QAnon Influence in the US Republican Party

US media report­ed last month on the influ­ence of QAnon on the Repub­li­can Par­ty in the US. Accord­ing to the report:

Decem­ber 16, 2020 Rather than being a neb­u­lous group that ampli­fies mes­sages organ­i­cal­ly at the grass­roots lev­el, QAnon appears to also be an occa­sion­al archi­tect of mes­sages that, through coor­di­nat­ed behav­ior, make their way to the most pow­er­ful fac­tions of the Repub­li­can Par­ty. “QAnon is a dis­in­for­ma­tion net­work (that) has grown like a virus to attack the pil­lars of our democ­ra­cy — sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly with spe­cif­ic forms of dis­in­for­ma­tion that are strate­gic,” said Joel Finkel­stein, cofounder of the NCRI, which has pro­duced a new­ly released report — which it pro­vid­ed to CNN — about QAnon that includes the find­ing about the #Sub­poe­naOba­ma hash­tag. “Work­ing with the high­est lev­els of pow­er in our coun­try, they’ve found ways to hijack our nation­al con­ver­sa­tion,” Finkel­stein added. The influ­ence of QAnon swelled this year despite the ludi­crous — some would say cult-like — con­tention at its core: that Trump is fight­ing a cabal of Satan-wor­ship­ing elites that engages in pedophil­ia and child sac­ri­fice. So sub­stan­tial is QAnon’s fol­low­ing that many Repub­li­can elect­ed offi­cials have been loath to con­demn it. The most vocal Repub­li­can crit­ic of the group, Rep. Den­ver Rig­gle­man of Vir­ginia — who is an advis­er to the NCRI — is serv­ing the final days of his term. This week, as one of his last acts, he plans to deliv­er a rebuke of the move­ment on the floor of the House.

Read the rest here.

The BBC has described QAnon as follows:

At its heart, QAnon is a wide-rang­ing, unfound­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that says that Pres­i­dent Trump is wag­ing a secret war against elite Satan-wor­ship­ping pae­dophiles in gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and the media. QAnon believ­ers have spec­u­lat­ed that this fight will lead to a day of reck­on­ing where promi­nent peo­ple such as for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clin­ton will be arrest­ed and executed.media cap­tion­Trump on QAnon: ‘They do like me’ That’s the basic sto­ry, but there are so many off­shoots, detours and inter­nal debates that the total list of QAnon claims is enor­mous — and often con­tra­dic­to­ry. Adher­ents draw in news events, his­tor­i­cal facts and numerol­o­gy to devel­op their own far-fetched conclusions.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed in Octo­ber that Russia’s Inter­net Research Agency troll farm was attempt­ing to use social media accounts to boost the role of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries pro­mot­ed by QAnon.

We also report­ed in Octo­ber that YouTube had joined Face­book and oth­er social media com­pa­nies in tak­ing action against QAnon.