who was tasked with defending the network’s election night decisions that especially angered President Donald Trump and his allies.

Politics editor Chris Stirewalt’s exit from the network coincided with the sacking of at least 16 digital editorial staffers, including senior editors.  People familiar with the situation said the layoffs — a “blood bath,” as multiple Fox News insiders described it — were perpetrated by Porter Berry, the Sean Hannity crony now in charge of remaking Fox’s digital properties in the image of its right-wing opinion programming.

In addition to Stirewalt — the Fox News “nerd” who became the face of the network’s election-night projection for Joe Biden to win Arizona, which angered much of the network’s MAGA viewership and led to the rise of an even more obsequious, pro-Trump alternative in Newsmax — sources confirmed that long-time digital editors and reporters, some of whom had been with Fox for a decade or more, were among those laid off.  (Additionally, on Monday morning, Fox News senior vice president and D.C. managing editor Bill Sammon, who is in his early 60s, announced he is “retiring at the end of the month.”)

“Fuck this,” one particularly despondent current Fox News staffer remarked to The Daily Beast.

Officially, the network claimed the layoffs are merely part of a “restructuring” initiative.  “As we conclude the 2020 election cycle, Fox News Digital has realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era,” a spokesperson said in a statement.  “We are confident these changes will ensure the platform continues to deliver breakthrough reporting and insightful analysis surrounding major issues, both stateside and abroad.”

But a dozen current and recently departed Fox News employees who spoke with The Daily Beast all said the “purge” — as a few characterized it — was part of the network’s larger effort to pivot its website from straight-news reporting to right-wing opinion content in the mold of Fox’s prime-time programming.

“There is a concerted effort to get rid of real journalists,” said one recently departed Fox staffer.  “They laid capable people off who were actual journalists and not blind followers.”

Others said it was an attempt to silence leakers from speaking to outside media about the changes being instituted by Porter Berry, a former producer for Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, who recently transitioned from the TV side to running Fox’s digital properties.

“Porter’s uncomfortable around and is suspicious of experienced editors,” one Fox News insider remarked to The Daily Beast.  “They make him feel inept because his background is entirely in TV.”

“Porter is at the helm,” one current employee declared of the layoffs, while a recently departed staffer said, “This is all Porter.  Both an ideological purge and a purge of people he was threatened by.”

“It’s essentially the final nail in the coffin for digital journalism at Fox,” another recently departed staffer declared.  Though, this former staffer noted, the shift to focusing on right-wing opinion has paid off for Berry.  “What has slightly been working for him are recaps of the network’s primetime opinion shows,” the source said, and so the desire is for more “cheap labor to write a dozen 250 word recaps of the network’s primetime shows.”
Basically, it's not about "news", as most journalists use the term, any more.  It's becoming just another mouthpiece for right-leaning propaganda.  I expect them to start showing re-runs of "The Apprentice" any day now — if they don't come right out and hire Trump as a "news analyst" :lol: — in hopes of kissing up and getting all nice and cozy with Donnie again.
Image
-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

I switched over to Tucker Carlson for a couple of minutes to see what he was going on about; he tuned into the inauguration celebration when Biden spoke but said they’d not been running it because it was an infomercial, not news.

But I know they covered Trump’s inauguration all night long, from ball to ball to ball. Fuckers. Tonight’s inauguration celebration was about the American people, not Joe. They should’ve aired it for their viewers.

The Shepard Smith video I posted this week is relevant. FOX doesn’t care about news.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
dales
Posts: 10922
Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2010 5:13 am
Location: SF Bay Area - NORTH California - USA

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by dales »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:40 am
Do you like palm trees and beaches and mosquitoes liberty? Maybe you should consider relocating to MAGAstan.

Image
Here ya go lib.........


Florida residents camped out outside gun stores as the Biden administration took office, fearing that the new president would lead a crackdown on firearms.

"I think we all believe Biden is going to take it away from us too," David Godkin, who was lined up outside of Academy Sports + Outdoors in Lake Mary, Florida, on Monday, told Fox 35 Orlando. Customers also mentioned having a hard time finding guns and ammo around the area.

The owners of Academy said people had been lining up as early as 2am outside the shop, which opens at 9am, to buy guns, echoing reports from Volusia Top Gun, another local gun shop with long lines in recent days.

"When Trump had mentioned a peaceful transfer of power, whatever exactly it was he said, seems like it’s been even more crazy than the crazy it was," own Ron Perkinson told Fox 35.

His sales have been up 100 per cent since the pandemic, and up another 100 per cent in the last two weeks.

On the campaign trail, Mr Biden vowed to “ban killer assault weapons” and push through other gun reforms including ending liability protections for gunmakers, registering currently owned assault weapons, buying back guns, and closing loopholes on background checks. None of his proposals involve involuntarily taking people’s guns.

During his time in Congress, Mr Biden was a prominent gun safety advocate, backing the bill which established federal background checks, as well as a 10-year assault weapons bans which has since expired.

Despite anecdotal reports, gun sales haven’t surged in recent weeks, according to an analysis from The Washington Post. Instead, sales began climbing in the spring during the early weeks of the pandemic, as an apocalyptic mood descended over the country and stores ran out of groceries.

They reached their peak in July, amid massive nationwide peaceful protests against police brutality that occasionally included rioting. Around 23 million guns were sold in 2020 altogether, a 64 per cent annual increase. Gun buyers have reported concerns ranging from the pandemic to white supremacy to the new administration as reasons for their purchases.

When he was in office, President Trump vowed some sort of gun reform, which never materialized.

"We don't want guns in the hands of the wrong people. I think that the Republicans are going to be great and lead the charge, along with the Democrats," Mr Trump said in August 2019.

Despite a lack of major federal reforms, the Trump era did see one big change in the gun world: the implosion of the National Rifle Association, once the nation’s most influential gun lobbying group, amid a cloud of lawsuits and accusations that top executives abused the non-profit’s funds.

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
rubato

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18297
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by BoSoxGal »

Firearms manufacturers always thrive when Democrats are in office. Ammosexual paranoia drives sales to skyrocket.


Idiots.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
Posts: 5418
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:16 am
Location: Louisville KY as of July 2018

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Of course Trump won't be living at Mar-a-Lago for more than seven days. And he has to have that heli-pad removed. Unless he puts Rudy on the case - he'll get it sorted. He may have a problem with Rudy though if Melanie is around because we all know how Rudy likes to 'tuck in his shirt' when Eastern European women are nearby.

User avatar
eddieq
Posts: 461
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 1:08 am

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by eddieq »

I just went and looked. My gun is still there. So is my ammo. Which is weird because Obama was supposed to take them all away when he was in office.

Big RR
Posts: 14050
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:47 pm

Re: QAnon are devastated

Post by Big RR »

My guess is that he cannot use Rudy; Florida has a very closed bar and nonmembers of the Florida bar have no standing in Florida courts (nor can one easily be admitted for a single case). I once had a client I was advising in Florida, and I received a letter from the bar accusing me of the unauthorized practice of law and threatening consequences (I wasn't, as the issues did not involve Florida law, but it wasn't worth fighting as it was more of me doing a friend of my parents a favor). As I have never heard of Rudy being a member of the Florida bar, and as his recent antics have shown that he would be incapable of passing a bar examination, he would not be able to represent, or even advise, Trump on this matter.

But not to worry, given the population, I'm sure Florida has more than its share of asshole lawyers who could represent Trump.

Post Reply