Nestled in the heart of Southlake, Texas, is a 130-acre town square filled with more than a hundred lifestyle shops and dozens of fine dining restaurants. The shopping district—one of the finest in the Dallas-Fort Worth area—is home to quaint boutiques, fine jewelry stores, and even a selection of parks and green spaces equipped with water fountains. And on Friday, Nov. 6, the family-friendly space was overrun with demonstrators protesting against any declaration of President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The protest, organized on social media by a pair of young women who call themselves the Patriot Sisters, attracted a reported 75 people, many of whom brandished “Thin Blue Line” American flags and signs emblazoned with the words “TRUMP 2020.” One woman strummed a guitar and sang religious songs, while other protesters prayed and declared that “voter fraud should be stopped in the name of Jesus.”
The group also attracted supporters of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, including one man carrying a cellphone on a selfie stick, which he used to record the protest while chanting religious declarations interspersed with statements about child-trafficking and pedophilia—dog whistles used by QAnon adherents.
“We will not lose this nation and allow human trafficking to continue,” the man carrying a selfie stick said in a video titled “Prayer Rally for TRUMP! #Trump2020 #PrayForTrump #TheGreatAwakening.”
“We will not lose this nation and allow pedophilia to continue…we declare that no darkness will triumph in these last days. Praise you, Jesus,” he said. (The Great Awakening is a term associated with QAnon, as well as with religious-right activists who believe God is using Trump to bring spiritual revival to the U.S.)
The Patriot Sisters run popular Instagram and TikTok accounts, which they have used to promote the anti-mask movement, anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric, and pro-Trump propaganda and misinformation. They have even made a post using the #SaveOurChildren hashtag, which was hijacked by QAnon followers to push falsehoods about the purported exploitation of children by liberal elites.
While they may not necessarily be ardent supporters of QAnon, the Patriot Sisters’ attraction of some of the conspiracy theory’s impassioned followers not only emphasizes the recently formed overlap between evangelical Christians and QAnon, but also highlights the current state of despair festering within the movement – a despair centered around a single question:
What now?
A Crisis of Faith
Election night was supposed to signal a key moment in Q’s long-touted reckoning.
The anonymous prophet fueling the QAnon movement spent years flooding the internet with unfounded conspiracies, proclamations about the so-called deep state’s cabalistic control of the United States, and Trump’s role as the anointed savior fighting off the forces of evil. The posts began on the infamous discussion board 4chan in Oct. 2017, where an anonymous poster claimed to have “Q clearance” granting him access to classified information at the Department of Energy, including nuclear secrets. Q quickly amassed a large following through his posts (known as “Q drops”), and the movement grew among right-wing circles.
QAnon eventually morphed into a virtual cult where supporters claim that a cabal of elite pedophiles made up of Hollywood actors, Democrats, and other high-ranking officials is behind a global child sex-trafficking ring. The unfounded conspiracy theory also alleges that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as “The Storm,” during which thousands of these deep state actors will be arrested. Many believed that the supposed reckoning and the eventual defeat of the deep state would begin with Trump’s victory in the 2020 election.
Joe Biden’s victory served as a body-blow to the movement’s ardent followers.
Q’s final drop before the election was on the morning of Nov. 3, and featured an Abraham Lincoln quote from 1863, in which the former president declared “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” The drop also bore the image of an American flag and a YouTube link to the theme song of the 1992 film “The Last of the Mohicans.” The YouTube link was viewed more than 35 million times and features more than 28,000 comments, mainly from loyal followers of the QAnon movement.
“This is the Q message board today,” read one comment. “A genius way to get past the sensors. Seeing all the recent comments makes me proud win or lose. WWG1WGA.” (The code denotes QAnon’s best-known slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”)
While Q’s followers gathered in earnest to witness a reckoning that never came, Q himself was mysteriously silent. Even the operators of the website Q Alerts, which keeps track of the Q drops, attempted to reassure followers regarding their prophet’s suspicious absence. “Q has been dark for 9 days. At times Q strategically goes dark for days, weeks or in some cases months. Be sure you have some type of Q Alerts in place so you are notified when Q drops again. If your browser shows a red bell icon at the bottom/right, that is a great place to start.”
Q’s disappearance (which lasted for nine days until the anonymous figure resurfaced again on Nov. 12) coupled with Trump’s defeat in the presidential elections, led to a range of responses from his followers. Some stood their ground and doubled down on the conspiracies, while others began to question whether they themselves had been fooled. Followers (known as Anons) flooded forums, Telegram chats, and Q-friendly spaces to discuss the events, share their despair, and seek comfort from others.
“We Have (sic) been told time & again Trump wins in the end!! Don’t give up so easily, if you believe don’t give up,” one poster told a QAnon group of several hundred members on Telegram. Another responded that “giving up is NOT an option for me!!”
This is not the first time that QAnon believers have faced disappointment. One of the initial claims of the conspiracy theory was that Hillary Clinton would be arrested and imprisoned in 2017. When that did not happen, QAnon followers recalibrated and decided that Clinton had been placed under house arrest and was wearing an ankle bracelet. Even her appearances in public only emboldened them to raise the stakes and claim that the deep state had replaced her with a clone.
Then in 2018, Q claimed that Republicans would dominate the midterm elections and reclaim the U.S. House of Representatives. This, of course, did not come to pass, and while this likely impacted some of Q’s followers, the movement only continued to grow over the next couple of years.
Q’s nine days of silence during a critical time in the supposed reckoning left a power vacuum within the cesspool of conspiracies on 8kun, the message board formerly known as 8chan that has been linked to white supremacy, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, various other hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings. Following three mass shootings in 2019 (Christchurch, New Zealand, in March; Poway, California, in April; El Paso, Texas, in August) where each of the assailants used 8chan as a platform to post their manifestos, 8chan went offline in August 2019 and rebranded in Nov. 2019 as 8kun.
While 8kun quickly became a home for Q’s posts, the site saw a surprising shift on Election Day. Shortly following Q’s Nov. 3 drop, Ron Watkins—son of 8kun owner Jim Watkins—revealed that he was “resigning as the admin of 8kun effective immediately.” According to the Washington Post, Watkins resigned to focus on his “health and marriage” and that he had “no thoughts or insight” into why Q had not posted in over a week.
Given that Watkins was one of a handful of people who could verify Q’s drops, several fake Q posts appeared over the following days which caused mass confusion among Anons before being discredited. Others spammed the forums with biblical passages comparing Moses’ miraculous parting of the Red Sea to QAnon’s ongoing fight against the deep state. The posts served the purpose of preying on vulnerable believers who were seeking answers for Q’s temporary disappearance.
For some Anons, their determined and whole-hearted support for the baseless conspiracy theory cost them their marriages and destroyed their families. Those who have gambled on Q being a harbinger of light against the forces of evil cannot afford to turn back now, lest they realize they had sacrificed their loved ones to follow an anonymous internet troll. Faced with little alternative, many have doubled down on their beliefs and converged onto their last resort: unfounded conspiracy theories alleging widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“There is a plan. It is a good plan”
Major Patriot—a popular twitter account belonging to a QAnon supporter—was among the first to tweet out words of encouragement to his 168,000+ following, claiming that everything was going according to plan for the Trump administration despite the election results:
I want to encourage any of you who may be alarmed about what is happening in our nation…Have Faith in God, our President and THE PLAN. Rejoice now in VICTORY. Do not worry. Do not be afraid. THERE IS A PLAN. IT IS A GOOD PLAN. IT IS BEING EXECUTED — and it will not fail.
Many Anons followed suit, including some of the most prominent QAnon-related accounts on social media. They began to share disinformation surrounding the 2020 presidential election. Some pushed doctored videos and fake stories about ballot stuffing, while others propagated hashtags such as Stop the Steal, as well as the alleged ballot “watermarks” conspiracy theory.
Everything happens for a reason and It’s far from over. @realDonaldTrump is still the current sitting President of the United States of America. That alone with Election Fraud in plain sight (America is Watching) in lock-step with MSM, I can guarantee you Justice will prevail. pic.twitter.com/z2qKiUu1fA
— QAnon Report ⭐⭐⭐ ?? (@QAnon_Report) November 8, 2020
The QAnon accounts pushing Trump’s disinformation campaign were not limited to the United States. Amazing Polly, arguably the most outspoken QAnon supporter in Canada, has been actively pushing the election fraud narrative on Twitter. Polly, who appears to live in Ontario, is also a vehement anti-vaxxer and believes that COVID-19 was a planned event that helped enable a globalist coup—a claim she admits she inherited from far-right conspiracy-monger Alex Jones.
There was also a significant amount of Q-related activity from European followers of the movement, primarily in Germany, Italy, and France, as well as the United Kingdom. It has primarily been embraced by conservatives and the far-right, many of whom view Trump as a potential savior from leaders such as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
As Anons continued to amplify unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, some viewed the election aftermath as a renewed call to action. Philadelphia police arrested two armed men on Thursday Nov. 5, who were targeting the Convention Center where vote-counting was taking place. The two men were found in a Hummer with a decal on the rear window bearing the QAnon slogan WWG1WGA.
The arrest is a stark reminder that the FBI has labeled QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat. QAnon supporters have been charged with terrorism for driving an armored truck to the Hoover Dam and blocking traffic for several hours, faced murder charges for the March 2019 slaying of Gambino crime family underboss Frank Cali, and kidnapping charges after a QAnon supporter attempted to kidnap one of her children who have been removed from her custody.
The potential for violence has not stopped influential Q-adjacent accounts from pushing the election fraud conspiracies on social media. Midnight Rider, another prominent QAnon account with more than half-million followers, has been actively amplifying messages from Trump, Rudy Giuliani, as well as Michael Flynn, who served as national security advisor for the first three weeks of Trump’s presidency before resigning.
Emboldened by Trump’s defiance and his administration’s refusal to concede the election, the account tweeted on Nov. 11, “Losing never felt so good!”
What’s Next?
While the QAnon movement has been fueled by despair and denialism in the aftermath of the election, the movement is not without its small victories.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was declared the winner in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, becoming the first QAnon supporter to win a U.S. House seat. She was followed shortly thereafter by mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz, a fellow QAnon supporter who was elected to Huntington Beach City Council. (Author note: Right Wing Watch covered Ortiz’s campaign, including his support for the QAnon movement, here.)
“Q is a patriot, we know that for sure,” Greene said in a 2017 video, which has since been deleted. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the President to do it.”
The congresswoman-elect has spent the last week propagating voter fraud claims and falsely asserting that Trump won the election. She even designed a petition titled “Stop the Biden Steal,” which she hosted on her campaign website. Now the most visible and influential QAnon supporter in American politics, Greene has targeted everyone from President-Elect Biden to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while also asserting that her husband’s experience at the ballot box reflects an ongoing “absentee ballot scam.”
Joe Biden isn’t President-elect. That’s a media falsehood.
We CAN NOT allow CCP Joe to have National Security Briefings with these SERIOUS allegations.
The Presidency is not for sale to the Communist Chinese!#BidenCrimeFamily https://t.co/e8n6oRndou
— Marjorie Taylor Greene ?? (@mtgreenee) November 12, 2020
These prominent accounts are merely a handful of the accounts linked to QAnon that have been flooding hashtags and posts on social media. According to the non-profit research group Advance Democracy, QAnon-related accounts were responsible for approximately 10 percent of the tweets amplifying hashtags such as #StopTheSteal.
QAnon followers have also been spotted at several pro-Trump Stop the Steal rallies, and have joined forces with other far-right groups in promoting the upcoming Million MAGA March in Washington, D.C., on Saturday (aka the March for Trump, Stop the Steal DC). Q followers will be joined by other MAGA loyalists, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and white nationalist “groypers,” as well as professional conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones.
By Nov. 12, Anon’s rejoiced at their fabled leader’s return to 8kun. At 9:32 p.m. Eastern Time, Q posted an American flag along with a short message aimed at rallying his digital troops. “Nothing can stop what is coming. Nothing!” Q wrote.
Q followed up with a pair of cryptic posts, which amounted to a series of open-ended questions followed by a link to the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators. While Q’s posts may distract his followers, many of whom are simply relieved that their leader has returned, it remains unclear whether the QAnon fantasy will able to sustain itself over the coming months as the disappointments continue to pile on.
